I posted the following on the S forum rather than the S2 and would welcome any views

I've been looking into this since I got my phone last week- used to use any video converter in tandem with DVD 43 (on the fly decrypter) which worked but was quite slow. Anyway Any video is no longer free unless you have less than 5 mins of video so been checking some of the options on here but I'm reluctant to pay for something like this. Some of the trials don's seem to work for me, prime use to copy and convert original DVD movies to Mp4 .

I tried pavtube but all it did was copy the trailers at before main feature though it seemed quick.

I'm now using WinX (free) with the aforementioned DVD 43 and trying out different settings, though it is quite slow.

If you try this combo don't be put off when WinX warns it cant work with DVD encryption, just clear the message and proceed DVD43 takes care of this during processing. Win X also automatically ids the VOBS to be copied and puts them all together into one file unlike some (anyvideo converter including - though this will merge output)

Can anyone recommend some settings that offer a good compromise between quality and size as well as transfer times - also I never been able to get my head around aspect ratios etc and is there a way of making the video fit the S2 screen top to bottom rather than the letterbox I always get ?? Or a player that will allow the screen aspect to be changed as I can on my TV, just using standard player at moment so any recommendations would be helpful.

Since then I've ran copy of Da Vinci Code which has taken hours and left me with a file of 2.6Gb Guess my settings are OTT but which should I be dropping - The video settings I used that I read in the other thread h.264 mp4 1280*720 30fps 2000kbps aac stereo 48000 160000

Why should I use 1280x720 rather than the actual screen res?

Cheers

i'd use the dvd res as there's no point upscaling it. Have you tried handbrake for converting. I think it's straight to mp4 with some standard settings.

OK. Calling from the old dark side of the Galaxy S forum, this is my convoluted method.

1. DVD onto PC using either DVD Decrypter (free) or DVDFab (not free) or DVD Shrink (free).
2. Then, if necessary, extract required video using DVD Shrink (if not used to copy DVD in first place).
3. Using DVDFab, crop video so aspect ratio gives between 800x400 and 800x480 (yes, it might be only 720 wide but that's the ratio my brain understands). Note the crop ratio.
4. Using Handbrake (free) encode as MKV H264 1600kbps with the crop settings noted in step 3. (if I could get Handbrake to show me the cropped image I wouldn't need step 3.)

Did I mention it was convoluted..?

(If DVDFab didn't produce intermittent faults with the audio sync it would be a lot easier!)


EDIT: BTW, if someone else wants to suggest a different method that works for them, I'd be happy to change, but I've fiddled around with this for 10 months and the video I produce from a DVD is about 1.2 to 1.4 gig with quality good enough for me.

divx converter, approx £6

Can you give any ideas on time to convert a full length feature with either of the above?

Dwgalaxys can you offer up some settings for DivX convertors

cheers

Using a modern quad core it probably would take 10-30 mins? It's been a while since I've done it. Give handbrake a quick try this is what it's made for.

Hmm - I'm running a dual core P8400 2.26 GHz lappy with 3GB RAM which was fairly quick when I got it though thats a few years ago now though the conversion mentioned above took about 6 hours !!! I wonder if its because its decrypting on the fly with DVD43?

I tried handbrake but had audio problems will try again the other things is you have to convert each vob file seperateley and I'm not sure if I could combine the finished files into one larger file - guess you can but how ?

I'm fairly sure you can convert the whole video_ts folder into one file but as I no longer have an optical drive in my computer I can't easily test this.

In Handbrake, click on source and select folder, open the folder containing your dvd files, does it all in one go, no concatenation/appending needed. No audio sync issues encountered, compared to DVDFab, which messes up all the time.

I have a quad core and although I haven't timed a session, I would suggest with 2-pass encoding it's going to be more than 10-30 minutes. Possibly an hour and a bit depending on length of video and any other programs accessing the same drive.

Cheers guys coments made me revisit handbrake and discovered I was using an old version got the latest and its great just done a 2hr 8m feature in about 90mins giving a 950mb file no probs with joining files or audio as it all done in handbrake as mentioned above. Wondering if Id get time saving by decrypting to HD then running handbrake from there but then 2 stages not one??

What setting are you using I cropped to 800x400 and not happy with the result as whilst it uses all height of the S2 the figures are squashed any advice appreciated

thanks again

has anyone got and recommendations for free file hosting?

I want to upload a conversion of Iron man 2 for you to look at see what you think if its any good I will let you know my software/settings

I don't know about you guys but I find it generally easier to download a backup copy of my DVD's already in DIVX format than it is to convert them myself. That convoluted method takes a damned long time. I could have the whole movie downloaded in less than 20 mins.

Tbh I think most people probably do now days. I download stuff to watch one evening when I've got the dvd downstairs. It's easier than fetching the dvd amd I then have a properly converted backup in storage.

