Ripping from VCDs

Madzack · Post by **Madzack** » Mon Jun 23, 2003 4:57 am

Can VCDs be ripped? How different are they from ripping DVDs?

Kai Stromler · Post by **Kai Stromler** » Mon Jun 23, 2003 8:00 am

[should be in Video Help]

VCDs are incredibly easy to rip. Just copy the .dat file(s) to your harddrive and rename to .mpg. Convert this to .avi with Virtual Dub if you need it in that format.

This being said, VCDs are MPEG-1 with a bitrate ceiling of around 1400 Kbps, so you really shouldn't use them unless you have NOTHING else to work from.

HTH,

--K

DJ_Izumi · Post by **DJ_Izumi** » Mon Jun 23, 2003 10:35 pm

Yes. VideoCD's are extreamly simple. Look on the CD, in the folder with very large 'DAT' files. Those are the mpeg files. Rename the extension from DAT to Mpeg, and away you go. There are some extra RIFF flags threw out the files, but these have little effect on most software. There are programs you can download to remove the unwanted padding, but that shouldn't be needed unless it's an extream case.

SuperVideoCDs on the otherhand, are a different story. You'll need SVCD2AVI or something like that, a program that hosts the Mpeg as a RAW AVI file, similar to how Virtual Dub serves video files as raw AVI's. But that can be a rather laggy processed.

Kai Stromler · Post by **Kai Stromler** » Tue Jun 24, 2003 7:06 am

wrt SVCD....not really. SVCD uses MPEG2 (at the bizarre resolution of 480x480 for picture quality/compression reasons), so you can just find the largest files on the disc (they tend to be hidden in a somewhat complex directory structure), copy to your HD, and rename as .mpg if necessary.

Then you can just import into VDub or whatever using AviSynth as you'd do with a .vob, but probably with some extra tweaking in the script to expand the horizontal dimension out to something a little more normal.

Max bitrate on SVCD is about 2200 Kbps, and it's MPEG2, so it's approximately comparable to a lower-end DVD. And since it's such a niche format outside China, I'm not sure why anyone'd be working from it for AMV uses.

--K

DJ_Izumi · Post by **DJ_Izumi** » Tue Jun 24, 2003 7:16 am

There's a lot of extra data tossed into an SVCD's padding stream, simply renaming the DATs on an SVCD will not make them readable. All players will sream 'dgsgsdgdgs!!! NARF!!!' and vomit on you. You need a middle program like DVD2AVI just to make it readable by any other software first.

And 480x480 isn't that weird really. I've encoded DVD files that are 352x480 (No, that's not a typo). There are a lot of accepted resulutions that are standardized for DVD that are not commonly used. The software is smart enough to stretch out the video. Since horozontal lines effect the resultion more drasticly then vertical ones. Actually, you can't notice the difference between 352x480 and 720x480 on an NTSC televison. Its only you notice it's a but more blurry on a higher def monitor, like a computer monitor or HDTV.

Kai Stromler · Post by **Kai Stromler** » Tue Jun 24, 2003 7:32 am

hm. There must be some wiggle room in the standard, because I've encoded compliant SVCDs with independently playable MPEG2 files. So perhaps SVCD should be stamped YMV for ripping purposes.

Then again, SVCD is barely used outside China for professionally authored material, so its use in AMV is almost a moot point. It's eminently possible that more SVCDs have been burned for distribution of AMVs than have been ripped or captured to make them.

I'd been aware of the 352x480 resolution for DVDs, but I'm not sure that I've run across any encoded as such.

--K

DJ_Izumi · Post by **DJ_Izumi** » Tue Jun 24, 2003 7:35 am

Lots of anime gets put onto SVCDs though. I have the Vandread First Stage SVCD set that E-F put out. (Out directly to SVCD, not converted from Divx to SVCD) And by the way, E-F put fucking EMOTICONS in their subs for that one. GAWD!

Are those mpegs you played back, we're they played back before you put them on the disk, or ripped off and then played?