Lately, I wanted to convert retail DVDs of a famous TV show to another video format that would be easy to use, and wherein I could store several audio tracks, along with some subtitles.So, I thought about a video encoded in H.264 (or AVC) with the audio in AAC format, and keeping the subtitles in their original graphic format (combination of .idx and .sub files), because OCR’ing them is rather boring and painful. Finally, I also wanted to convert the DVD using exclusively free tools.
The DVD’s have a DVD-9 size. The idea is to keep some quality and store possibly 6 episodes per DVD-5, which gives about 746 MB per episode. This isn’t that big, but actually not that difficult to reach.
To begin, we’ll install the necessary tools. First, you should remove every single codec, or codec package you have installed. Reboot your machine, and install CCCP-Project. This is also a codec package, but instead of installing thousands of different codecs, everything is based on ffdshow. With this package, you should be able to read about 99% of all video and audio files, including AC3, DTS, or H.264.
Secondly, install AviSynth, with defaults settings. AviSynth is a frameserver tool, which also allows you to apply filters on your A/V source.
Then install DVD Decrypter or DVDFab HD Decrypter. Either one of those tools will be used to rip the DVD. Whenever it’s possible, I’m still using DVD Decrypter, because it can directly create chapter files and text logs.
To handle the subtitles, you should also install the VobSub 2.23 DLL. I know there is now a more recent version, which is VSFilter, but the lately is used for playback. In the current conversion, we’ll use VobSub to rip the subtitles from the DVD. Don’t try to install the whole VobSub software, it will mess up with the CCCP-Project filters. However, if you don’t have any other choice than to install the whole package, you should re-register the filters from the CCCP-Project settings. Place the DLL in you %windir%\system32 folder.
Next, install megui. The only requirement is that Microsoft .NET 2.0 framework must be installed. When the tool is installed, you should launch it and if the auto-update isn’t executed, select Options|Update in the menu bar. If necessary, click on the “Update” button. If you get the option to install profiles, select them all and let megui take care of them.
In order to encode in the AAC audio format, you should install the Nero AAC Codec. You will actually get a zip file containing 3 exe files. Place the 3 files in a new folder “C:\Program Files\megui\tools\NeroAAC”. Next, go back in megui and select Options|Settings. Select the “Program Paths” tab, and then the “Audio” sub-tab. For the neroAacEnc entry, select “C:\Program Files\megui\tools\NeroAAC\neroAacEnc.exe”.
Finally, it’s always a good idea to install MediaInfo to get the details about the movie files you will use or create.