Getting Ripped DVD Video and Audio Into Encore

Question

Do you have previously authored DVDs that need rework?  Do you want to add menus with greater impact and functionality?  Do you want to add some additional program or supplemental material?  Does a client want their product demo DVD to be updated to reflect the capabilities of the new and improved version, but the source files no longer exist?  Using Adobe Encore DVD and a freeware utility called DVD Decrypter (DVDD), you can accomplish this quickly and easily.
Disclaimer: I do not support the illegal copying and/or distribution of copyrighted works.  The authors and distributors of the software I use have made it clear that they do not support illegal copying.  This guide is intended solely to assist you in ripping and copying DVD video to which you have the legal rights.  Any use of this guide to infringe the copyright of someone else’s intellectual property is prohibited.
This guide is based on Adobe Encore DVD 1.5.1 and DVD Decrypter version 3.5.4.0.  Let’s Begin!
Place the DVD to be ripped in your DVD drive and launch DVDD.  If you have more than one drive (e.g., a DVD-ROM and a DVD burner) make sure the one with the disc is selected in the Source dropdown list in the main program window.  Now we need to set up DVDD to extract video in a way that is “Encore friendly”.  This is the toughest part of the whole exercise.  Click on the Tools menu item and choose “Settings…”. 
Settings
General Tab: You can leave these set at their defaults if you like.  Personally, I specify a custom Default Destination.  I put my ripped video assets all in one place anyway, and having a default destination means I have one less thing to do when I rip a DVD.
IFO Mode Tab: Make sure that “Select Main Movie PGC” and “Enable Stream Processing” are checked.  “Uncheck Suspect Cells” is probably a good default safety check.  If your hard disks are formatted as NTFS, set File Splitting to “None”.  I leave “Copy IFO File” checked with the default sub-items checked.  Make sure that “Patch M2V Timecode” is unchecked.  The items in the Create Additional Files section are purely optional.  The author of DVDD has been kind enough to list which programs need which files; notice that Encore DVD isn’t listed as needing any of these extra files.  I do keep the “Stream Information” box checked.  DVDD generates very informative file names, but I like to keep “Include PGC Number” under File Names checked.  Be advised you will get some lengthy file names after DVDD is finished ripping.
Stream Processing Tab: Since we enabled stream processing in the IFO Mode tab, we need to tell DVDD how to process those streams.  To save yourself time and confusion later, check the “Convert PCM to WAV” box.  Earlier versions of Encore required a Demuxed audio stream and a Raw video stream.  Encore 1.5.1 can accept either type of video stream (Raw or Demuxed) but it does still require a Demuxed audio stream.  However, I still recommend using Raw video and Demuxed audio, if only because it seems to be somewhat faster to process in DVDD.  This workflow is also backward-compatible with earlier versions of Encore.
So let’s set up the Stream Processing tab now.  In the Demux box, enter “0x8? 0xA? 0xC?”.  This ensures that all audio streams in the selected PGC, whether AC3, PCM or MPEG will be set to Demux.  In the Raw box, enter “0xE0”.  This ensures that the video from the selected PGC will be set to Raw.  
Additional Notes about the Stream Processing Tab:
1. For those of you asking the question, “What the heck is a PGC?” it’s just DVD-speak for the titles in a DVD project.  And I’m not talking about the opening or end credits, either; I’m talking about the titles that result, for example, from the timelines you create in an Encore DVD project.  There is a subtle difference between a PGC and a VTS (title set), but that's not important right now.
2. Happily, recent versions of DVDD create a WAV file after ripping that will import directly into Encore.  Versions prior to 3.2.0.0 would create a WAV file that had to be imported to, and exported from, a sound editing program like Adobe Audition, Goldwave or SoundForge before Encore would recognize it.
Events Tab: For convenience sake, I recommend setting “Set Program Mode” in the Startup section to “IFO”.  That way, whenever you launch DVDD, it will look familiar to you.  You may safely ignore all of the other tabs in the Settings dialog. 
Ripping
1.Under the Input Tab of the main program window, select the PGC you want to rip.  You can only do one at a time.
2.Switch to the Stream Processing Tab.  Verify that Enable Stream Processing is checked.
3.Check or uncheck any or all of the video and audio streams that are listed.  Highlight each one to verify that all audio streams are set to Demux and the video stream is set to Raw.
4.If you didn’t select Default Destination in the General Settings Tab, then you need to tell DVDD where to put the ripped files now.
5.Click on the big DVD-to-Disk icon.
6.DVDD will announce, quite loudly, when it has finished.  At that point you can rename the files or import them as is into Encore.
I hope you find this guide useful and that it helps you get the most out of your investment in Adobe Encore DVD.
Guide © Jeff Bellune 2005

Answer 1

OK, I can't tell you what we are doing, you'll have to trust me that it's for a very good cause. I'll simplify the use case as an example. If I can do the following we'll be OK:
1) Read video/audo files from a DVD that we created
2) Open these files with the QuickTime Player, click on Export to Apple TV to create an output file.
I'd rather not do an interim conversion of the video data (like use a 3rd party app to convert to mp4 first and then read into QT, but I'm considering a conversion to DV) because that could seriously hurt the apps effectiveness. I also can't use another app (MPEG Streamclip, HandBrake, VisualHub, etc.) to do the conversion.