Maximum PC - March 2009

DIGITAL MEDIA

part 1

RIPPING YOUR DVDS

With the right

software, hardware,

and understanding

of the issues, you

can free video from a

movie disc to be used

any way you choose

WHAT YOU NEED

■ Modern PC w/DVD-ROM drive

■ AnyDVD ($53, www.Slysoft.com) or

■ DVD43 (free, www.dvd43.com)

■ Handbrake (free, http://handbrake.fr/)

COMPATIBILITY ISSUES

Several different factors determine the compatibility of your ripped video files. The resolution of the video, the video and audio codecs, the container format used, and even more esoteric things like frame rate can affect whether your video will work on your device of choice. If you just rip discs as you need the content and then delete files afterward, simply rip to the target of choice. However, if you want to build an archive of ripped movies, we recommend that you use open, widely supported codecs and containers at the native resolution of the DVD and then transcode the files to lower resolutions and bitrates as you need them. Naturally, we’ll show you how to do this.

Your player selection also impacts your choices when it comes to audio tracks and subtitle support. While the most common container formats, MP4 and MKV, support multiple track and subtitle streams in one file, few players will work with multiple audio tracks, and an even smaller subset will work with subtitles. That means you need to rip a single audio track—typically the main movie’s

English soundtrack—and burn the subtitles into the video, rather than leave them as separate streams inside the container.

We recommend ripping to the MP4 container; it’s widely supported on both streaming devices and portables. Furthermore, the tools for manipulating the streams within the file are established and easy to use, which makes it easy to transcode your video to a less-supported format for a specific player.

A WORD ABOUT SUBTITLES

Typically, DVDs include multiple subtitle streams that serve different purposes. Nearly every DVD has some English subtitles, even non-foreign-language movies. Most also include closed captions, which are distinct from straight subtitles. Subtitles are simply the dialogue from the movie written across the bottom of the screen. Closed captions include subtitles, but they also include audio cues that help people with impaired hearing enjoy the movie fully.