UNOFFICIAL Rifftrax DVD Creating Step-by-Step Guide (Now With Rifftrax Lite)

[Moose]

If you know how to use VirtualDubMod (with AviSynth scripts), then ShowSMPTE should be what you're looking for.

If you are indeed unfamiliar with said program, it is pretty easy-to-use and won't take you long to learn with the help of a search engine.

[Chaos]

Ah RoninFox, you are too smart for me. You figured out exactly what it is I'm planning to do.

Moose, thank you for the link. I'll take a look at it when I have the chance and see if it is a useful program. In the interim, if anyone is interested, I wrote an Excel program to solve this problem for me by creating a subtitle file with the timestamp in it - basically, every second of the film, it displays a text timestamp that is equal to the current second of the film track... this way, you have the added advantage that you can also turn it off by disabling subtitles. It's a neat little trick I figured out... just get the VB script in Excel to create a timestamp entry like this:

1
00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:01,000
00:00:00

2
00:00:01,000 --> 00:00:02,000
00:00:01

3
00:00:02,000 --> 00:00:03,000
00:00:02

Then just copy all of that text, dump it into notepad, name the file subtitle.srt instead of .txt, and use your reauthoring software to insert it as a subtitle track (I set mine to the default track and program the DVD to play that subtitle by default, but you can also leave it off and just turn it on manually). As long as your reauthoring software supports .srt subtitles instead of the fully rendered .sub (most do), this works quite nicely.

Again, in case anyone is ineterested, here is the code you can put into Excel to accomplish this. The code assumes your worksheet name is "Sheet1," column A needs to be empty, and cell "D3" should have the number of seconds long that your movie is (for a 1 hour movie, that would be 3600 seconds). Just attach this code to a command button, click to activate once you have filled in cell D3:

Code Select Expand


Private Sub CommandButton1_Click()
    ThisWorkbook.Sheets("Sheet1").Range("C8").Select
    If ThisWorkbook.Sheets("Sheet1").Range("D3").Value = 0 Then Exit Sub
    ans = MsgBox("Are you sure?", vbQuestion & vbYesNo, "Proceed?")
    If ans <> vbYes Then Exit Sub

    myTime = Timer
   
    ThisWorkbook.Sheets("Sheet1").Range("A:A").ClearContents
    ThisWorkbook.Sheets("Sheet1").Range("A1:A65000").Delete Shift:=xlUp
    Application.Wait (Now + TimeValue("00:00:00"))
   
    myMaxFrame = ThisWorkbook.Sheets("Sheet1").Range("D3").Value
    myFrame = 0
    myRow = 1
       
    For cnt = 1 To myMaxFrame
        myStartFrame = Evaluate("=text(" & myFrame & "/24/3600,""hh:mm:ss"")")
        myStopFrame = Evaluate("=text(" & myFrame + 1 & "/24/3600,""hh:mm:ss"")")
       
        ThisWorkbook.Sheets("Sheet1").Range("A" & myRow).Value = cnt
        myRow = myRow + 1
       
        ThisWorkbook.Sheets("Sheet1").Range("A" & myRow).Value = _
            myStartFrame & ",000 --> " & myStopFrame & ",000"
        myRow = myRow + 1
       
        ThisWorkbook.Sheets("Sheet1").Range("A" & myRow).Value = myStartFrame
        myRow = myRow + 2

        myFrame = myFrame + 1
    Next cnt

    MsgBox (".SRT Text Created." & vbCr & vbCr & "The process took " & _
        Round(Timer - myTime, 2) & " seconds to complete."), _
        vbInformation, "Process Complete"
End Sub


I think I actually found doing this to be easier than finding a program to handle timestamps (because I looked for about 3 hours through google and couldn't find a program to add a timestamp to video, and it took me literally 5 minutes to figure out the Excel code once I figured out how .srt files worked).

This would be useful for, as RoninFox correctly guessed, keeping yourself easily synched with your movie when writing or recording riffs of your own.

Edited to fit code properly, and to add that this code will create an hour and a half worth of subtitles in about 10 seconds... pretty nice!

[bettertomorrowamy]

My dvd player comes with a setting that tells you how far in the movie is.  I thought they all did.

[Chaos]

Some DVD players only show the time in hours and minutes (no seconds), some don't show it at all unless you go into a menu. It's kind of nice to have it in giant (30 point, in my case) font right on the screen, so you don't have to look away or in another direction to get the timestamp while you are writing / performing.

