Well, we finally did it. My employee discount came a-knockin’ at just the right time.

High definition goodness is mere moments away. We’re waiting for the UPS man to deliver a high-definition TiVo this week. After that happens, I will be stocking up on pizza, buffalo wings, and Sprite, selling the car, changing the locks, and shutting off the cell phone.

It was nice knowing everyone!

If you’re reading this post then you either don’t like my AviSynth/DGIndex method or you don’t like scripting in general. Either way, welcome. This method has much more mass appeal. It’s simplicity is almost ridiculous. Will I stop using the scripting method? Not on your life.

Shall we?

Preparation
Not really anything to prepare.

Software
Handbrake

Download and install Handbrake. Nothing groundbreaking here. It’s lightweight and easy on the eyes. After it’s installed, run it.

1. Click Browse and select the folder that contains the ‘AUDIO_TS’ and ‘VIDEO_TS’ folders of your DVD rip.
2. Select the Title. (Hint: look at the length of each one listed if there is more than one)
3. Click Browse and select a destination folder for the file-to-be. Make sure to select ‘AVI’ in the bottom drop-down of that Browse dialog window.
4. Pull down the Encoder menu and select XviD.
5. Pull down the Audio Encoder menu and select MP3.
6. Pull down the Crop Select Option menu and select No Crop. (I don’t trust ‘Automatic’ here)
7. Under Size, type ‘320′ in the Width field. Height will be filled in automatically.

Click on the Video tab and follow the next screen shot.

8. Under Advanced Encoding Settings, populate the check box if you want to enable 2-Pass Encoding. Personally, I don’t feel it’s necessary but to each his own.
9. Under Quality in the Avg. Bitrate field, put in anything between 300 and 700. You can go lower or higher, but again to each his own. Zen supports up to a combined audio/video bitrate of 1.0 Mbps so use your best judgment.
10. Under Framerate, select what corresponds with your DVD rip. Generally, movies are 23.976 and most TV shows and television-based material is 29.97.

Click on the Audio & Subtitles tab and follow the last screen shot below.

11. Under Audio Tracks, pull down the Track 1 menu and choose your preferred audio stream. Note: If there’s more than one, look for English (AC3) (Dolby Surround) and select it if available. If you don’t see that option, no biggie.
12. Pull down the Track 1 Mix menu and select Stereo.
13. Under Audio Quality, choose your preferred Bitrate and Sample Rate with the pull-down menus.

Click Start in the upper-left corner and go have a beer. You’ve earned it.

If you’ve seen my previous post about encoding your DVD rips to Xvid with MeGUI than the battle for WMV conversion is 90% done. This post replaces the “Encoding with MeGUI” section of that guide. Encoding to WMV will utilize the same AviSynth script that we created there and that’s where this guide begins.

Windows Media Encoder going forward will be referred to as WME.

Preparation
Windows Media Encoder
Windows Media Player 11 (if you haven’t already upgraded)

If you don’t want to install Windows Media Player 11, you’ll still need the upgraded codecs that come bundled with it. You can download a standalone distribution here.
Windows Media 11 Format Runtime

WMCmd.vbs is a very small file that is included in the WME download and in fact the command-line version of WME. Officially, WME does not accept AviSynth scripts as input. However, a very generous Microsoft employee has (legally) taken it upon himself to “hack” this file to do so. Grab the file here. After you’ve done that, go to the install path of WME and find WMCmd.vbs that’s already there. Rename it anyway that you want - just don’t delete it. Then replace it with the hacked file.

Yay. We’re on our way.

Procedure
We’re going to create a batch file…well…because it’s easier than typing all of the command-line arguments directly into a non-point ‘n’ click world. It allows for easier entry and editing of said arguments. Start by opening up Notepad or your favorite plain text editor. Then copy and paste the following:

“C:\WINDOWS\system32\CScript.exe” “C:\…\WMCmd.vbs” -input “C:\…\my-script.avs” -output “C:\…\my-video.wmv” -v_codec wmv9 -v_mode 0 -v_buffer 5000 -v_bitrate 500000 -v_keydist 30 -v_quality 10 -v_performance 20 -pixelformat yv12 -v_profile sp -a_codec wmastd -a_setting 96_44_2 -a_mode 0

A few things to consider about all of that:

1. The path to WMCmd.vbs is relative because you could’ve installed WME wherever you wanted to so you’ll have to fill that in. The same goes for the path to your script and your output file.
2. -v_bitrate is video bit rate in bits/second. Don’t be too liberal here. I would stay in the range of 300 kbps to 700 kbps.
3. -a_setting is audio parameters - example 96_44_2 is 96 kbps, 44.1 kHz, 2-channel stereo. All of these can vary if you wish but again I wouldn’t stray too far off.

Save the text file and give it a bat file extension, foregoing the usual txt extension.

Got it? Good. We move on.

Before we dive in to command-line stuff, let’s make it easy to start up a command-line window for WME quickly and efficiently. Open up the folder where WME was installed and then open up a second window and navigate to the C:\Windows\system32 folder. In that second folder hit the letter ‘C’ on your keyboard and scroll down until you find cmd.exe. Right-click on it and select Copy. Then switch to the first window, right-click on an empty space and select Paste. Close the second window. In the first window, right-click and drag cmd.exe to your Desktop. On the context menu that appears, select Create Shortcuts Here. Double-click your new shiny shortcut.

My God we’re good. :-)

To call up our batch file for WME all that we have to do is type in the full path location and file name of the batch file itself.

Click Enter and watch video conversion magic happen right before your eyes. When the encoding is finished you will have a WMV file that will seamlessly and quickly sync to your Zen.

