Don Melton's tools for transcoding from discs?
 

A help page from Plex recommended these scripts from Don Melton to transcode from DVDs and Blu-Rays.

His aim is to offer a "smaller, more portable format while remaining high enough quality to be mistaken for the originals". He's clearly put a lot of work into them.

What do the experts think?

I never liked transcoding anything other that online media sharing, Rule of thumb always keep the disc image or the main movie. But I'm not a movie hoarder so I barely have 100 (favorites only) Blu-rays that are on HDD now as disc images.

No.

I don't like that at all.

MakeMKV makes ripping mistakes on many DVDs, especially non-movie DVDs. And TV box sets vastly outsell movies. I'd wager that most DVDs are now TV shows, not movies.

Anything that relies on Handbrake screams "newbie", as it is dumbed-down software than also makes lots of mistakes (the aspect detection is really, really bad). The deinterlacing is not great. The only thing it does well is NR presets, but you can easily recreate those once you understand the underlying filter.

Ripping a DVD in IFO mode (DVD Decrypter, which still usually works, especially for TV DVDs), followed by dumping it into Hybrid, is much better.

In terms of compression, you can always refer to "the scene" (specs for underground videos), which honestly goes too far at times. YIFY was known for compression quality, so much that arguments erupted over how far was too far. I've always been apt to compress more when DVD was the source, even adopting some YIFY strategies. But even DVD releases need some degree of NR. With the NR, compression will turn to noise and artifacts.

Cropping is almost never a good thing -- ESPECIALLY from SD sources.

Mr. Melton may have been an Apple employee, worked on various web software -- neat stuff, I'm sure; neat stories, I'm sure! -- but he clearly has limited knowledge and experience with video.

His aim may have been one thing -- but he missed and peed all over the toilet instead with this software.

No.

Again, DVD Decryper + Hybrid.

Let me clarify, that I'd be using this primarily for wedding videos, often without professional menus. Would you still recommend DVD Decrypter + Hybrid?

What if I'd like to edit the video files before final output? I like to edit using Premiere on a Mac.

Huh? :question:

Why would you transcode at all? The Melton method is for commercial/retail DVDs, not homemade conversion.

For sure not before editing the footage.

These were videos shot by someone else and only on DVD (video not data).

No, this isn't what you want to do at all. :hmm:

The problem here is you're using a Mac, which has always been weak and problematic for DVD extraction. This is a Windows task.

If editing (in Windows):
- extract MPEG with DVD Decrypter in IFO mode. You want the MPEG only, not the VTS data. But it will extract to a VOB.
- open that VOB in VirtualDub2, and save as a lossless Lagarith.
- edit the lossless file in Premiere
- export with Adobe Media Encore -- or save lossless back out, then Hybrid to encode (more advanced options, better quality, including QTGMC, 4:2:2, etc)

For Mac extraction, there are guides on the site. Offhand, I forget the software, the steps. MacTheRipper, maybe MPEG Streamingclip? It will still be MPEG for Premiere, which works, but it makes editing a chore.

Editing MPEG in Premiere sucks. It's just slow due to compressed decode, even on modern systems. Hence reason to expand back out to lossless.

If you try that Melton method, you're going to screw up the video, and it will lose more quality. It didn't have much quality to start with, and will crumple at the first hint of quality loss.

Why even still work with the DVD format ? while it is so easy to have a USB stick or a flash card, nowadays all players (and tv's) have USB.... sometimes also a SD slot, or there's a NAS in the network, and the tv has an ethernet or wifi connection.
The DVD format is limited by the MPEG2 format, for files you can use the HEVC compression which is designed for 4K compression because it makes files smaller with the same quality.

(for compression only, you could use Uniconverter, or MacX Video Converter Pro, if you're on a Mac, easy to use, lots of codec options)
(it isn't hard to find movies online with good quality :)

Like I said above, I'm talking about wedding videos (from the first decade of the 2000s), which were delivered on DVD. I'd like to get them off in the highest quality possible, so that we don't have to deal with the format anymore. That, as well as home movies on 8mm film, VHS tapes, etc.

I will have the files as MKVs or MP4s on Plex for my household's viewing, but uploaded to YouTube or Vimeo for my relatives, especially since some of these are their own weddings.

Seeing an ISO would help to know what's possible. (Google Drive, Dropbox, MS One Drive, iCloud.)
Or a snippet MPEG attach.
Or better yet, both.