MASSIVE DIGITAL MEDIA HOW-TO MASSIVE DIGITAL MEDIA HOW-TO MASSIVE DIGITAL MEDIA HOW-TO MASSIVE DIGITAL MEDIA HOW-TO MASSIVE DIGITAL MEDIA HOW-TO
MARCH 200 5 MA XIMUMPC 31
Bitrate Calculator button to select the
ideal bit rate) to get around the problem.
Once that’s finished, you need to
change the codec options for the second
pass. Go back into the Settings panel
and click the Output tab. Press Configure
and change Variable bitrate mode to
“2-pass, second pass.” Press OK, then
click the Size/Bitrate tab. Make sure you
select the proper bitrate for audio—we
like 192Kbps for the best balance of
sound quality and size. Press OK again,
and then press the OK button on the
next screen as well. In a few hours you’ll
have a Divx version of your movie!More Fun with DVD Ripping
You’ll find oodles of methods for
converting DVDs to compressed MPEG-
4 video, including this method that’s
particularly well suited to creating files
that are playable on your Pocket PC or
portable video player—and it doesn’t
cost a cent (woo-hoo!). You’ll need two
applications: DVD Decrypter (www.
dvddecrypter.com) and AutoGK (www.
autogk.com). Install both applications
(AutoGK actually installs a bundle of
freeware apps and runs them as if they
were a single application).
Drop your DVD into your optical drive
and launch DVD Decrypter. From the
menus, select Mode > IFO, which will
produce files in a format we’ll need later.
Now go to the Edit menu and select
“Select Main Movie PGC,” which will
automatically select the main movie for
you. DVD Decrypter will create a default
destination directory, but you can change
it by clicking the folder under Destination.
Next, click the rip icon and kick back—this
could take a while. You’ll hear a cheery
tune when the software’s done.
The next step is to convert the results
from the DVD-Video format to a single
AVI file. AutoGK not only does this, but it
also takes the guesswork out of creating
video that’s constrained to a specific
size (for burning to multiple CDs, as
opposed to a single DVD, for example)
or a specific resolution (for exporting
to a Pocket PC). Fire up AutoGK and
click the folder next to Input Directory.
Navigate to the VIDEO_TS folder that
DVD Decrypter dumped its files into and
click OK. Specify a location for your AVI
under Output File (duh).
If you’re creating video for playback
on a PC or a laptop, move your mouse
to the box labeled “Step 3: Select output
size” and select either “Predefinedsize,” “Custom size,” or “Target quality.”
Obviously, the smaller the file size, the
lower the resulting quality.
If you’re creating video for playback
on a Pocket PC or a portable video
player, select “Custom Size” and tell
AutoGK how big you want your file to
be (based on your available storage).
Click the Advance Settings button in
the Step 4 box. Under the heading
“Resolution settings,” click the “Fixed
width” radio button. Here’s where
you indicate the maximum width—inpixels—your portable device can
handle. If you have a fancy-ass VGA
Pocket PC, for example, enter 640 in the
box next to the button. Click OK, click
the Add Job button, and then click Start.
We guarantee the conversion
process will take longer than you
anticipated, so if you haven’t finished
reading The Da Vinci Code, now’s a
good time. When you reach the end and
find out the butler was responsible for
everything, you’ll have an AVI file that
can go wherever you do.We’ve selected a custom file size of 675MB for decent playback
quality on our laptop.It’s pretty obvious that the highlighted file is the main movie
stream. The other file is probably an irritating info screen.Ë