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NOTE: I started this project, but may not fully complete the instructions because I have found a much better work-around that I have posted here.

Background:

I have a Windows Home Server (HP EX475) in my home and I want to back up my DVD library for playing on other PC’s and Media Extenders (an Xbox 360) in the home over a combined wired and wireless LAN. I am currently using Windows Media Center on these PC’s and on an Xbox. I have My Movies set up to distribute full .ISO copies of my DVD’s. However, I also need to serve media to an Xbox 360, which will not accept streaming directly from an .ISO copy and has specific media requirements for playback.

 

Introduction:

The following is meant to be a very comprehensive and geeky “step by step” guide on how I have been able to back up a small DVD collection for storage (and streaming to my Xbox 360). The Windows Media file format is used for compatability purposes and I have tried to emphasize quality of the end product over size (these are stored on a large server) because I want these movies to be nearly indistinguishable from the original MPEG-2 source. I am sure that there are methods to do this conversion that require less steps, but I have tried to incorporate various steps that I have found to make the best quality end product possible. Plus, this is an exercise in pure geekage. 

Disclaimers:

As all these sorts of guides usually do, I will tell you not to pirate anything. The example you see below is of me backing up of a DVD that I own under what is commonly considered to be “Fair Use” (although I am sure there are industry lawyers who would like to change and restrict the definition of this)

I am by no means responsible for you screwing up your data (which you are likely to do at least once

The following assumes NTSC format; I am not knowledgeable enough to know if there needs to be any specific changes for PAL stuff.

The following only works in Windows. Steve Jobs is the devil and would never allow his minions to do anything this sophisticated without his full approval.

 

Required Software/Hardware:

(it’s a lot… but much of these are multi-purpose tools and downloading each individually ensures that you have the most up to date version)

1. I have performed the following steps on Windows Vista SP1. I am sure this will work under Windows XP, but I offer no specific guidelines on this as I have not used XP for a very long time now (am I the only lucky one who has had no problems with Vista??)
2. Some method to decode your DVD to a folder format. I will show how to do this with DVD Decrypter [Last version created was 3.5.4] but ImgBurn works identically as it is based on DVD Decrypter, it just does not have any decrypting capability (so will not work on most DVD’s). DVD Fab HD Decrypter will do the same thing, just in a different interface – try the Free version first. Alternatively you can decode to ISO with DVD Shrink and then use DVD Decrypter or ImgBurn in order to get around some minor encryption issues. If you are having problems with CRC (a form of encryption), I hear that AnyDVD works well, but it costs money and I have not yet checked it out.
3. You will need specific codecs for the various media files you will work with (ie for MPEG-2 and AC3). I am no expert on this; I install the K-Lite Codec Pack (Version here is 4.2.5 Full) play everything through Windows Media Player 11 [Version here is 11.0.6001.7000] and have never had a problem playing any media file I’ve ever come across (except for the proprietary Real and Apple formats).
4. Windows Media Encoder [Version here is 9.00.00.3352]
5. AviSynth [Version here is 2.5.8 RC4a]
6. DVD2WMV Assistant (formerly known as “AviSynth Script Generator”) [Version here is 1.4.1.1 beta]
7. DGMPGDec (includes DGIndex and DGDecode) [Version here is 1.5.3]
8. BeSweet [Version here is 1.5b31]
9. VirtualDub [Version here is 1.8.6]
10. MPEG-2 Plugin for VirtualDub [Version here is 3.0]
11. Windows Media 9 Bitrate Calculator [Version here is 2.2.4.5]
12. Movie Resolution Calculator

Specific Set-Up Issues:

1. The following applications are not “installed”, just unpackage them (ie unzip them) into separate folders and then run the individual executables:
   1. DVD2WWV Assistant
   2. DGMPGDec
   3. VirtualDub
2. Unpackage the contents of your BeeSweet download into the folder that contains DVD2WMV Assistant
3. Do a search on your computer for “DGDecode.dll” and delete all versions except for the version that comes with DGMPGDec, then copy that file to the /plugins folder of your installation of AviSynth.
4. Follow the instructions in the ReadMe for installation of the MPEG-2 Plugin for VirtualDub.
5. In Windows Media Encoder, check out Tools > Options > Performance. There is a check for deselecting “use defaults”. Feel free to experiment and change the “When encoding to a file” slider farther to the left(toward better performance) in order to reduce your encoding time. At the time of this writing, I have this set in the middle.

