Taking music files from DVDs

[Cowbell]

I have a few DVDs of The Who, Led Zeppelin, Beatles, and Cream that I absoutely love. I want to rip the music and place it into my iPod, that way I can listen to it in my car or anywhere when I'm bored. Is there software that would allow me to do this,or is it completely locked?

[Mats Olsson.]

Digital audio out from DVD player into your computers spdif input? Time consuming but probably doable.

[not Cereal]

being a mac person i was very disapointed in finding limited support for doing things such as this. it is possible on a mac, but the software is somewhat limited and can be difficult to find.

 

if you have a pc the job can be done very easily.

 

go here: all things dvd

 

there are a lot of ways to do what you want. i guess my first idea would be to:

 

1. rip the audio off the dvd. its probably an .AC3 file. there is mac and pc software for this step.

 

2. convert the soundfile to somethng useable

 

3. cut up and or edit the resulting wav, aif, or sd2 depending on your platform.

 

here is a guide specifically for doing EXACTLY what you want. unfortunately its mostly for pc. dvd audio onto cd

 

if you are stuck on a mac i can help you more as i beleive you can do it, its just a little more difficult to get started. i can rip dvds on the mac, and i can take ac3 audio off the dvd on a mac.

 

but off the top of my head i cant remember how. if yor stuck in mac i will figure it out later today if you need.

 

UPDATE: a painful search has found some mac software here - german site.

 

arent we so lucky to have the "media oriented people friendly computer"

 

dont get me started. i bought a pc to do all things dvd related. dont even try to render raw video into .m2v without a pc. its possible to make a .m2v on a mac in osx, but if you ever have done it, your resulting file and time spent will cause you to never do it again

[not Cereal]

further update:

 

i ripped a concert dvd onto os9.2.2 with DVDextractor 0.9b (found at german link)

 

the file was an .ac3 file

 

of course i used a dvd i had made of my band but any dvd should work fine, even a css encrypted one.

 

you can easily convert the ac3 into aif with a converter, then use normal methods to edit/cut the aif and put in into your ipod.

[Rod S]

Actually, I'm interested in this too... Thanks for the links, Coaster, I want to give this a shot tonight. I have about 30 concert DVDs and would love them to have them on CD. I did do the direct transfer thru digital outs on 2 of them, but that was pain.. this looks a little easier.

[not Cereal]

it works really well.

 

one thing though, is the .AC3 format needs discussing.

 

AC3 is a truly wonderful format albeit with some issues IMHO.

 

AC3 sounds very good, much better than mp3 IMHO especially at low bit rates.

 

but one problem exists, and i dont think it has to do with the ac3 format specifically ut ather one of television standards - you may find that the resultant ac3 files are set anywhere from -10db to -27db in reference to the peak output of the file.

 

the worst i have found is NAQOYQATSI, its the picture in my sig. this disc has a peak output of around -30!!! thats pathetic and rediculous.

 

most dvd's i have found are around -10 peak, some -15 or so.

 

the really odd thing is that AC3 seems to handle this quite well, and when i convert the ac3 into aif and boost it up to zero for cd it sounds fine. you CANNOT do this activety with mp3 compression - try it and youll see why.

 

why coaster you ask?

 

ok,

 

so my first dvd i made of my band (recorded live into pro tools) was the first dvd i had assembled from scratch. i did the music the way i normally make cd's where the end mix is with zero peak and a lot of compression to keep the signal in the top 10db. factory cd's seem to try and stay in the top 6db but i dont like that crunchy sound. when the mixes sounded good and phat i went ahead and made the dvd.

 

if you have ever assembled dvd's from ascratch you may know there are several choices you can make. you can use MP2 (non-standard but works almost always), PCM (basically raw like AIF or cd audio), AC3 5.1 or AC3 stereo. i decided that since my mixes sounded good when converted to mp3 that mp2 should be good enough. WRONG.

 

why?

 

well on my PC and MAC the dvd sounded GREAT. it also sounded tits on my dvd player through paradigm speakers and an expensive amp. it even sounded super on a consumer surround system. where it failed was on EVERY SINGLE TV with speakers in it. the audio signal was just too strong for the tv's. it distorted and crackled and sounded awful on any tv i played it on.

 

so i did some research and experimenting and found that dvd's i would rip had a low volume output, often at -10 peak (so your meters show around -14 or -18 or lower most of the time). i noticed this was a trend but not an exact science. so i took my mixes, dropped them all by -10db on the mac, and reconverted into MP2. you cannot do this, it sounds AWFUL. converting the lower ampitude signal into MP2 is horror to anyones ears. and using the PCM raw signal on the DVD would take up about 1/3 the disc or so.

 

enter AC3. its what most dvd's are encoded with that i have found.

 

get an AC3 encoder, take the same -10db peak files and use any bitrate you like down to 192kbs stereo. it sounds awesome, very true but not exactly like the original. its a little more dark sound i think, maybe a little less punchy or crisp, but it still sounds great. i'm getting too picky with this description. i really like using AC3.

 

so NAQOYQATSI had the peak set to around -30db, and the main content was WAAAY below that. we'r talking pathetic job here, too quiet - so quiet that i ran my system at %100 volume and it wasnt loud but i could hear the electrical buzz from having all that gain up over the dvd.

 

i ripped the dvd into an aif file expecting the worst. i got a little tiny waveform that looked almost like a track recorded in a daw with no signal. this is the entire dvd folks.

 

i normalized it and ended up compressing it a little due to rogue peaks and got it up to an aceptable level. it sounds great now! the information was still somehow stored in that little tiny waveform in a little tiny AC3 file.

 

i dont know how dolby does it, but they are definately on to something with this ac3 codec.

[FrankieP]

For PC users, you can use DVD Audio Ripper .

[not Cereal]

but its not free, its $30

[thisDude]

I get most of my samples via DVD> digital out> spdif, and yes, it can be very time consuming for transfering entire concerts. But, when you're looking for that perfect sample, sometimes just letting your rig loop hard right and the spdif in play hard left magically synchs up with that perfect fit.