Having finally beaten my music collection into order, got MyCloud and Twonky stable, and now found a way to pull recordings off my Humax 9300, it’s time to start ripping my DVD collection and transcoding video files.
So, suggestions please for:
i) free DVD ripper software;
ii) best video file format to use (bearing in mind I’m going to be using the MyCloud Twonky DLNA media server, and Android viewer apps);
iii) free video format converter, to accept ripped DVDs and MPEG-2 Transport Stream (.ts files) from the Humax.
Thanks.
ps. I know this isn’t strictly a MyCloud question, but I know there are a lot of users here who have large video collections on their MyClouds, and probably have experience of this sort of thing.
I know some board members have used MKVMerge for BDD but I am not aware if it works with DVD’s. A few years ago I saw some posts recommending DVDFab exactly for the process you are describing in the legacy (Original) WD TV HD Media Player. However, that application is not free.
Thanks. I’m looking at VLC at the moment, which looks promising.
It also seems that XBMC/Kodi will play .ts files, and Twonky indexes them. So I may not need conversion fr the Humax files. Although, whilst they play fine on my Hudl tablet, they are horizontally squished on the Android media box, which is basically a headless Hudl. Hmmmm…
i) free DVD ripper software;
ii) best video file format to use (bearing in mind I’m going to be using the MyCloud Twonky DLNA media server, and Android viewer apps);
iii) free video format converter, to accept ripped DVDs and MPEG-2 Transport Stream (.ts files) from the Humax.
There are a variety of free programs to accomplish what you seek. For many years I’ve been using a combination of the free DVDFab HD Decrypter program along the free Handbrake program to rip comercial DVD’s to my hard drive and then convert over to MP4 for playback via a media server on my local network. There are paid programs, including DVDFab, that will do the rip and conversion in one step rather than the way I do it, in two steps.
Handbrake will also convert to MP4 or MKV pretty much any video file you can play on your PC. I used it to convert .TS files recorded from a Silicondust HDHomeRun tuner. Handbrake has several preconfigured conversion templates for certain tablets/smartphones/OS and one can create their own to suit their needs.
While Handbrake can convert a DVD straight to MP4/MKV it can only do so on DVD"s that are unencrypted (ie not comercial movies).
While the DVDFab program is a paid protram, and has a trial period on many of its features, the DVDFab HD Decrypter portion is free and does not require you to purchase the full DVDFab program to use.