I think I read somewhere that Best Brains used to use an on-screen timestamp way back in the day. And someone told me recently that they did it for the Film Crew, as well. But I couldn't find any software in a casual search that had that feature inherently, which is why I put my nerdy Excel talents to the task.

[RoninFox]

When I first tried writing I was using the PS2 in the living room for the dvd player, and it had a pretty easily accessible time display you could put onscreen.  Later when I was writing in my bedroom I had to use the led display on the front of my player, and something tells me the two weren't exactly the same for some reason.

I do remember seeing some behind the scenes stuff on MST3K that showed the writers watching the movie with the time stamp onscreen, and shoot the "Assignment Venezuela" short still had the time stamp on it when it made it to DVD (though I'm not sure if that was their doing or not, it seemed like it wasn't the final copy of the short, like they could ONLY get a version with the time stamp.

[Fortis]

Hey has any one else had a problem getting DVD decryptor to rip the audio file of the Harry Potter DVD? I have already created a full rifftrax DVD for Indiana Jones so I am pretty sure I have all the settings right. But instead of getting my video audio and IFO file I am getting a video IFO and a VOB file.

Any help would be great.

Thanks

[Bairman]

On the Stream Processing tab, once you've selected the streams you want to rip and deselected those you don't, right click on one of the selected streams and choose "set selected - demux".

[Fortis]

Oh yeah...haha I did that the first time. This time I only clicked the Demux check box. I thought it would work this way but it didn't. Thanks it should work now.

[Johnny@theFair]

Sweet!  It worked!

I just did Raiders of the Lost Ark following the instructions in the first post.

I did have to use ReJig in Step 6 instead of Ifoedit.  It crashed.

[sammny]

or use this mac guide posted by dr9553: http://www.quickstream.tv/rifftrax/

Thank you everyone for your helpful guides. I tested the mac guide quoted above and have one question: does anyone know of a program that definitely will shrink the files created by FFmpegX? I don't want to purchase any programs that may not work.  But if I know they'll work, I'll definitely invest.  I was testing the guide with Transformers but the file size is way too large for a single dvd. Any suggestions?

Thanks for all of your time

[Johnny@theFair]

This may be a dumb question (I've searched the site and can't seem to find it) but I'm going to do Fellowship of the Ring as my second authoring - Do I have to merge the two mp3 files together before I bring the riff into Audacity? If so, how do I do that?

p.s. - do I grab the 2 channel and not the 6 channel audio from the CD in DVDDecryptor?


thanks!

[SecretAgentSuperDragon]

or use this mac guide posted by dr9553: http://www.quickstream.tv/rifftrax/

Thank you everyone for your helpful guides. I tested the mac guide quoted above and have one question: does anyone know of a program that definitely will shrink the files created by FFmpegX? I don't want to purchase any programs that may not work.  But if I know they'll work, I'll definitely invest.  I was testing the guide with Transformers but the file size is way too large for a single dvd. Any suggestions?

Thanks for all of your time

DVDRemaster is $40 trialware, but I do not know the limitations on it, since I'm a pc guy. But here's the link: http://metakine.com/products/dvdremaster/

[RVR II]

I just used this program to convert the Star Wars Holiday Special from .mp4 to DVD and it worked Flawlessly!
Just watched the burned DVD! It even allows you to add another audio track (RiffTrax .mp3) to the saved project later.
Here's the link: http://www.dvdflick.net/ And It's Free!!

[SecretAgentSuperDragon]

I just used this program to convert the Star Wars Holiday Special from .mp4 to DVD and it worked Flawlessly!
Just watched the burned DVD! It even allows you to add another audio track (RiffTrax .mp3) to the saved project later.
Here's the link: http://www.dvdflick.net/ And It's Free!!

You'll have to find someway though to extract the movie audio and mix it with the riff in audacity or goldwave.

[RVR II]

I just used this program to convert the Star Wars Holiday Special from .mp4 to DVD and it worked Flawlessly!
Just watched the burned DVD! It even allows you to add another audio track (RiffTrax .mp3) to the saved project later.
Here's the link: http://www.dvdflick.net/ And It's Free!!

You'll have to find someway though to extract the movie audio and mix it with the riff in audacity or goldwave.

My Pinnacle software does that part already.. Haven't tried out those other programs