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Topic: Trying to get the bedt DVD Audio rip (Read 3428 times) previous topic - next topic
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Trying to get the bedt DVD Audio rip

Hi,

I am just delving into digital audio facts and such. I have the IMTOO Dvd Audio ripper. I have some questions I cannot seem to answer anywhere and hoping some of you pros out there can help. Here are my questions:

1) When ripping the audio from the DVD, should I rip the 2ch or 6ch track? If I rip the 2ch track, it seem that there would be less conversion going on in a rip, but if the 6ch track is more diverse, am I missing anything by ignoring it? (I have ripped wil various codecs and bit rates to compare (lossy and lossless) and the file sizes are identical.

2) If I rip a track to a wav file, why are there settings under the wav settings for highest, lowest and bit rate options? Shouldnt it all rip to 1411bps? It appears it does not effect anything when I tried it various ways but I wanted to be sure I am getting the best rip.

3) IMTOO gives me downsampling options. I think I want to choose "no downsampling" but some of the options I cannot think with. They are: "44.1 no conversion", "48 to 44.1 high quality". Since I am ripping from a DVD why would I want to convert it? (in my comparisions there seems to be no difference in any setting). If I am ripping from a DVD, wouldnt "no downsampling" and "44.1 no conversion" be the same. Why are these options at all? It stumped me.

4) I want a lossless rip for archive, but for practical purposes (ipod, etc.) I will have to go lossy. What do you recommend ?(I will rip using 320bps on what ever codec I end up going with). My choices I narrowed it down to are: MP3, AAC, AC3 or M4A. Rip time is not a concern, I will be ripping WAV to listen to when I want lossless. But I wanted the best lossy rip I can make (highest bitrate, best quality, etc.).

5) Lastly, some DVDs I rip at 3.0 normalization are so low, I am raising it to 8.0 or 9.0 to get it to almost a normal level. The auto sensing thing gives me vales of 2.1 or 1.9 usually which are way to low. Should I pump it up to 9.0 to get the sound up or rip it at the recommended level and use another program to normalize. I am looking to the best quality and my guess is if I normalize after the initial rip, I am losing quality? I wrote this up to tech support numerous times and they have no idea how to (or why its tweaking) fix it.


The end results will play in my new Harmon Kardon Logic 7 surround car audio system I just got and I have many concert DVD I want to experience the best sound I can manage.

Thanks in advance (and sorry for the novel)!!!!

Trying to get the bedt DVD Audio rip

Reply #1 –
Firstly, I am going to assume you are ripping DVD-Video discs containing music, and not DVD-Audio discs which are an entirely different beast altogether. I'm pretty sure there are only a couple of tools that can rip DVD-A, and none of them are called IMTOO, so I feel pretty secure in my assumption.

I would recommend scrapping this IMTOO app altogether and using DVDdecrypter. It does not even have resampling or downmixing capabilities or any such thing, so there is no doubt that you are getting an unadultered rip of the audio data on the DVD.

After starting DVD Decrypter, select your DVD drive from the drop-down menu and then check Mode -> IFO. The screen will then show you all of the different "programs" on the DVD, each one is laid out differently, but they will be called VTS_01, VTS_02, etc. You can tell which one is the main section of the DVD, the concert I guess in your case, by the length.

Once you've located the right section of the DVD, (It should list the chapters, generally each chapter is a track) click over to the "Stream Processing" tab and it will show you all the different audio and video streams on the DVD, the one I'm looking at now for example has a video stream, a 6-channel AC3 audio stream, a 2-channel AC3 audio stream, and a DTS audio stream. Check the "Enable stream processing" box. Pick whichever one you want to rip out of what is available, keep that one checked and UNCHECK all the other audio and video tracks. Change the little radio button from "Direct Stream Copy" to "Demux". Right-click the stream you're about to rip, and then set the "File Splitting" to "By Chapter".

Once all that is set up, hit the big button with the DVD-to-hard-disk picture on it. It will then rip the audio to your hard disk. You'll end up with the audio, exactly bit-for-bit as it is on the DVD. With all the DVDs I've ripped like this, I ripped the AC3 tracks and they were usable as-is, no further processing necessary. However, it would be trivial to use foobar2000 or some other tool to convert them into whatever format you desire.

It sounds kind of complicated when it's all written out like this, but it's easy to figure out once you've done it once.

As for whether to rip the stereo tracks or the 6-channel track, I guess it's a matter of personal preference. On most concert DVDs I would personally just rip to stereo as you can play it on any equipment and the surround mix on these DVDs usually doesn't offer anything significant over the stereo version anyway. Especially for car listening, I would go with the stereo.

Trying to get the bedt DVD Audio rip

Reply #2 –
Quote from: oicic on
Hi,
Hello.
Quote from: oicic on
1) When ripping the audio from the DVD, should I rip the 2ch or 6ch track?

Depends on if you want a 2-track or 6-track sound file.  If the latter, then you'll want to rip to a format that supports multichannel audio (ie: not MP3).

Quote from: oicic on
2) If I rip a track to a wav file, why are there settings under the wav settings for highest, lowest and bit rate options? Shouldnt it all rip to 1411bps? It appears it does not effect anything when I tried it various ways but I wanted to be sure I am getting the best rip.

You're thinking in CD terms.  The datarate of the audio on a DVD is not 1411bps (you're thinking of 1411.2kbps which is the CD PCM standard), it's variable depending on the chosen audio track.  You might not want it in the form it's on on the DVD (ie: 96kHz, 24bit) as it won't play in your equipment.

Quote from: oicic on
3) IMTOO gives me downsampling options. I think I want to choose "no downsampling" but some of the options I cannot think with. They are: "44.1 no conversion", "48 to 44.1 high quality". Since I am ripping from a DVD why would I want to convert it?

