Movie transcode with Linux how-to

[srart]

cd ~/Spinn_Movies

dvdbackup -F -i /dev/sr0

cd $MOVIE_TITLE

mplayer dvd://1 -chapter 3 -vf cropdetect #then use -vf crop=#:#:#:# on next line

###############################################
# You may need to erase the first VOB in the VIDEO_TS folder, if the avi #
# two steps down plays the menu and exits, that is probably the issue #
###############################################

cat VIDEO_TS/*VOB |nice -+19 mencoder -oac copy -o /dev/null -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4:vbitrate=1000:vhq:vpass=1:vqmin=2:vqm ax=31 -vf crop=$FROM:PREVIOUS,scale=480:272 -

cat VIDEO_TS/*VOB |nice -+19 mencoder -oac copy -o $MOVIE_TITLE.avi -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4:vbitrate=1000:vhq:vpass=2:vqmin=2:vqm ax=31 -vf crop=$FROM:PREVIOUS,scale=480:272 -

gmplayer $MOVIE_TITLE.avi #to make sure it works so far, this will play on the #spinn, but it is rather large ~1.2gb for a 110 min movie

nice -+19 ffmpeg -i $MOVIE_TITLE.avi -metadata title="movie title nice" -an -pass 1 -b 300k -ss 25 -f mp4 -y /dev/null #-ss is how many seconds to skip

nice -+19 ffmpeg -i $MOVIE_TITLE.avi -acodec libfaac -ac 2 -ab 128k -metadata title="$movie_tile_nice" -pass 2 -b 300k -ss 25 -f mp4 -y $MOVIE_TITLE.mp4

#copy to the SPINN
#check that it works
move $MOVIE_TITLE to ~/Spinn_Movies
rm -r $MOVIE_TITLE #to delete the folder

[CrowdAds]

[meetooman]

I do a lot of scripting on Linux, still I find your commands scary !
I am so afraid of VOB files that I only use mplayer's dump function to extract video:

mplayer -slang en -dumpstream -dumpfile "dvdmovie.mpg" dvd://3

In this example, the movie is the DVD title 3. Then I have some bash programs to convert movies from the "raw" mpeg2 file to any other A/V file format.

[elfakyn]

You can also install Avidemux and use the following settings:
* Format: AVI
* Audio: MP3 (Filters: Mixer Stereo)
* Video: MPEG-4 ASP (Filters: mplayer resize 480x[height])
To calculate the height of the video, use the following formula:
new_height = height / width * 480
press "save" and it should take under 15 minutes (depending on your system)