 

Ripping a DVD to a VOB file with DVD Decrypter

Follow the instructions that I have detailed in this other post.

FYI: if you change your VOB file so that the extension is .mpg, then you can play this in Windows Media Player, but VirtualDub will work much quicker and easier for this checking step.

 

Extracting the AC3 Audio File and a D2V Configuration File

1. Open DGIndex and then select File > Open

 …………..[work on these steps]……………….

You will likely get more than one .AC3 file. These will be named in a descriptive manner as “file name” + “track number” + “channels” + “sample rate” + “delay” + .ac3

• The file name is the name that you assigned
• There is a code that I have not yet figured out, but I think it is the track number…
• Channels are interpreted as 3_2 = multichannel (5.1) and 2_0 = stereo
• Sample rate is in kbps
• The delay is how many ms the audio track needs offset from the video track to maintain synchronization; but you don’t need to worry about this because DGMPGDec and AviSynth will take care of this for you later.

Play each file in your media player of choice and note which one is in the language you want. Also, use MediaInfo

 

Creating an AviSynth Script and Part 1 of Converting your AC3 Audio File:

1. Open DVD2WMV Assistant and choose the “AviSynth Script Generator” tab

• Step 1: Browse to your copy of DGDecode.dll (this should be in the /plugins folder of your AviSynth install as specifically directed above)

• Step 2: Browse to your .d2v file that was created above.

• Step 3: Assign any cropping values that you have taken down from above.

• Step 4: Ignore this step because I don’t like how it works and we will edit this out in notepad later.

• Step 5: I am no expert yet on the settings on this tab. But, if you have a Pentium 4 (or higher) CPU, then you can select “Force SSE2″. The other settings have to do with interlacing which I need to read up on.
• Click Save on the Step 5 tab

• Open your .avs file in notepad (or similar text editor) and delete the line that says something like “Lanczos4Resize(yyy,xxx)” and save it.

2. Choose the “AC3 to WAV Converter” tab

This is only necessary if you want to use the multichannel (5.1) audio track – otherwise, keep reading.

• Step 1: Browse to your AC3 File which contains the audio stream you want to use.

• Step 2: Browse to the location where you have BeeSweet.exe, Choose “6 Channels” and “Auto Close”, and then click “Convert”

• Wait about 5 – 10 minutes and then you will have 6 .WAV files; one for each channel

These files are labeled accordingly:

• FL = Front Left
• FR = Front Right
• C = (Front) Center
• SL = Back (Side) Left
• SR = Back (Side) Right
• LFE = Low Frequency (Effect)

 

Part 1 of Converting Your Multi-Channel AC3 Audio File to a Multi-Channel WMA File:

This assumes you are using the multichannel (5.1) audio track – otherwise, skip to instructions on “Converting Your AC3 Audio File to Lossless WMA”.

1. Open Windows Media Encoder and choose “Custom Session” from the New Session Wizard

2. Go to the “Sources” tab and complete the following settings:

• Select: Source from “Devices”
• Deselect “Video”
• Select “Audio”
• From the Audio drop-down box, Select “Multichannel WAV Source”. You may get a warning box instructing you to use a WMA Professional codec; select OK, we’ll take care of that later.
• Click the “Configure” button for Audio to open a dialog box for entering your multi-channel streams. Browse to your WAV streams that were created earlier. Click OK to close the dialog box.

3. Go to the “Output” tab and complete the following settings:

• Deselect “Pull from encoder”
• Select “Encode to file” and then browse to assign a location and file name where you want your file to be saved.