Thought I’d share after getting his buzz cut!

Isn’t he the best?!  :o)

Preparation
You will need to download and install some free and legal software for this guide.

DVDFab HD Decrypter
DGMPGDec
AviSynth
VirtualDub
NicAudio (plug-in for AviSynth)
TDeint (plug-in for AviSynth)
MeGUI

Rip DVD
Launch DVDFab HD Decrypter and then insert the DVD into your DVD-ROM drive.

1. Switch to Main Movie mode. We don’t need to unnecessarily rip special features and other extra content.
2. Choose a destination folder for the ripped files.
3. Select the main movie title VOB from the list (Hint: look at the Play Time column to determine this).
4. Select the audio track that you would like to include.
5. Click the Start button to begin the rip.

Index MPEG-2 Stream
Next we’ll need to index our MPEG-2 stream so that AviSynth can properly send it through to the XviD encoder. We want to open the folder that contains our newly-ripped DVD files and launch DGIndex also, found in the install path of DGMPGDec.

Sort the files so that the VOB files are grouped together and sequential. You can ignore the IFO and BUP files. Also, pay no attention to the fact that I switched movies amongst my screenshots. ;-) They serve merely illustrative purposes, but the idea remains.

With your mouse and CTRL key, select all of the VOB files and drag them to DGIndex.

Pull-down the Audio menu and select Output Method - Demux All Tracks

Now pull down the Video menu and select Field Operation - Forced Film

Note: This step assumes that the content on your DVD is film-based (23.976 FPS). Leave comments for this post and let me know if you need to know what to do in other cases.

With all of that done, all that’s left is to pull down the File menu and select Save Project. Select a destination folder and let it go. DGIndex will scan the entire length of the movie quicker than real time; it should only take a few minutes. When it’s finished, you will have a D2V file and an AC-3 file.

AviSynth Script
Open up notepad, or your favorite plain text editor, and copy the following lines into it:

loadplugin(”…\Program Files\AviSynth\plugins\…\dgdecode.dll”)
loadplugin(”…\Program Files\AviSynth\plugins\…\nicaudio.dll”)
loadplugin(”…\Program Files\AviSynth\plugins\…\tdeint.dll”)
v=mpeg2source(”…\movie.d2v”).lanczosresize(320,240).tdeint()
a=nicmpg123source(”…\movie.ac3″).ssrc(44100)
clip=audiodub(v,a)
return clip

Of course, it’s up to you to complete the file paths and names in each line. The text above would never work as is - remember- illustrative purposes only. Once that is done, save it with a *.avs extension and open it in VirtualDub. You should be able to scrub through the film.

Encoding with MeGUI
Since the AviSynth script works in VirtualDub, it will work in MeGUI.

1. Click the Open button and select your script.
2. Click the Open button and choose your destination and filename.
3. Pull down the Codec menu, choose XviD, and then pull down the File Format menu and choose AVI.
4. Pull down the Video Profile menu and choose “XviD ‘>90% comp. check’(HQ)”.
5. Click on the Config button.

1. Pull down the Mode menu and choose CBR - constant bit rate.
2. In the bit rate field, type 500.
3. Pull down the Motion Search Precision menu and choose 6 - Ultra High.
4. Pull down the VHQ Mode menu and choose 4 - Wide Search and then click OK.

Now we move on to Audio.

1. Click the Open button and choose your script again.
2. Choose your destination and filename.
3. Pull down the Codec menu and choose LAME MP3.
4. Pull down the Audio Profile menu.
5. Click on the Config button.

I recommend switching Encoding Mode to CBR, ensuring that the Bitrate is at 128, and then making these settings a New profile by clicking on New and giving it a name. Click OK when you’re done here.

Back at the main window, click on both Enqueue buttons. This will add both Video and Audio conversion processes to the Queue tab. Be patient after clicking Enqueue for Video encoding. It seems to run a quick 3-5 second “invisible” analysis.

Here, all that needs to be done is click Start. Depending on your processor speed/type/quality etc. you may now have some real time on your hands. Chill. It’s Miller Time! When MeGUI is finished you will have an AVI file with no sound and an MP3 file.

The two files need to be “merged” together, or “muxed”, into one AVI file. Pull down the Tools menu and select Muxer - AVI Muxer.

1. Click on the Open button and select your newly-encoded AVI file.
2. Click on the Open button and select your newly-encoded MP3 file.
3. You can either keep the appended filename and location or click the Open button and change it.
4. When you’re done click the Queue button.

Back on the Queue tab, you will now see the Mux process waiting to be…well processed. Click the Start button to begin muxing. This is a very quick process. When muxing finishes you are done! All that’s left to do is sync that bad boy to your Zen and enjoy!

So, about two weeks ago I sold my Microsoft Zune and traded in for Creative’s Zen and it is fantastic! Not much difference in name but that’s where the similarities end. This little guy measures a little smaller than a credit card and weighs almost nothing! The Zune was hard drive-based making it bulky. Zen is flash-based and I gotta say that I’ll never go back to hard drive players. Flash is the future and capacities are growing by the minute. In fact, Zen is the world’s first flash-based MP3 player to reach 32 GB!! Creative for the win! I chose the 8 GB model. With the Zune, I never used more than that in the 9 months I had it. 30 GB was overkill for me.

A guy I work with has a YouTube channel. He has quite a collection of “webisodes”. He has started a show called “Ready In Minutes” and a sandwich that I frequently make for lunch is featured in his premiere installment. Enjoy!

Ummm no thanks. I’ll drive.

This is pretty amazing. I need to figure out how it’s done!   ;-)