XBMC and DVD Ripping

[Huffmeister]

I've started playing around with XBMC and it's really freaking cool. So cool that I want to rip my DVD collection and store them on my NAS so that I can stream them to XBMC.

I've been trying various ripping methods/software and haven't come up with anything that works yet. Here's what I've tried:

MakeMKV - This works great to create an .mkv file that I'm able to view from my PC. However, it appears to be a bit larger than what Handbrake creates. Also, I'm running XBMC on a Raspberry Pi which doesn't have the license to decode MPEG-2, so it tries to play it as an audio file. It's only $2.50 to get the license, so I can definitely go that route. But due to the larger size, I wanted to try other options first.

Handbrake - I'm able to create .mv4 files, which can be played on XBMC. But it looks like they may be encrypted. They play with a mostly green screen with garbled blocks of pixels, and occasionally a flash of the movie. I tried using DVD43 along with Handbrake, but apparently it doesn't work in Windows 7 64-bit.

DVDFab, AnyDVD, etc - I haven't tried any of the pay rippers. Are any of them worth it? Are there any that are all-in-one packages (decrypting and ripping)? I have about 100 DVDs that I'd like to rip, so I don't mind shelling out a few bucks for a good program that will make the process easier.

And any other tips or pointers that anyone has for XBMC would be much appreciated as well. Thanks in advance!

[AustinChief]

Originally Posted by Huffmeister

I've started playing around with XBMC and it's really freaking cool. So cool that I want to rip my DVD collection and store them on my NAS so that I can stream them to XBMC.

I've been trying various ripping methods/software and haven't come up with anything that works yet. Here's what I've tried:

MakeMKV - This works great to create an .mkv file that I'm able to view from my PC. However, it appears to be a bit larger than what Handbrake creates. Also, I'm running XBMC on a Raspberry Pi which doesn't have the license to decode MPEG-2, so it tries to play it as an audio file. It's only $2.50 to get the license, so I can definitely go that route. But due to the larger size, I wanted to try other options first.

Handbrake - I'm able to create .mv4 files, which can be played on XBMC. But it looks like they may be encrypted. They play with a mostly green screen with garbled blocks of pixels, and occasionally a flash of the movie. I tried using DVD43 along with Handbrake, but apparently it doesn't work in Windows 7 64-bit.

DVDFab, AnyDVD, etc - I haven't tried any of the pay rippers. Are any of them worth it? Are there any that are all-in-one packages (decrypting and ripping)? I have about 100 DVDs that I'd like to rip, so I don't mind shelling out a few bucks for a good program that will make the process easier.

And any other tips or pointers that anyone has for XBMC would be much appreciated as well. Thanks in advance!

Have you tried encoding into VP8 or VP9 instead of h.264. Should get around the license issue and if you do VP9 it cuts your b/w usage in half with no sacrifice of quality.

[nstygma]

both freeware:
you can use dvd decrypter to rip the dvds
then use something like xvid4psp to encode to mp4 or whatever. plus, it will let you queue several and process them overnight

http://www.videohelp.com/tools/DVD-Decrypter
http://www.videohelp.com/tools/XviD4PSP