Questions and concerns about DVDStripper

[snidely]

Ok, I have some questions and concerns, so let's talk about the program:

1. Why is the program locked to DVDDecrypter? But since it is locked, can I get to the settings dialog to make sure that RC, RCE and PUO removal are turned off? I would feel much more secure using DVDD if I knew that these options were turned off, as they have given me problems in the past.

2. If your program could use SmartRipper instead (or at least as an option), then we could rip from the hard drive rather than from a DVD drive or ISO image. This would also be a huge plus to many users.

3. I have PowerDVD installed as my default DVD player. When I view an "item", the only way I can stop its playback is by hitting PowerDVD's stop button. Why don't you incorporate full transport controls (like IfoEdit already has) and just control the audio and video filters directly? Why load up the PowerDVD GUI at all?

4. When you click on an item, playback of the last item should cease (but it doesn't) and playback of the new item should begin immediately. Am I doing something wrong?

5. When an item is done playing, the last frame should be left in view until another item is selected. Some menu items are very very short and you can not tell what they are by merely viewing them at full speed.

6. The GUI should tell the user at least something about the item rather than just numbering them sequentially. Are the items actually "titles", and if so, why aren't the actual title numbers used?

7. In the first DVD that I tried, I found myself with 42 "items" and 17 "menu items", so you can see that it took a long time just to view each and every item to decide which ones to keep and which ones to dump. Faster navigational facilities in your GUI would reduce the drudgery of sifting through all of these items.

I'm sorry if I have not followed all of the preceeding threads on this subject, as I basically knew nothing about DVDStripper when I purchased it and am just learning as I go along. Maybe some of these issues have already been discussed, and if so, could you please point me to the answers?

MackemX, right now I see your product as in the alpha/beta stage, with quite a few improvements needed before releasing it as a finished commercial product, though I believe that it certainly has a lot of potential. The GUI is fairly intuitive and friendly, but just needs to talk to the installed filters directly. Keep up the good work and keep developing the product and hopefully it will turn into a real winner for you.

 

[TheMadGuy]

Ok, I have some questions and concerns, so let's talk about the program:

1. Why is the program locked to DVDDecrypter? But since it is locked, can I get to the settings dialog to make sure that RC, RCE and PUO removal are turned off? I would feel much more secure using DVDD if I knew that these options were turned off, as they have given me problems in the past.

2. If your program could use SmartRipper instead (or at least as an option), then we could rip from the hard drive rather than from a DVD drive or ISO image. This would also be a huge plus to many users.

3. I have PowerDVD installed as my default DVD player. When I view an "item", the only way I can stop its playback is by hitting PowerDVD's stop button. Why don't you incorporate full transport controls (like IfoEdit already has) and just control the audio and video filters directly? Why load up the PowerDVD GUI at all?

4. When you click on an item, playback of the last item should cease (but it doesn't) and playback of the new item should begin immediately. Am I doing something wrong?

5. When an item is done playing, the last frame should be left in view until another item is selected. Some menu items are very very short and you can not tell what they are by merely viewing them at full speed.

6. The GUI should tell the user at least something about the item rather than just numbering them sequentially. Are the items actually "titles", and if so, why aren't the actual title numbers used?

7. In the first DVD that I tried, I found myself with 42 "items" and 17 "menu items", so you can see that it took a long time just to view each and every item to decide which ones to keep and which ones to dump. Faster navigational facilities in your GUI would reduce the drudgery of sifting through all of these items.

I'm sorry if I have not followed all of the preceeding threads on this subject, as I basically knew nothing about DVDStripper when I purchased it and am just learning as I go along. Maybe some of these issues have already been discussed, and if so, could you please point me to the answers?

MackemX, right now I see your product as in the alpha/beta stage, with quite a few improvements needed before releasing it as a finished commercial product, though I believe that it certainly has a lot of potential. The GUI is fairly intuitive and friendly, but just needs to talk to the installed filters directly. Keep up the good work and keep developing the product and hopefully it will turn into a real winner for you.

Hi snidely and welcome to the forum!

