Does anyone know if it is technically possible to rip a chapter (ex: a music video) bit for bit and save it to a DVD R or RW to play back on a DVD player? (I realize I would need a DVD player which can play DVD R/RW.) I have used all the software referenced in the forums, and find that the quality is excellent, but not perfect ... I'm looking for a perfect copy of a chapter (ie: if I freeze the original while playing, I see no distortion of pixels ... but when I play the copy, the copy has some distortion in some parts -- though the distortion is less noticeable at regular play speed). I think what's happening is that when the avi is being generated (DVD2AVI), it is not a perfect encoding of the original vob, but I'm not sure as I'm fairly new to all of this.

By the way, DVDXCopy, which I have tested in the same manner produces a perfect copy of an entire DVD, but only for the entire DVD, not for one chapter (there's no option in the software to do this).

Both SmartRipper and DVDDecrytor can rip out one chapter from the DVD, just Un-select all the others except the one you want. They can also de-mux the vob file to *.mpv and *.ac3 while ripping it, then just author these in Spruceup, Maestro, etc and burn.

Thanks. I have used DVDDecrypter and easily ripped selected chapters, but when I produce the AVI via DVD2AVI and then encode with DivX 5 Pro, the picture quality is good (played on a big screen), but definitely not a duplicate (ie: it's not IDENTICAL in quality to the orginal, which DVDXCopy seems to have mastered -- theirs looks like a bit copier version -- it is absolutely perfect).

Are you suggesting that I should use something other than DVD2AVI and DivX 5 for these processes? If so, please let me know which to use and when. Thanks again. I'm trying to learn.

Hey buddy,which DVDXCopy version are you refering to?

Converting a DVD to DivX will ALWAYS result in a drop of quality.

To view a DivX on the TV screen involves TV Out from the PC (digital DVD converted to analogue Composite or S-Video signal or even worse converted to UHF signal). Yes I know there are a couple of DVD Players that can play DivX, but the other 99.999% of people cant.

What I mentioned above was to retain the DVD video and burn using a DVD burner to DVD format. No conversion of data so would end up with EXACTLY the same quality as the original DVD. DVDxCopy does the same thing, it just copies the DVD so of course it will be the same quality pic.

If your DVD Player can playback miniDVD (a DVD format but burnt to CDR/W) and the clip is under 13min, then that can also be an option.

Thanks. That's right, I do want to burn from DVD format to DVD format so I can play it on a DVD player and watch on a TV. Not to be too thick here, but what you're saying is that there is no way (other than through DVDXCopy -- which makes an identical copy but which won't allow me to copy selected chapters) to produce a copy of a DVD chapter with quality identical to the original?

Since my objective is to be able to play a mix of DVD videos from various DVDs but retain the original quality, it sounds like my only option at this point is to buy a DVD multi-disc player with capabilities to program in selected chapters.

No thats not what I'm saying. As I said previously, SmartRipper etc can rip out the exact chapter you want in original DVD quality. If you also turn on De-mux mode, it will also rip it to a Video *.mpv and audio *.ac3 streams. These streams are needed to then Author to a new DVD and finally burn. Absolutely NO re-encoding needed and no drop in quality. The Chapter will be exactly as per the original.

Have a read of the AVI to DVDR tutorial on how to use ScruceUp to do the authoring.

Awesome! You really know your stuff. Thank You!! (I hate to admit that I've been at this for about 50 hours just to get this far, but I've sure learned a few things in the process.)

OK, tried all of it, and got a perfect result. I did try both SmartRipper and DVDDecrypter and got a *.mpv, but no matter what settings I seemed to use, I couldn't seem to create an audio file (originally LPCM on the DVD). To author, I need/prefer a .wav file, and it seemed that the only way I could get it was to rip the whole .vob file (video plus audio) as a separate pass in SmartRipper or DVDDecrypter, then use DVD2AVI to demux the .vob, which produced the LPCM .wav file. I then used the .mpv and .wav files in my authoring process.

There must be a simpler way to create the audio .wav file in the initial ripping process, but I couldn't get it to do so. Any ideas? Using SmartRipper, what settings under Stream Processing should I use? I checked off the video and audio tracks, tried it with demux to extra file, tried it with direct stream copy, etc.

PS, sorry I do get an audio file output, but it's not the 50+meg .wav LPCM version I'm looking for -- I seem to have to rip the full vob separately, then use DVD2AVI, save the file, which creates the 50+meg LPCM file.