DVD ripping
This is the script I use to rip DVDs to mpeg4 with aac audio for playback on my PS3 and Neuros Link.
#!/bin/sh
echo input the DVD title :
read TITLE
echo input the track number :
read TRACK
# 128 is the standard english audio, may want to check this
AID="-aid 128"
# make a file name without spaces
#FILE=`echo $TITLE | tr '[[:blank:][:punct:]]' '_'`
FILE=`echo $TITLE | tr -d '[:punct:]' | tr '[:blank:]' '_'
# probably needs some error checking here
echo rip info : $TRACK $AID
echo encode info : $TITLE $FILE
#--- get the raw data from the DVD
time mencoder dvd://$TRACK -oac copy -ovc copy $AID -o no_idx.avi
#--- fix any index problems
time mencoder -forceidx no_idx.avi -oac copy -ovc copy -o input.avi
#---- make the mpeg4 with aac, just fix the title and filename
time ffmpeg -y -i input.avi -target ntsc-dvd \
-acodec aac -vcodec mpeg4 -f mp4 -title "$TITLE" $FILE.mp4
corrupt bytes and cropping
If you get video corruption at the beginning of a DVD rip use "-bs 4" this tells it to skip 4 bytes.
mencoder dvd://1 -oac copy -ovc copy -o input.avi -bs 4
If you want to crop the video ( some stuff has letterbox style black bars that can be removed ). Cropping can screw up the aspect ratio for playback on some players ( the PS3 has problems with most standard movie croppings ).
mplayer dvd://1 -vf cropdetect -ss 50
This will output the -vf command to do the cropping for you, just add it to the mencoder command when you rip, or mplayer when you play. When using mencoder with "-oac copy" the cropping will not work, since it is a direct copy of the video stream.