Now to your list :

1. DVDDecrypter is used because it offers some features that other rippers dont, wich DVDStripper takes advantage off, the settings for RC, RCE and PUO can be defined in DVDDecrypter, when it is launched by DVDStripper those settings are accessed aswell, so if you turned those off previously, they wont be used when using DVDStripper either
2. SmartRipper on the 1st try has proofen not to be able to deliver the same, but we are still searching for a way that might allowe usage of smartripper aswell , since its next to dvddecrypter the most commonly used decss tool
3. Internal Preview system is on the ToDo list, and will be interduced in a future version, until then using the default vob player provides a solution where every user can use a for him/her common interface (the prefered player gui).
4. This is a bug within PowerDVD, happens on some systems, works on others, we couldnt figure out any reason nor solution sofar. The only option at the moment is to use another player for default VOB Playback
5. Again, this depends on your default player, e.g. in PowerDVD you need to activate repeat to view menu item properly, other player work without that.
6. the Items are the smallest parts of the ifo structure, they have nothing in common with VTS or PGC, so they are just named as Items
7. What is your understanding of Faster navigational facilities ?
   if set to autoplay the remove or keep buttons automaticly jump to the next item (if you have a player that works properly) it will stop playback of the previous item and start the new, so usually deciding should be done within a few minutes, by just pressing two buttons... how can that be made easier or faster ?

And though i am not Mackem, one word about the Products state, the current version is not a Beta , it has been in Beta stage for almost a week, and betatesters have ironed out most of the bugs. But there also is a reason why the current version is 0.1.0, there are improvements and additional features to be made, and they will be made. e.g. the directly addressed installed filters you mentioned. But such things will take their time to be completed. So watch for the next updates to come...

Hope this answers your question and clears your concerns

Greetnx

 

[The-poacher]

Hey guys this is new s/ware & it will improve but remember it does things we all want to do to our backups so bear with the developers it will surely evolve!!

 

[JHMac]

I use PowerDVD also and I also found this annoying so I changed my default player to MPlayer and it seemd to work fine now, but I too agree that DVDStripper would be nicer if it had its own player. I would like to see an option to not show every chapter point. I don't and never plan to delete a chapter or split a movie, this would also save time to other users that dont want to view every chapter point. This is a awesome program but I havent ironed out my IFOEdit probs yet... Keep up the great work The Mad Guy!

 

[MackemX]

you dont have to go through each chapter, once you hit the start of the movie just skip a few chapters by double clicking further down the item list and this will save time

if you know how many chapters there is, then this will give you a better idea of how many to skip

as for the internal player, it's on the to do list along with a few more things . Did you try using the Force player exit setting when using PowerDVD?

we just hope that for now you can bear with us and get some good results using it in it's current form

cheers

 

[snidely]

Thanks for the detailed answers, guys!

I think that my problems stemmed from:

1. not knowing that PowerDVD has issues
2. using a particularly complicated DVD for my first test
3. expecting too much from a first release

DVDDecrypter is used because it offers some features that other rippers dont, wich DVDStripper takes advantage off, the settings for RC, RCE and PUO can be defined in DVDDecrypter, when it is launched by DVDStripper those settings are accessed aswell, so if you turned those off previously, they wont be used when using DVDStripper either

Cool...that works for me

I still prefer SR due to its 100% dependability factor, but as long as I can turn the removal options off in DVDD, that should suffice for now.

This is a bug within PowerDVD, happens on some systems, works on others, we couldnt figure out any reason nor solution sofar. The only option at the moment is to use another player for default VOB Playback

Understood...What is the official recommended default player for DVDStripper?

What is your understanding of Faster navigational facilities ?

For example, what I mean is having direct access to the PowerDVD audio and video filters without the need for loading PowerDVD's GUI. I am not a programmer, but isn't that accomplished through the use of DirectX? Having to load the player's own GUI is just more overhead and time consumption that isn't needed, IMHO.

if set to autoplay the remove or keep buttons automaticly jump to the next item (if you have a player that works properly) it will stop playback of the previous item and start the new, so usually deciding should be done within a few minutes, by just pressing two buttons... how can that be made easier or faster ?

That is exactly what I am looking for. Unfortunately it doesn't work that way with PowerDVD.

as for the internal player, it's on the to do list along with a few more things . Did you try using the Force player exit setting when using PowerDVD?

That works, but exiting the player and relaunching it every time between views is also a pain in the butt and slows things down. I think a better default player would be the answer, or better yet, direct access to the filters via a built in player. (I know, I know, I'm expecting too much from a first release again! )

At this point the most blatant fault I can find (yeah, I know, you didn't ask) is the necessity to rip from a DVD or from an ISO image. I prefer to rip my DVDs with "old dependable" (SmartRipper) in the all files mode and then manipulate the rip from there. By ripping directly from the DVD, if I find that I forgot to remove the FBI screen, for example, I then have to go back and rerip from scratch. IfoEdit has no such requirement, so I can only assume that DVDD is the culprit. If DVDStripper had the ability to rip from the hard drive, its usability would be increased a hundred fold. And no, I have no more drive letters open in which to mount a virtual drive for viewing ISO images.

