Tammy Camp

DVD Audio Ripper For Mac – How To Extract DVD Audio & Convert To Audio CD or MP3

Posted on 08. May, 2009 by Tammy Camp in Audio, Mac, Technology

I have a confession to make.

My favorite birthday memory of all time is NOT time spent with family. It’s not even a great gift I received.

It was the year I successfully extracted the audio from U2 – Rattle and Hum and burned it onto an audio CD.

I had prayed for this for years, and I knew it had to be possible because it was just a matter of converting digital formats, but I had no clue how the hell to do it. But hearing the final product play gave me an intense high that Thomas Edison must have felt when he finally put together the working light bulb.

U2’s Rattle And Hum film, to quote an anonymous Amazon review, has “definitive live versions of several songs ONLY on this film,” including Sunday Bloody Sunday (with Bono’s furious “Fuck The Revolution” speech the day of the Enniskillen bombing), Where The Streets Have No Name (with the insanely epic intro), Bad (with the Rolling Stones snippets), and With Or Without You (with the solo and extra verse), none of which are on any officially released CD.

Lance Armstrong (via Twitter) recently declared it “seriously badass” and “highly recommended.”

In my opinion, it’s their true Greatest Hits, capturing the band live in their heyday as they dominated the late 1980s. And being able to finally hear it at will, whether in my car or on my iPod, makes life much, much better.

So what about you?

Do you have a great live concert or stand-up comedy DVD that you want to listen to in your car, but can’t because it was never released on CD?

Do you want to capture your favorite musical on your iPod in its uncut glory because the CD soundtrack doesn’t cut it?

Do you want to make a dent in your queue of marketing DVD trainings by listening to them on the go instead of sitting down and watching them?

For Mac users, you have a couple of options.

You can pay $25 for a program like DVD Audio Ripper for Mac that’s super-fast and customizable.

Or you can do it yourself with 2 free programs in about an hour.

Since the former approach needs no explanation, let’s focus on the latter.

What You Need

• A decent computer running at least OS 10.4 with a DVD-ROM drive (CD-burner optional)
• About 2 GB free on your hard drive per DVD ripped. (You can always delete the original files and free up 95% of that space for later but you’ll need it to upload the files).
• OSEx for Mac (DVD Ripper, copies DVD raw audio files called .VOB and converts to .AC3)
  - FREE
• MPEG Streamclip (Audio converter, from .AC3 to .AIFF) – FREE
• iTunes (Converts from .AIFF to .MP3)

INSTRUCTIONS

Once you download and install the 2 programs, put in your DVD and run OSEx.

Using 0SEx (estimated time = 20 – 30 minutes)

OSEx UI

*Turn off your Airport (or other) Wireless Card and shut off as many background applications as you can. This will free up the machine’s resources to focus only on ripping the DVD, which will make the process faster and the results more accurate.

Leave the following on default settings:

Ti = Title (Default, main feature selected)
Ch = Chapters (Default, all selected)
An = Angle (Default, angle 1 selected)

Change the following settings:

Vid = Video Streams
UNCHECK #1, which is checked by default. We don’t need any video streams, just audio.

Aud = Audio Streams
ONLY leave the 2-channel (2ch) audio stream checked; this is normal stereo. UNCHECK the 6-channel (6ch) audio stream; this is surround sound and unusable for our purposes.

Sub = Subtitles
UNCHECK all subtitles; not needed.

Fmt = Format
CHECK “Elem. Streams,” which is the SECOND choice from the top; this converts DVD audio files (.VOB) into AC3 streams, thus saving us an entire step. (The default choice, “Prog. Streams” on top means leaves the .VOB files as they are and would require an extra program and step to complete the process.)

Seg = Segment
CHECK “Chapter,” which is the SECOND choice from the top; this uses the DVD chapters so you don’t have to manually split one giant file into 20 smaller ones by eyeballing it. The default choice on top is “Title,” which leaves the entire Title feature as one enormous AC3 file.

Then click “BEGIN.” You’ll have to choose a name and directory, and I recommend leaving it on the Desktop.

Since we unchecked all the unnecessary junk, the AC3 file should take up about 150 MB instead of 4 GB.

Using MPEG Streamclip (estimated time = 15 minutes)

File menu > Open Files…

Find the AC3 file for the first DVD chapter in the directory, presumably on the Desktop.  If you can’t select it because it’s grayed out, then change the option from “Video Files” only to either “All Files” or “Audio Files” so you can select it.  Then click “Open.”

Click File > Export Audio…

Choose either AIFF or MP3 and then OK.

Personally, I prefer to leave them as AIFF for now so I can burn them onto a CD at the highest quality possible or back them up before converting them into lower quality MP3.

You’ll have to do this MPEG Streamclip step for each AC3 file you have, one at a time.  Sorry that part’s a repetitive pain, but it’s really not that bad: it’s 15 tedious minutes for a lifetime of enhanced enjoyment.

The AIFF files can take up to 1.5 GB of extra hard drive space.

Now you can import the files into iTunes and burn the CD or convert to MP3 or any other supported audio file. You’ll have to insert the Artist, Album, and Name tags manually, but again, it’s not that difficult.

Burning From iTunes (estimated time = 10 minutes)

As I said before, burn the CD in AIFF quality BEFORE you downgrade the quality to MP3, because once you lose the AIFF’s you can’t get them back without starting over from the very beginning.

When burning the CD, I always recommend using “Disc-At-Once” (DAO) mode instead of “Track-At-Once” (TAO) because DAO allows you to play the songs “gaplessly” with no silence, clicks, or pops between the tracks. This is especially important in a live DVD recording.

Here’s 2 steps to make sure that happens correctly.

1. Highlight All Tracks And Mark Them As A “Gapless” Album
Highlight all the tracks, and go to “Get Info” by either Ctrl-clicking or on the File drop-down menu. It may ask if you want to edit the info of several songs at once; click yes.

In the “Multiple Item Information” window, you should see an “Options” tab all the way on the right next to “Sorting.” Click on it, and on the bottom check “Gapless album: Yes.”

Gapless Album

2. When Burning, Choose “Gap Between Songs: none”

Gapless Burning

Converting AIFF Files To MP3 (estimated time = 10 minutes)

If you prefer Apple’s proprietary AAC format, feel free to use that. But I recommend MP3 because it is accepted as the compatible standard by a wider variety of audio players than any other format.

• Go to iTunes > Preferences > Import Settings.
• For Import Using, select MP3 Encoder. For Setting, select Custom…
• For Stereo Bit Rate, select 256 kbps, then underneath check “Use Variable Bit Rate Encoding” and click OK.
• Select all songs to convert.  Then, Go to Advanced > Create MP3 Version, and you’ll have a duplicate copy of each AIFF file in MP3 format.  This will save up space if you want to store it on your iPod.

And now you’re done. Congratulations! Enjoy your soundtrack like you’ve never been able to before.

(And then go ahead and delete the AC3 files and the AIFF files to save space on your hard drive for the next DVD audio rip.)

Tags: Audio, Entertainment, Mac, Technology