I personally use DVD decrypter (free) to get the main movie off a DVD disc followed by AutoGK (Free) to convert into a divx avi file with 5.1 sound a 2.5 hour film ends up around 1.6GB in size, which I then normally stream to my Sony DLNA TV. Messing arround the other day, I copied one of these ripped films with 5.1 sound onto my Galaxy S2 and was surprised to find that it decodes 5.1 with no problems!!!!

I personally use DVD decrypter (free) to get the main movie off a DVD disc followed by AutoGK (Free) to convert into a divx avi file with 5.1 sound a 2.5 hour film ends up around 1.6GB in size, which I then normally stream to my Sony DLNA TV. Messing arround the other day, I copied one of these ripped films with 5.1 sound onto my Galaxy S2 and was surprised to find that it decodes 5.1 with no problems!!!!

I believe the mhl adapter outputs 5.1 (or higher?) to hdmi as well.

Right... My treasured copy of "The Sordid Revenge Of The Nymphomaniac PVC-Clad Nuns" was begging to be transferred to my SGS.

Here's how I transferred a DVD. Worked first time, surprisingly:

- Got the 21-day trial of AnyDVD as both DVD Decrypter and DVD Shrink crashed like Arthur Askey negotiating a roundabout on a skateboard. It's fully functional, just time limited.
- Got the free Handbrake for the conversion side of things
- Fired up AnyDVD and it processed the DVD, a right-click later it was transferring said DVD to my hard drive
- Fired up Handbrake and tweaked legacy iPod settings to (although left output resolution at source's 720x576) as per the various guides around the 'net
- Pressed Start and waited - 3 year old laptop and took 50% of video length to create MP4
- Transferred to phone
- Enjoyed the video, quality was stunning. Nuns look great on the Super AMOLED screen and the black levels do real justice to the cascading PVC habits

OK, it was Pheonix Nights - that's why your Google search was as fruitless as a German dinner table!

Professor Yaffle

i'd use the dvd res as there's no point upscaling it. Have you tried handbrake for converting. I think it's straight to mp4 with some standard settings.
i once used handbrake, but it took me a long time to convert video. do you have such problem? i prefer faster tool, any suggestion?

i once used handbrake, but it took me a long time to convert video. do you have such problem? i prefer faster tool, any suggestion?

you could dual-boot ubuntu and use dvd::rip. i've been using it at work since my laptop with an optical drive blew up on me :( now i can watch my dvds again :)

I have a bunch of dvds ripped with FabHD and then converted to mp4 with Handbrake (which crops the black bars).
The 2.4:1 aspect ratio movies I have tried on my s2 are stretched vertically to fill the screen which looks awful.
Is there a way to solve this problem?
Thanks

try dvd video soft

It doesn't seem to be a problem with DVDFab or Handbrake.

It seems that although the S2's video player can re-size video to fit the screen, it can't cope with anamorphic video files, which is a pain as all my converted movies are anamorphic.

As a trial I am currently re-encoding a movie to a non-anamorphic file to see if this solves the problem.

I have a bunch of dvds ripped with FabHD and then converted to mp4 with Handbrake (which crops the black bars).
The 2.4:1 aspect ratio movies I have tried on my s2 are stretched vertically to fill the screen which looks awful.
Is there a way to solve this problem?
Thanks

I haven't tried it on the SGS2 but can't you just pinch to zoom out? I used to do this with the SGS1 and it worked from memory.

I haven't tried it on the SGS2 but can't you just pinch to zoom out? I used to do this with the SGS1 and it worked from memory.

No, there isn't that option.
You have the option (via an on screen button) to squeeze or stretch a normal picture, but you can't correct the a/r of an anamorphic file.

I have concluded that the S2 cannot cope with anamorphic movie files. For example; my copy of the dvd version of Jaws has a (cropped) screen size of 1024x448.
I originally encoded it anamorphically and the S2 can only see the anamorphic screen size of 720x448 which gives the wrong aspect ratio when viewing.

The solution (with Handbrake at least) is to use these settings:
Anamorphic - none, check the 'keep aspect ratio' box, and raise the 'height' to match the source.
You can reduce the screen size to suit the phone's screen, but I found the picture quality was reduced when I tried that.

Have you tried a different player?

Have you tried a different player?

No, but I'm hoping that the upcoming android version of VLC will be as good as the pc version.

No, but I'm hoping that the upcoming android version of VLC will be as good as the pc version.

With the power of this phone I don't see why it couldn't be. Maybe there's an alternative for the meantime. I'm new to android with this phone so don't know too much yet but I've seen one called rockplayer that looks pretty neat, rockplayer lite is available on the market.

The standard player will do for the time being.
This issue was only a problem for me as I had already converted the files. Although re-encoding them is not difficult, just time consuming.
As with any new gadget, knowing it's limitations makes it easier to use.

Fair enough I was just thinking maybe it would save the time of re-encoding if it did what you were after.