 

[MackemX]

Hi snidely

feel free to offer suggestions and requests as we want you all to be a part of this tools development

as for the ripper issue, you must understand that Smartripper has not been updated in quite a long time now and it's better that we focus on using DVDDecrypter instead as it is regularly updated to keep up with the times

have you tried using one of the version of WMP player as a player until we do implement it's own player?. WMP8, mplayer2.exe (which is in the WMP program folder) along with WMP Classic seem to work really well for most with DVDStripper

regarding ripping from the HD and mounting an image issue, which is not an option for you due to you having no spare drives don't you think that yours is an isolated issue as very few people will have the same issue as they will have a spare drive letter to mount an image

I can also suggest if you play the DVD straight away from the Destination folder using PowerDVD before closing DVDStripper, you can then see if anything else still needs removing. If it does just use the UNDO button to restore the DVD to the state it was before processing

the only downside is that you will have to remove whatever you did previously again as the KEEP/REMOVE selections are lost . I will ask TMG about somehow being able to also RESTORE the KEEP/REMOVE selections so you can reload those to make it easier

hope this helps

 

[snidely]

Thanks for all of your help, MackemX!

as for the ripper issue, you must understand that Smartripper has not been updated in quite a long time now and it's better that we focus on using DVDDecrypter instead as it is regularly updated to keep up with the times

Understood, but newer is not always better. SmartRipper has not been updated because it does not require updating! After over 1000 rips, SR has perfromed flawlessly on every DVD I have thrown at it, while DVDD 3.1.6.0 had two problems in only 30 rips. Now if Lightning UK were to fix the PUO and RCE removal problems (which he is aware of) and then add the "rip from hard drive" feature, then I would certainly embrace his program with enthusiasm. Until then, I will just have to live with things the way that they are, and I'll try not to beat this horse to death.

have you tried using one of the version of WMP player as a player until we do implement it's own player?. WMP8, mplayer2.exe (which is in the WMP program folder) along with WMP Classic seem to work really well for most with DVDStripper

I could use some help here. How do I make WMP my default player without uninstalling other players? I tried launching WMP8 and going to tools/options/file types and then hitting the "select all" button and then applying the changes, but when I hit the play button in DVDStripper, PowerDVD continues to open. I'm probably doing something really stupid here, but I can't seem to find a way to make DVDStripper launch WMP8.

regarding ripping from the HD and mounting an image issue, which is not an option for you due to you having no spare drives don't you think that yours is an isolated issue as very few people will have the same issue as they will have a spare drive letter to mount an image

Even for people who have spare drive letters, don't you think this is an inconvenience to have to use something like Daemon Tools to mount an image, view the image, and then dismount it in order to mount a new image? Virtual drives are a pain in the butt in a lot of ways, especially when there really is no need to use them at all. SR did it 3 years ago - it can't be that difficult (oops, sorry, I'm beating that dead horse again ).

I can also suggest if you play the DVD straight away from the Destination folder using PowerDVD before closing DVDStripper, you can then see if anything else still needs removing. If it does just use the UNDO button to restore the DVD to the state it was before processing

That will work for now! I didn't know that!

Thanks again for your patience and help.

 

[MackemX]

Hi

I like the way you mention flogging a dead horse but are gracious enough to accept my answers

I think it's best we concentrate on the main areas of concern first so that at least everyone can enjoy a working verison of DVDStripper. In time when the sand has settled we can then look at adding all the ideas we have and some of the user's suggestions

our number 1 concern at the minute is that all users are happy with the product in some sort of way

you will find instructions on how to associate VOB's in this thread
http://www.dvdrbase.com/showthread.php?t=33395

it also looks like Arianos has just posted something about an alternative player
http://www.dvdrbase.com/showthread.php?t=33425

hope this helps

cheers

 

[snidely]

you will find instructions on how to associate VOB's in this thread

A simple assciation, eh? I knew I had to be overlooking the obvious, and sure enough, I was.

It works fine and all is well. Now I can get back to some serious testing of your new tool

Thanks again for your patience and understanding.

 

[MackemX]

A simple assciation, eh? I knew I had to be overlooking the obvious, and sure enough, I was.

It works fine and all is well. Now I can get back to some serious testing of your new tool

Thanks again for your patience and understanding.

did you try the player arianos mentions, its quite good

 

[muad'dib13]

So far I just love this program... Very awesome..