4. Go to the “Compression” tab and complete the following settings:

• Choose “Edit” to open the Custom Encoding Settings box
• From the General tab:
  • make sure “Audio” is selected and “Video” and “Script” are deselected.
  • In the drop down box for Mode, select “Bit Rate VBR”
  • In the drop down box for Codec, select “Windows Media Audio 10 Professional” (NOTE: I think there is a WMA 9 Pro codec; and I think this will work just fine; this is just what’s on my install of WME)
• From the ‘other’ tab (It will say something like “xxx kbps”)
  • In the Audio format drop down box, select “192 kbps, 48 kHz, 5.1 channel, 24 bit VBR”
  • Click “OK”

5. In the “Attributes” tab, feel free to enter anything you want, but this is not at all necessary.

6. I suggest saving your profile at this point so that you can re-use these settings for future project. Do this by going to File -> Save As…

7. Now, select “Start Encoding” or “Ctrl + Shift + E” and wait… (takes about 1/3 the full length of the audio source on my notebook)

 

Converting Your AC3 Audio File to Lossless WMA:

These steps are only necessary if you did not convert to a multichannel format (ie you are using a stereo audio file)

 …………..[work on these steps]………………. 

 

Putting it all Together: Creating your final WMV file:

1. Open Windows Media Encoder and choose “Custom Session” from the New Session Wizard

 2. Go to the “Sources” tab and complete the following settings:

• Select: Source from “Both device and file”
• Select “Video”, from the drop down box choose “Browse for file…” and then browse to the .avs file created above (you may need to set the file type to All Files (*.*) in the browse-to box)
• Select “Audio”, from the drop down box choose “Browse for file…” and then browse to the .wma file created above

3. Go to the “Output” tab and complete the following settings:

• Deselect “Pull from encoder”
• Select “Encode to file” and then browse to assign a location and file name where you want your file to be saved.

4. Go to the “Compression” tab and complete the following settings:

• Choose “Edit” to open the Custom Encoding Settings box
• From the General tab:
  • Make sure “Audio” is selected, choose “Bit Rate VBR” for Mode and “Windows Media Audio 10 Professional” for Codec.
  • Make sure “Video” is selected, choose “Bit Rate VBR” for Mode and “Windows Media Video 9″ for Codec.
  • Make sure “Script” is deselected.
  • Select “NTSC” and “Allow nonsquare pixel output”
  • Click OK
• From the ‘other’ tab (It will say something like “xxx kbps”)
  • In the Audio format drop down box, select “192 kbps, 48 kHz, 5.1 channel, 24 bit VBR”
  • Select “Same as video input”
  • Set the Video bit rate (average) to the value that you chose above
  • Set the key frame interval = 4
  • Set the decoder complexity to “Auto”
  • Click “OK”

5. In the “Attributes” tab, feel free to enter anything you want.

6. I suggest saving your profile at this point so that you can re-use these settings for future project. Do this by going to File -> Save As…

7. Now, select “Start Encoding” or “Ctrl + Shift + E” and wait… (takes about twice the full length of the original video on my notebook)

 

Some References and Other Guides Where I Have Gathered Information For My Process:

1. DVD to WMV9 with WMA9 Professional 5.1 Channel
2. Converting VOB directly to WMV with 6 Channels
3. DGIndex User Manual
4. DGMPGDec Quick Start Guide
5. The Comprehensive Windows Media 9 HDTV Encoding Guide
6. VirtualDub Error – Can’t Open Source File
7. My Movies Xbox 360 Extender
8. Windows Media Audio Codecs

 

 

Notes and Version History:

1. This guide was originally created 11 November 2008.
2. The reason I created this guide was (1) to keep straight the method for my own personal use as it is quite lengthy and (2) the guides I have found on the subject have either been insufficient, use outdated apps (so the steps do not match), or the instructions were very difficult to follow.
3. The video playback FAQ for the Xbox 360 states that it supports “Audio Profiles: WMA7/8, WMA 9 Pro (stereo and 5.1), WMA lossless”. It is the WMA 10 Pro encoder that is installed with WME9 and is what I have used.
4. I estimate the full time necessary to convert one DVD (of 100 minutes duration) to a roughly 2GB WMV file with 5.1 audio to be approximately 8 hours (assuming the process has been streamlined).
5. If the goal is to play something through the Xbox WMC, then see my other post on a method to something similar, but a whole lot easier and quicker.

 

To DO:

1. Complete section on using DGIndex
2. Complete section on converting stereo AC3 to WMA
3. How can you (easily and precisely) trim the VOB file in order to save a few bits of disk space.
4. Can chapters be extracted from the DVD and inserted into an WMV?

Tags: Help and How-To, Video Editing, Windows Home Server, Windows Media Center, XBOX 360

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 11th, 2008 at 12:58 pm and is filed under Help and How-To, Windows Home Server. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.