February 2009

There were 25 posts published in February 2009 (this is page 2 of 2).

A Time When Chain Letters Were Fun

When writing Bash scripts I often use the Advanced Bash-Scripting Guide for reference. By now I've probably browsed through almost every chapter in the guide, that is except one: Recess Time. The chapter never seemed to apply to what I was looking for at the time, so I never bothered to look at it -- until today.

There, I discovered this fun piece:

Fellow Linux user, greetings! You are reading something which
will bring you luck and good fortune. Just e-mail a copy of
this document to 10 of your friends. Before making the copies,
send a 100-line Bash script to the first person on the list
at the bottom of this letter. Then delete their name and add
yours to the bottom of the list.

Don't break the chain! Make the copies within 48 hours.
Wilfred P. of Brooklyn failed to send out his ten copies and
woke the next morning to find his job description changed
to "COBOL programmer." Howard L. of Newport News sent
out his ten copies and within a month had enough hardware
to build a 100-node Beowulf cluster dedicated to playing
Tuxracer. Amelia V. of Chicago laughed at this letter
and broke the chain. Shortly thereafter, a fire broke out
in her terminal and she now spends her days writing
documentation for MS Windows.

Don't break the chain! Send out your ten copies today!

It gave me a few laughs and made me realize that a time probably existed when chain letters were actually fun to read!

Instant Word Definitions on the NYTimes Website

The New York Times has a great website. One feature I accidentally discovered today (although I believe it has existed for several months) allows you to select any word from within an article and bring up the definition of the word. The feature uses this Javascript to place a little question mark icon next to the word when you select it:

New York Times Dictionary Lookup

Clicking the question mark opens a new window with the definition and even an encyclopedia entry (if one exists) using a Reference Search powered by Answers.com.

Some would argue (and I would tend to agree) that such a feature should be left to be implemented in a browser extension. Never the less, it's a really cool feature and it reminded me how much of an effect technology is having on print publications. Just think, 20 years ago reading the newspaper and instantly getting the definition of a word by selecting it would have been science fiction.

Introducing my New Tech Blog: Solid State Raam

For quite some time now, I've been meaning to set up a blog dedicated to technology. Well today, after writing a long detailed post about ripping DVDs, I realized that I had procrastinated long enough. I already had a domain picked out and the famous 5-minute WordPress install meant I couldn't use set up time as an excuse.

When I started searching for a suitable theme to use on the new site, I quickly recognized the black-hole-for-time that process becomes and that it would probably put me back into the procrastination phase. So for now I'm just using a (slightly modified) default theme. OK, now the only thing missing to get this blog going was action.

With all that said, I pull the trigger and introduce Solid State Raam, a blog that will feature my explorations (and exploitations) of the digital world. The first post, Ripping and Converting DVDs to MPEG-4 on Mac OS X, is exactly the type of post I would hesitate to post on this blog for lack of "personality".

While I talk a lot about technology in this blog, I feel that the long detailed tutorial-type posts are out of place. This is my personal blog and the raw posts on technology feel a little too impersonal. Don't get me wrong, I will still talk about technology here; technology is a huge part of my life and if I stopped talking about it I would probably have very little to say!

For the most part you won't notice very much change here. If anything, I may start expressing my opinion more and talking more about the non-technology things that interest me -- both of which I feel an increasing urge to do. 🙂

Ripping and Converting DVDs to MPEG-4 on Mac OS X

I've been converting a lot of my DVDs to MPEG-4 recently. The process is much easier than I always imagined, so I decided to explain the procedures I use here. All of this is done on my Mac, so the directions are somewhat Mac-specific. That said, HandBrake (the main application used in this process) is open-source and available on Windows and Linux. You should be able to find MacTheRipper-equivalents for Windows and Linux (and if you know of some, please mention them in the comments!).

Download & Install Software

  1. Download MacTheRipper (v2.6.6 is listed on that site but I'm using v3.0. Search BitTorrent for the newer version if you're interested.)
  2. Download HandBrake (I'm using v0.9.3)
  3. Install the above applications

Rip the DVD Using MacTheRipper (what an awesome name!)

  1. Insert the DVD
  2. OS X will automatically start playing the DVD. Press CMD+Q to quit the application.
  3. Launch MacTheRipper (and be careful he doesn't hurt you)

    4. MacTheRipper

  4. Leave the default options and select File -> Save To...
  5. Create a new directory to temporarily store the raw contents of the DVD and select it
  6. Click Open. MacTheRipper will automatically start ripping the raw contents of the DVD to the directory you selected
  7. When the ripping finishes, quit MacTheRipper

Convert the Raw DVD Data to MPEG-4 Using HandBrake

  1. Launch HandBrake (don't break your hand)
  2. Upon launching, you should be presented with the Open dialog. You want to select the directory to which you ripped the DVD using MacTheRipper. Note: Select the directory that contains the VIDEO_TS directory, but not VIDEO_TS directory itself! The other directories contain important data, such as AUDIO_TS for audio data.
  3. Click Open and HandBrake will scan the various titles in the raw data. When finished, you'll be left with the main HandBrake screen

    4. HandBrake Main Screen

  4. The correct title should already be selected and it should be the longest one in the list. If it's a 2-hour DVD, you don't want to select the title that says 1 minute. There may be lots of short titles mixed in and these may be extras on the DVD or previews.
  5. After you've selected the correct title, choose browse and select a location where you want to save the converted video. After selecting the location, you can change the filename or leave the default. I like to store various bits of information in the video filename, such as the year the video was released, whether it's widescreen or full screen, and the codec and audio formats. For example:

    Gattaca.1997.WS.DVDRip.XviD.AC3.avi

  6. Now select the format. I usually choose AVI for the best compatibility.
  7. For video codec, choose "MPEG-4 (XviD)"
  8. Next to "Quality:", select "Target size (MB)" and use the following guidelines. I like to retain as much of the quality as possible, so I follow these rules. Remember, the higher the file size, the better the quality. If you don't care so much about quality or don't have lots of free space, you can just use 700MB for DVDs. I use 1400MB for DVDs, and smaller sizes for TV/Documentary or episodic movies.

    Here are the sizes I use depending on the length of the movie or episode:

    175MB (20-30 mins)
    350MB (40-55 mins)
    1400MB (90 min+), also known as 2CD quality

  9. Click the "Audio & Subtitles" tab
  10. Choose the best audio source quality available. Sometimes the DVD will contain 6-Channel 5.1 audio, but it won't be selected by default.
  11. If it's available, select "AC3 Passthru" under "Audio Codec".

    12. HandBrake Audio Settings

  12. With everything configured, click Start. If you're converting a DVD that is a collection of shorter movies (like the Outer Limits DVD I'm ripping in the example), you can simply click "Add to Queue", repeat the above process for each of the titles, and then click Start when everything is queued up. If you plan to do this though, you should definitely convert at least one episode first to make sure it comes out correct.

Depending on the speed of your computer, the quality, and the length of the movie you're converting, this process could take anywhere from 30 minutes to 3 hours.

When HandBrake finishes, try watching the resulting AVI and make sure it plays correctly (with sound and all). If you're not happy, delete it and repeat the process again. Once you're happy with the AVI, you can delete the raw data that you ripped earlier with MacTheRipper (it takes up 6-7GB of space!).