But....

i have several movies on my hard drive in their native VIDEO_TS directories.. When I load dvdstripper i first noticed that I could not access anything from my harddrive directly using decrypter , I had to use decrypter to rip the movie straight from DVD (which is no use for the movies already on my hard drive)..

My question is: Is there any program outhere that will make a virtual cd-rom drive from a folder location on a hard drive???

So far, the only way to get my movies on my hard drive to work with this program, was to make them an ISO, and use daemon tool to mount it, then in DVDstripper use decrypter to rip from the mounted image to use in the program...

It would be awesome to avoid the ISO step, and just work right from the PATH on the hard drive..

One last thing,
In future releases of this program, will there be an option to select and remove audio streams???

Thanx again for an awesome program... I look forward to future updates of it...

-chris (a very hapy customer)

 

[Bear263]

So far I just love this program... Very awesome..

One last thing,
In future releases of this program, will there be an option to select and remove audio streams???

Thanx again for an awesome program... I look forward to future updates of it...

-chris (a very hapy customer)

When you stip the id's the audio is automatically removed. If you want to remove audio for say the main movie, you can do that with which ever program you use to re-encode.

Bear

 

[muad'dib13]

thanx for quick reply...

What if, after removing all titles and menus that I do not want, and the final size will fit on a dvd-r, without using a recompression program, it would just be nice to be able to remove unwanted audio with dvdstripper...

Just a thought..

-chris


Thanx again for the info...

 

[Laz]

thanx for quick reply...

What if, after removing all titles and menus that I do not want, and the final size will fit on a dvd-r, without using a recompression program, it would just be nice to be able to remove unwanted audio with dvdstripper...

Just a thought..

-chris


Thanx again for the info...

Hi, I agree with you that would be a cool feature.

But you can always just use DVD Shrink to remove audio streams only and then just let it copy the files to a VIDEO_TS folder without any compression. Only takes 4-5 mins on average.

 

[Bear263]

thanx for quick reply...

What if, after removing all titles and menus that I do not want, and the final size will fit on a dvd-r, without using a recompression program, it would just be nice to be able to remove unwanted audio with dvdstripper...

Just a thought..

-chris


Thanx again for the info...

Sorry, I don't understand why you would want to remove the audio if the dvd fits without recompression. You wouldn't gain anything (picture wise) as the dvd fits already. Just don't use the audio track you don't want.

Can you enlighten me as to why you would still remove the audio track?

 

[DvdHeader]

Obviously there is no reason to remove audio stream if the whole thing fits on a DVDR. But if you still need to shrink the movie to fit a DVDR, then for my part I'd like to see that feature implemented in DVDStripper only if it is proven faster than removing the audio stream with another transcoder.

 

[muad'dib13]

Thanx for the idea with dvdshrink,,, That is an awesome idea..

Thanx again..

-chris

 

[muad'dib13]

Just tried my first big project... 28 Days Later - region 1...

I went thru the list of items for the movies side, and removed all but the movie and a few extra; then I went to the menu side and selected the items I wanted..

After, I processed with these new changes... All seemed to go well with ifoedit...

When that was done, I load the finished product with both my hardware dvd player and software dvd player and get interesting results:

1) when movie starts to play, I get BLACK screen for almost minute.. (If I skip to next chapter few times, menu stars..
2) For fun, in the menu, I select items that I knew I took out... when doing this, goes to black screen... but stays there... I have to press TITLE button to get back to menu.... If menu button is pressed, starts to play movie..
3) When I selected a special feature I knew I left in (making of the movie), it would jump to black for second, then back to menu... Where is the extra I left???
4) When selecting another special feature, (trailer), it would play fine, but I could not get any button to work... (menu, stop, skip, title) for example would not work...

My question is:

When I remove stuff, I realize that a black screen will appear, but is there a way to have it jump back to the menu page automatically??? This would be great for the stuff before the main menu I took out... Instead of sitting at a black screen for half a minute; instead just show black for a second, then jump to main menu...

In future releases, it would be cool to have the "MOVIE, MENU, and EXTRAS" seperated into their own sections for selection of removial...

Just a thought..



thanx all..

BTW,,, I reallly love this program, and look forward to future updates......


-chris

 

[o00o_o00o]

thanx for quick reply...

What if, after removing all titles and menus that I do not want, and the final size will fit on a dvd-r, without using a recompression program, it would just be nice to be able to remove unwanted audio with dvdstripper...

Just a thought..

-chris


Thanx again for the info...

Since the final size fit perfectly onto a DVD-R, why bother strip the additional audio streams or subtitles? Just burn away and move on to a new project. Well, I guess u have too much spare time to kill...