Disclaimer: This tutorial is only to assist you in making legal backups of DVDs you own, or making your own movie into a VCD and is for informational purposes only. DigitallyCreated does not condone piracy and this tutorial should not be used to steal movies. DigitallyCreated cannot be held responsible for any illegal activies that become of this tutorial.
Author: Daniel Chambers

 

VCDs. What are they? What's a DVD then? These are very common questions for those who are starting out in the world of digital video. This tutorial will guide you through the steps of ripping a DVD, encoding it into the appropriate video format, chaptering it with PBC, and finally making the VCD discs themselves.

You will need various programs and tools at your disposal to follow this tutorial. I have tried to keep as many of them freeware (but still good) as I possibly can. Download and install the following programs to be ready. If the links have ceased to work please search on Google for them and you should find another link.

 

SmartRipper
Download: AfterDawn
SmartRipper is the program we will use to rip the DVD onto the computer. It is very good, regardless of it being freeware.

 

DVDx
Download: Digital-Digest
DVDx is a fantastic little encoding program that allows you to encode DVDs into almost whatever format you like. MPEG-1, MPEG-2, AVI with any codec you have installed, and fully tweakable, DVDx is an amazing program. And what's more; its free.

 

VCDwizard
Download: SourceForge
VCDwizard is another good program from the makers of DVDx. Its free and performs the configuration of the PBC instructions on the VCD for chaptering and the like.

 

Nero Burning ROM
Download Trial/Buy: Nero
Nero is a top-notch CD/DVD burning package that burns everything. Its not very good at taking images of CDs with copy-protection but it burns CDs very well. Unfortunately it is not freeware. There is a trial version but eventually you will have to buy it. I think buying it is well worth it. It is a good all round CD/DVD burning program.

The VCD burning part of this tutorial uses Nero Burning ROM to create the VCD and burn it. However if you do not skip the optional chaptering section of this tutorial you can burn the CD image created in that section with any CD image burning program.

 

Other Equipment
Obviously as we are ripping DVDs you will need a DVD drive in your computer, and you will need a program installed that plays DVD movies. Generally boxed DVD drives come with DVD playing software. Make sure you have a DVD movie playing software package installed.
You will also need a CD burner of some description and some 700MB/80 minute blank CDs to burn to. Also as you are ripping a DVD, a DVD movie on hand would also be useful.

VCDs are quite different from DVDs. Firstly a DVD is burned onto a DVD disc whereas a VCD is burned onto a normal CD. DVD's video is encoded in MPEG-2 format whereas VCDs only use MPEG-1. This can lead to lesser picture quality, but that's why they are selling DVDs not VCDs as the main format isn't it. The smaller file capacity of a CD versus a DVD also can limit the picture quality. The type of VCD that we will produce will play in most DVD players.
SuperVCDs (SVCDs) on the other hand, are like DVD in the fact that they use the better MPEG-2 compression which leads to a better picture quality, but SVCDs are known to be notoriously incompatable with many DVD players, and as such that's why we are doing VCDs not SVCDs.

A DVD needs to be ripped or copied to your computer before you can start the process of turning the DVD movie into a VCD. Actually, I lie. It doesn't have to be copied to the computer; you can convert it to a VCD directly off the DVD disc itself, but I, much like others, like to have my drive free so I can use it while I encode. If you want to encode directly off the disc skip to Part 2.

 

Rips are different from disc images in the fact that they are not images of the entire disc. Rips are only copying the video and audio streams of the section of DVD you specify. Be warned: rips of DVDs can be HUGE, sometimes in excess of 5GB. Make sure you have at least 7-8GB free.
DVDs have been encoded so that people cannot copy or rip them. Unfortuntely this stops you from making a backup copy of your DVD. But it is relatively easy to get around this encryption.

 

Open the program you use to play DVD movies and play the DVD. Get it to start the movie, then pause the playback. This disables the locking on the drive so you can rip the DVD.
Now open SmartRipper. You should see a textbox filling with information about scanning VOBs. VOBs are the video files of the DVD. Once it has finished, another dialog should appear. Look at the 'Title -> Program Chain -> Angle' tree list and SmartRipper should have selected the longest track on the DVD for ripping. DVDs are split into tracks, like a CD. The movie is a track, the menu is a track, the special features are tracks. The movie would naturally be the longest track.
Make sure the time next to the track that SmartRipper has selected is the length of the movie, or close to it. If not, select the appropriate track.

 

Now go down to the bottom of the dialog and click the little folder-with-a-magnifying-glass icon. Then locate the folder where you want to save the rip, and make sure that you save it with the default filename SmartRipper gives you. Make sure you have enough space on your hard-drive.

You are now ready to rip. Click the 'Start' button and a new dialog will appear showing the progress of the rip. Once it has completed, close SmartRipper and the DVD video player you opened.