1. Dirty DVD to AVI This is my shorthand guide to go Disc to AVI. Store the originals, play the encoded videos. Rundown and components: ROM Drive (DVD in my case) DRM removal and Rip VOBs to HDD Port VOBs to AVIs (and merge output files) Optionally, Kino can be used for editing. MythTV is a good tool if using a capture card (analog Netflix, etc)

2. Ripping Source Media Boot OS for Ripping. Windows 7 and DVDFab in my case. For TV Series, you'll want to select each episode per correct VOB length. Rip VOBs to NTFS volume. Exit Windows, Nix Time.

3. Nix Mencoder Booting up your disto, get ready to Mencoder those VOBs. I'll like Xvid output to AVI. Related packages you want are: - Mencoder, FFMPEG, and related packages (Optional) Kino, MythTV. Time is precious, so I do these by bash processing files like so: cd /media/BeatsPlus/Vobs/01_ToddS01D01/S01EP01/MainMovie/TODD_AND_TH E_BOOK_OF_EVIL_S1/VIDEO_TS mencoder 'VTS_01_1.VOB' -ovc xvid -xvidencopts bitrate=1800 -o '/media/BeatsPlus/Vobs/Todd and the Book of Pure Evil - S01EP01.avi' -oac mp3lame -lameopts abr:br=192 -sid 1000 Great. Let that process. My P4 did about 25 FPS, Core i5 2500K does 90-120+ FPS. As I noted, batch these out for any related VOBs. I tend to see Movies span 3 to 5 VOBs. I label these output AVIs “Name – 1 of x.avi) as shown in TV Sample Sample VOB to AVI command saved in text file. Executed via time saving: bash batch1.go

4. Merge Output Files Multi-file outputs, let's combine them to one Video AVI. Let's make this a batch to bash too. Work here, but the merge is vastly faster than raw VOB conversion to AVIs. cd /media/BeatsPlus/Vobs/NoEM01/MainMovie/NIGHTMARE_ON_ELM_STREET/VI DEO_TS mencoder 'VTS_01_1.VOB' -ovc xvid -xvidencopts bitrate=1800 -o 'NoEM01 1 of 4.avi' -oac mp3lame -lameopts abr:br=192 -sid 1000 (Repeat Similar for each of (in this case) 4 VOBs) mencoder -oac copy -ovc copy 'NoEM01 1 of 4.avi' 'NoEM01 2 of 4.avi' 'NoEM01 3 of 4.avi' 'NoEM01 4 of 4.avi' -o '/media/BeatsPlus/Vobs/NoEM01.avi' The last line of batch will merge the output files as one. The second string runs the AVI make, as shown in last slide. CD path is DVD VOB location on HDD. Similar File paths are great for bulk conversions.

5. Optional Edits The last slide gave you a functional AVI file. Watch your encode to verify good encode. If you wish to manually edit a clip or merge some cumbersome files, fire up Kino. gksu kino from a terminal. This will give you progress on imports and any error debug info. I also use kino for editing of MythTv capture card rips. You can output to AVI from Kino, or export a raw VOB and meconder it manually, using your codec choices.

6. Myth TV Captures Optionally, one might want to encode some rips from your capture card. Netflix streams from a console or streaming device may be in your interests. Analog Wii streams are a thing you may want. Down and dirty, open the MythTv rip in Kino. This will likely have you wanting to remove filler from the video rip. As with the previous Kino slide, export your AVI from Kino, or save as VOB and batch via Mencoder. Extremely handy for hard to find movies, good for subtitle rips as well. Thank you. Fin and Good Game :)