Sunday, February 24, 2008

Converting Video and Audio

This is going to be an ongoing article as I try and locate the best free tools for the job.
Good general reference site is Afterdawn, and their forums

Ok firsts.
Copy/ Backup DVD
DVDShrink is an invaluable tool for compressing and copying and backing up DVD's to a directory on your pc. It can copy full DVD, or you can remaster the contents and remove copyright protection notices/ menus/ trailers etc.
There's a handy guide on MrBass

Some newer DVD's have copy protection which DVDShrink can't handle, then DVDDecrypter can sometimes help. If you want to burn the result onto a backup DVD (instead of just storing it on your pc) you probably will still need to run DVDShrink on the ripped files to reduce them enough to fit on your backup DVD. (Unless your DVD burner can burn multi layer)

Burning Images
ISOBurn for buringn images

Video Converting formats

handbrake. This si a great tool (oringally only on Mac, but on Windows and Linux now), for ripping dvd's to mp4, or H264 formats. Doesn't convert formats from what I can see

Super tool for convert all sorts of types

Audio

Switch is a tool. I've just tried to convert 3 mp4's. Converted for 2 of them, didn't work on one.
  • wav (PCM, ADPCM+, aLaw+, uLaw+, and others)
  • mp3 (MPEG Layer 3)
  • mp2+ (MPEG Layer 2)
  • mpga+ (MPEG Audio)
  • au
  • aif/aiff
  • gsm
  • dct
  • vox
  • raw
  • ogg
  • flac
  • amr
  • wma*
  • wmv*
  • aac* (not aacPlus)
  • m4a*
  • mid+
  • act/rcd/rec+ (newer version of format not supported)
  • rm / ra / ram+
  • dvf+ (Not all dvf recorders are supported)
  • msv+ (Not all msv recorders are supported)
  • dss+ (SP Mode only)
  • sri+
  • shn+
  • cda+
  • mov !
  • avi+
  • mpg/mpeg+
  • .m3u+^
  • .pls+^
to any of the following

  • wav (PCM, ADPCM+, aLaw+, uLaw+, and others, see here)
  • mp3
  • au
  • aif/aiff
  • gsm
  • vox
  • raw
  • ogg
  • flac
  • .rss
  • .m3u^
  • .pls^
  • .wpl
  • .amr+
  • aac+
  • m4a+
  • wma+
  • .mov!