DvD to lossless MP4...

[DVNoob]

Hi All,

I am so so noobish to DV and I am trying to learn but there seems to be a ton to know. lol

I am would like to convert my DvD's to lossless version of a MP4 file. Is this even possible? If it is can someone point me in the right direction pls? Is there an application that can handle the encryption and lossless conversion all in one?

Thanks so much!

PS I appologise if this is the wrong area to post this question in, like I said, "Super Noob" here.

[admin]

DVD/MPEG-2 is already a lossy format, so by "lossy", do you mean taking the MPEG-2 video stream and put that into the MP4 container, without conversion or re-encoding? It would be possible to have MPEG-2 video within MP4, but it's not very common. Most just settle for a high quality version of the DVD as a MP4 or MKV, and while it's not as good as the original, you'd have to be pretty picky to tell the difference of a properly encoded movie, even on a big screen.

(the other definition of "lossless" is to encode a new video stream using a lossless codec, or with a high quality setting, but this would only really make a lot of sense if your source was lossless to begin with, as the output would be larger in size than the original DVD)

And how you plan to use the MP4 (eg. which players, hardware or software, do you plan to play the file on) will determine what you can and cannot do.

Also, we cannot discuss DVD decryption on this forum (see rule 19), and most conversion tools these days don't include DVD decryption due to legal reasons, and also the fact that DVD decryption requires constant update, so it's better to leave to third party tools.

[DVNoob]

Hi,

Thank you for your reply! My goal is to watch the movies on an Apple TV gen 2. Could you give some advice on converting my VIDEO_TS and AUDIO_TS and converting them to a high quality version of the DVD as a MP4?

Cheers

[admin]

VidCoder is what you need, and it's specifically designed to convert DVDs to MP4 for Apple TV 2 (and other Apple devices, or your own custom settings), here's the tutorial I wrote for the software:

http://www.digital-digest.com/articles/VidCoder_Tutorial_page1.html

If you're concerned about quality, then follow the additional instructions below (if it sounds confusing now, it will make sense when you read the guide):

Selecting the Apple TV 2 profile, and then click on the "Settings" button, and then in the new window that opens, go to the "Video" tab and lower the "Constant Quality" setting from the default 20 to say 18 or 19 (the lower this setting, the better the quality). You can go as low as 16, but it's not worth going any lower. Then at the top of the window, select "Save As" to save a new profile (name it something like "Apple TV 2 (HQ)"). You can then use this custom profile in the future to convert all your DVDs to high quality (higher than the default "Apple TV 2" profile).

[DVNoob]

THANK YOU so much. I will give it a whirl. I find that many forums are hard on people who are new to certain things and this was an awesome experience.

Thanks again.

[admin]

Glad to be of help. If you encounter any problems with VidCoder or the tutorial, feel free to reply to this thread.

[DVNoob]

I have done the tutorial and things arer working out better. Tks!

I was wondering if your know of a good MP4 Tag and Cover Art Editor? Or maybe a few I can look at?

Thanks again!

[admin]

I use the freeware Mp3tag to add in cover art and tags to my MP4 files.