DVD audio is 48kHz normally.  CD is 44.1kHz.  DVD is never 44.1kHz so if you're ripping the audio to put on CD or making a DTS-CD, then you have to do a conversion at some point.

Quote from: oicic on
4) I want a lossless rip for archive, but for practical purposes (ipod, etc.) I will have to go lossy. What do you recommend ?(I will rip using 320bps on what ever codec I end up going with). My choices I narrowed it down to are: MP3, AAC, AC3 or M4A. Rip time is not a concern, I will be ripping WAV to listen to when I want lossless. But I wanted the best lossy rip I can make (highest bitrate, best quality, etc.).

It's your choice of whatever you prefer and what's compatible with your player.  AC3 would be reasonable if you're ripping multichannel or don't want to re-encode the already lossy track (you seem to think that DVD is lossless which is rarely the case).  320kbs (as everyone here will soon tell you) is completely unnecessary and a waste of space, particularly if you have a lossless archive of the music.  192kbs VBR MP3 would probably be the most popular choice and all of the ABX tests here on this site will support that you cannot tell the difference between 192 and the original file.  Why waste space if you don't have to?  And remember, this is going to be listened to in a car which is about the worst audio environment in existence - 128kbs MP3 would probably be unABXable in that setting.  Using WAV as your lossless format is also wasteful and probably not the best idea.  FLAC, APE, and Wavpack are all free options that will cut your storage needs in half and, unlike WAV, easily support multichannel.

Quote from: oicic on
5) Lastly, some DVDs I rip at 3.0 normalization are so low, I am raising it to 8.0 or 9.0 to get it to almost a normal level. The auto sensing thing gives me vales of 2.1 or 1.9 usually which are way to low. Should I pump it up to 9.0 to get the sound up or rip it at the recommended level and use another program to normalize. I am looking to the best quality and my guess is if I normalize after the initial rip, I am losing quality? I wrote this up to tech support numerous times and they have no idea how to (or why its tweaking) fix it.

You're normalizing it with one option and amplifying it with another.  There's really no difference insofar as "quality loss" on the wave is concerned.  I would personally do it with a separate program to avoid clipping that could happen on the imtoo hard amplifier.
 

Trying to get the bedt DVD Audio rip

Reply #3 –
NOTE - I don't have that IMTOO program...

Quote
1) When ripping the audio from the DVD, should I rip the 2ch or 6ch track?
  I assume you are ripping to (2-channel) stereo?  The 5.1 channel stream has embedded "instructions" (metadata) for downmixing.  If your DVD player has (2-channel) stereo outputs, and you've selected the 5.1 track, but are hooked-up to the stereo outputs, you are getting that downmix.  I assume the ripping program also follows these instructions.  The downmix might be different (probably is different) than the 2-channel mix on the DVD.  Different DVD-producers will make different decisions/choices.  You'd have to listen to both to decide which you prefer.

Quote
(I have ripped with various codecs and bit rates to compare (lossy and lossless) and the file sizes are identical.
  In that case, you're not really getting different bitrates!  File size is proportional to bitrate...  You can calculate file size from bitrate and playing time.
File Size in MB = (Bitrate in kbps x Playing Time in minutes) / 140  That's an approximation...  There is some rounding, and the various formats need some space for header information.


Quote
2) If I rip a track to a wav file, why are there settings under the wav settings for highest, lowest and bit rate options? Shouldnt it all rip to 1411bps? It appears it does not effect anything when I tried it various ways but I wanted to be sure I am getting the best rip.
Uncompressed 48kHz, 16-bit stereo (video) has a slightly higher bitrate than 44.1kHz, 16-bit stereo (CD).    (CD ~1411 kbps,  DVD LPCM ~1536 kbps.)   


Quote
3) IMTOO gives me downsampling options.
The only reason to downsample is if you are making a CD.

Quote
4) I want a lossless rip for archive, but for practical purposes (ipod, etc.) I will have to go lossy. What do you recommend ?(I will rip using 320bps on what ever codec I end up going with). My choices I narrowed it down to are: MP3, AAC, AC3 or M4A.
  I like MP3 because it's the most "portable",  "play anywhere" format.  Your choice of format mostly depends on your playback device.  At a high-enough bitrate, all of these formats will be 'transparent".  That is, they will all sound exactly like the uncompressed original.    At low bitrates, there will be differences and some formats will perform better. 
 
320kbps is probably overkill (for any of these formats), but there is no harm if you've got the disk space.  In fact, I have the same theory...  "Use a high bitrate, and then don't worry about it!" 


Quote
5) Lastly, some DVDs I rip at 3.0 normalization are so low, I am raising it to 8.0 or 9.0 to get it to almost a normal level.
   I don't know what those settings mean...  But, Dolby tracks have usually have some headroom, and they have something called dialnorm to set the level during playback (more metadata).    If the ripping program is transcoding during ripping, you might get some quality loss if the level is too high or too low.  If you are getting the raw audio data, you should be able to normalize after ripping (with an audio editor) with no ill-effects.

...When I make an analog recording, I always check the peak level (before normalizing).  If it's 0dB before normalizing, I assume it's clipped, and I re-record at a lower volume level.  That same trick might work in your situation.

Quote
I have many concert DVD I want to experience the best sound I can manage.
  I also have several concerts (on CD, VHS, and DVD).  When I ripped/recorded them to MP3, I made two versions.  First, I made a "big" full-concert MP3. Then I made individual MP3s of each song, and I faded in-and-out the crowd noise/applause at the beginning and end of each song, so that I could randomly mix live and studio tracks.  (To be more accurate, I did the editing/fading before encoding to MP3.)