Fitness test: "Transcoding." If you dont understand that term, move on. This thread isnt for you. You are old and semi useless. 
First, I thought I had it all down. Then I discovered a flaw.
For the past couple years, Ive been using a combination of versions of this paid app to rip my DVDs to MP4; video converter ultimate as well as the older version, "pro" because it has a chapter feature the newer version lost for some dvds.(Especially handy for tv show box sets so I can get each episode as a separate file instead of all the episodes on one disk in one file)
[OFFICIAL] Aimersoft Video Converter Ultimate: All-in-one Video Converter for Windows 10
I copy the ripped MP4 H.264 files to a seagate wireless hard drive and the kids can watch movies on ipads on long road trips. Works pretty good. EXCEPT! The encoding is pretty choppy. If you watch a smooth pan, you can see a rhythm if you pay attention. Its not as smooth as the DVD. Manageable because it disappears on normal movement and isnt noticeable. But still not something that makes me want to throw out the original DVDs and just stream instead.
Here is the kicker. I discovered that not all of my ripped MP4s are in 2CH stereo as I expected. No rhyme or reason. That causes my Rokus to turn these 5.1 encoded files into silent movies when I try to stream them from my ReadyNAS file server via DLNA. They are known to have issues decoding surround sound audio. I figured with the infrastructure I have, it would be nice to be able to stream the movies from the server instead of digging up the DVDs.
So here are my questions.
Does anyone have a GOOD dvd ripper? I dont mind paying (under $100) for a GOOD product. When I search for alternatives, I see a pattern; I see various branded flavors of the same thing. They all appear to be the same underlying product, just with different names/skins. Icons are in the same places, options are all the same, prices are all the same, etc. The only apparent difference is they each have a different name/logo in the upper left part of the interface and are downloaded from different websites. Its like a developer came up with the software and then licensed it to others to market.
Requirements:
-It needs to encode them smooth
-It needs to support Nvidia CUDA GPU acceleration (this product says it does but my CPU cores get curiously busy, and the GPU fan doesnt spool up indicating it is doing ANY work even though I have a CUDA compatible card. One of the first versions of the software did use the card because I recall the card fans spooling up)
-chapter support isnt necessary, but welcome.
I ask about that because after looking at the next question, it looks like I need to start over anyway:
Is there a good product (once again, willing to pay for quality) that will QUICKLY transcode the audio only and not touch the video AT ALL? Most software wants to simply reconvert the whole movie, which means I might as well re-rip using better software. (but with the right settings) I need something that will simply reprocess the audio portion of the file. I just tried to transcode using MediaCoder and although I told it to leave the video as is it still took as long to transcode as it would to re-rip. And the video quality decreased, so it didnt truly ignore the video.
But once again, If you know of a tool that rips smooth via CUDA, I dont mind recreating them all from the original DVDs.
And as a last alternative, anyone have a good appliance that will act as a DLNA client and not freak when it gets 5.1 surround? Something I can plug into the extra HDMI on the TV since the Roku is kinda useless? My ipads seem to be able to only play the FL/FR channels just fine so somebody else should be able to as well.
Oh, and Plex isnt an option if you are going to suggest that since it supports realtime transcoding on the fly. My streaming media server is a ReadyNAS that was already upgraded to 6.6. Plex announced there is an issue that requires them to tweak the media server software on 6.6, so at this time there is no plex solution for my situation. (and existing readynas PLEX users are begging for an ETA of when they can start streaming again)
suggestions?
First, I thought I had it all down. Then I discovered a flaw.
For the past couple years, Ive been using a combination of versions of this paid app to rip my DVDs to MP4; video converter ultimate as well as the older version, "pro" because it has a chapter feature the newer version lost for some dvds.(Especially handy for tv show box sets so I can get each episode as a separate file instead of all the episodes on one disk in one file)
[OFFICIAL] Aimersoft Video Converter Ultimate: All-in-one Video Converter for Windows 10
I copy the ripped MP4 H.264 files to a seagate wireless hard drive and the kids can watch movies on ipads on long road trips. Works pretty good. EXCEPT! The encoding is pretty choppy. If you watch a smooth pan, you can see a rhythm if you pay attention. Its not as smooth as the DVD. Manageable because it disappears on normal movement and isnt noticeable. But still not something that makes me want to throw out the original DVDs and just stream instead.
Here is the kicker. I discovered that not all of my ripped MP4s are in 2CH stereo as I expected. No rhyme or reason. That causes my Rokus to turn these 5.1 encoded files into silent movies when I try to stream them from my ReadyNAS file server via DLNA. They are known to have issues decoding surround sound audio. I figured with the infrastructure I have, it would be nice to be able to stream the movies from the server instead of digging up the DVDs.
So here are my questions.
Does anyone have a GOOD dvd ripper? I dont mind paying (under $100) for a GOOD product. When I search for alternatives, I see a pattern; I see various branded flavors of the same thing. They all appear to be the same underlying product, just with different names/skins. Icons are in the same places, options are all the same, prices are all the same, etc. The only apparent difference is they each have a different name/logo in the upper left part of the interface and are downloaded from different websites. Its like a developer came up with the software and then licensed it to others to market.
Requirements:
-It needs to encode them smooth
-It needs to support Nvidia CUDA GPU acceleration (this product says it does but my CPU cores get curiously busy, and the GPU fan doesnt spool up indicating it is doing ANY work even though I have a CUDA compatible card. One of the first versions of the software did use the card because I recall the card fans spooling up)
-chapter support isnt necessary, but welcome.
I ask about that because after looking at the next question, it looks like I need to start over anyway:
Is there a good product (once again, willing to pay for quality) that will QUICKLY transcode the audio only and not touch the video AT ALL? Most software wants to simply reconvert the whole movie, which means I might as well re-rip using better software. (but with the right settings) I need something that will simply reprocess the audio portion of the file. I just tried to transcode using MediaCoder and although I told it to leave the video as is it still took as long to transcode as it would to re-rip. And the video quality decreased, so it didnt truly ignore the video.
But once again, If you know of a tool that rips smooth via CUDA, I dont mind recreating them all from the original DVDs.
And as a last alternative, anyone have a good appliance that will act as a DLNA client and not freak when it gets 5.1 surround? Something I can plug into the extra HDMI on the TV since the Roku is kinda useless? My ipads seem to be able to only play the FL/FR channels just fine so somebody else should be able to as well.
Oh, and Plex isnt an option if you are going to suggest that since it supports realtime transcoding on the fly. My streaming media server is a ReadyNAS that was already upgraded to 6.6. Plex announced there is an issue that requires them to tweak the media server software on 6.6, so at this time there is no plex solution for my situation. (and existing readynas PLEX users are begging for an ETA of when they can start streaming again)
suggestions?
