Before the days of Divx, converting a DVD wasn’t such an easy job; several programs were needed and the final encoding process was painfully long. You would set it all up, click convert and then come back the following day. What you would end up with was a newly converted avi, mpeg4 etc. If you then wanted to put that converted file back onto a DVD, good luck. It may have been possible back then, yet the best I found was converting it to a VCD. Once in the VCD format a DVD player would read it. The problem with VCD was, firstly quality and secondly, if you had a movie over 700mb (the storage capacity of a CD) you then had to use two CD’s, and split the file…..again more time converting and recoding.

One of the best sites I found for converting, joining, splitting, resizing pretty much everything you could think of back then was Nicky’s Digital Digest. This site probably saved me hours of hiking through the web trying to work out what to do and which programs were best. Nicky presents his tutorials in a clean step by step approach. One of the only problems I found with the site from memory (this is 6 years ago or so) was getting hold of the same software being used (same versions manly) in the tutorial and broken links. Check out Nicky’s Digest here……. Writing this blog was the first time in years that I have been back to Nicky’s Digital Digest site, and not much has changed. It is still a very thorough and informative website which is certainly a must read for anyone wanting to find out about converting and manipulating video files.

Since the days of Dr Divx and the new Divx Converter, converting a full DVD to a neat and tidy Divx file is now a lot simpler; most new DVD players will now read Divx files which means you can now store upto 5 movies on one DVD.  

Steps to Convert a DVD to a Divx file.

Files needed: Smart Ripper and Divx Converter.

First you will need a DVD ripper. This is a program that breaks down the DVD into its core components. I have always used Smart Ripper. It’s a small free download and seems to work on most DVD’s. Smart Ripper is a self standing program, so there is no need to install it. DVD Decrypter is another excellent ripper. You can download both from our Free Stuff page.

To encode the DVD files I use the ever so easy Divx Converter. Although the you have to buy the package, you can download the Divx Installer which will install the Divx Player, Divx Web player, Divx Codec and a trial version of Divx converter. The trial divx converter lets you convert full movies for 30 days. If you decide to purchase the package it is well worth the money. 

Insert the DVD you want to encode. Double click the SmartRipper executable (that looks like a disc).

Smart Ripper executable file

More often than not Smart Ripper cannot read the DVD that is in the drive if you haven’t already played it. Playing the DVD seems to unlock it. You only have to literally open the DVD in your media player to unlock the DVD. I use PowerDVD to watch DVD’s on my computer.

Error message "cannot unlock files" Smart Ripper

The above image shows the error you may get, if you haven’t opened/ played the DVD with the DVD player on your computer. Once you have played the DVD, double click the Smart Ripper executable again. SmartRipper quickly analyzes the DVD and then presents you with the main screen.

Click the icon below the word “Target”, and choose where you want to save the ripped files too. When a DVD is ripped there are numerous files, so it is a good idea to create a new folder called “Daffy Duck DVD” for example and save the files to be ripped into it.

By default Smart Ripper picks only the main movie files and does not include the Director’s commentary, previews etc etc. If you want everything click the the “Files” icon and then click the word “All”.

When your ready click the “Start” button. SmartRipper will take about 5-10 minutes to rip a DVD depending on the speed of your computer.

Now that you have ripped your DVD, we have to convert it to Divx. If you haven’t installed Divx, install it now. Once the installation has finished you will have a Divx Converter icon on your dektop, along with a Divx Movies folder. Open the folder where you saved the ripped DVD and set the View to “Details”. See the below image. You should see a number of “VOB” type files consecutively numbered along with various other file types. On the right you can see the file sizes, now although the first VTS file is called “vts_01_0? this file is not a VOB type file and has no data you need. The first VOB file; in this example it is called “vts_01_1? .

Drag and drop the first VOB file to Divx Converter (which should be on your desktop).

A VOB file (Video Object) is a container format contained in DVD-Video media. VOB is based on MPEG-2 program stream format, but with additional limitations and specifications in the private streams. It contains the actual Video, Audio, Subtitle, and Menu contents in stream form.

Divx Converter will now analyze the VOB file and scan the folder from where it came (only takes a few seconds). When it is finished you will be presented with the Media Option screen. Divx Player can now read subtitles which is really handy for watching foreign files. Years ago it was a little more difficult to get a subtitle feed within your converted files, however the guys at Divx have solved that very nicely now.  If you would like to include subtitles with your Divx file click the check box to select the desired subtitle language.  Usually you can leave all the settings as is, however make sure the correct Audio Track is selected (English).

Click the first English track listed. In this example it is “English 5.1 Surround AC3 (Main)”.

Now click the “Output Settings” tab.

By default Divx will pick the Home Theater Profile (Output Profile). This will create a file approximately 1GB in size of nice quality, having a resolution of about 720×394, depending the the original aspect ratio of the DVD you have ripped. You can change the Width and Height by clicking Custom Resolution, and dragging the bars right or left to the required resolution.

Be careful though because changing these settings can mess up the screen size of the newly converted Divx film. Its a lot easier to use the profile settings (Certification Profile) which maintains the correct aspect ratio. If you want better quality pick HD 720p Profile or the HD 1080p Profile. The better the quality the larger the file size and the longer it takes to convert the file.

When your done click “OK”, then click the “Convert” button on the next screen you are presented with. Divx will now start the conversion process.

Depending on your computer the process will take about 4 hours. I am using an old Pentium 4 3.0ghz PC (overclocked to a very adventirous 3.14) and it will takes approximately 4 hours per film to encode. The newer Core Duo’s and Quad Core computers can do it in half the time. Also, don’t use your computer when it is encoding otherwise it will take longer to encode and probably drive you up the wall as the computer will run like a dog.

If you want to queue up numerous files to encode in a row, then once you have clicked “OK” (see above steps) after you have chosen your output profile don’t click the Convert button; return to the first step where you drag and drop the VOB file onto Divx Converter and start the process again…and that’s it.  Simple easy DVD conversion.  The media quality of the newly converted file is usually very good indeed.

If there are any error in this tutorial please let me know.