DVD to RealMedia Guide   
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~   
 Written by Emerson Gomes (emerzon@ieg.com.br)   
  
  First of all, many people have a bad impression about RealMedia files. Well RMs have been on
  the  net for a good time,  and they really had a bad quality at the beginning, mainly because
  they were designed to deliver multimedia contents in real time for low bandwidth users.   
  And now with all the buzz about DivX, some people didn't noticed how better RealVideo 9 can
  look than the pirated M$ MPEG-4 codec. (They say DivX is a free codec written from  scratch,
  but actually it is nothing but the same  disassembled  M$ MPEG-4 codec  core only  with some
  better  interface. But the video compression algorithm remains basically the same - In other
  words, software piracy. The real MPEG-4 standards rights are copywrited and reserved).    
  
  Anyway, after a few DVD rips with RealVideo 9, I really felt sorry about my old DivXs rips.
  I could get a CLEAR 640x480 screen size rip, and the image didn't got blocky as DivXs rips
  using the average bitrate of 600kbps for both. Well, the charge for that is the need of a
  faster machine for playback. 900Mhz+ PCs can play finely contents encoded at 640x480, but,   
  if you don't have such a fast machine, just decrease the screen size a bit.   
  
  
 So, don't trust me, go and encode some RMs and see it for yourself =D   
  
 Tools you gonna need:   
 * Any DVD Decrypter   
   Look for CSS DVD MISM Plugin for FlaskMpeg.   
 * FlaskMpeg (Any version)   
   http://www.flaskmpeg.net   
 * Avisynth Frameserver Client   
   http://www.videotools.net   
 * Avisynth Frameserver Server Plugin for Premiere/FlaskMpeg   
   http://www.videotools.net   
 * RealProducer 9 Command Line Beta   
   http://www.realnetworks.com   
 * RPGui (Made by me ;)   
   http://benganerds.com.sapo.pt/rpgui/   
  
  
  Well, I'll assume that you already have some experience with DVD ripping, if not, better   
 check some other DVD ripping guides over the net first.   
  
RIPPING!!   
~~~~~~~~~   
  
 After have installed all the software above installed in your machine, do the following:   
  
 1) Load FlaskMpeg, and set all the options as usual. (Screen Size, Video format, etc)   
 2) Fill the compile time (in frames) in Flask's General Output Settings. You must do that else
  the encoder won't be able to guess how long the movie is.   
 To know how many frames do the following:   
  
 NumberOfFrames = MovieLenght (in seconds) * 30 If NTSC or   
 NumberOfFrames = MovieLenght (in seconds) * 25 If PAL.   
  
 So, if your movie is NTSC and is 2 hours long, it will have 216000 frames, since:   
  
 2 hours = 120 minutes = 7200 seconds   
 Number of Frames = 7200 * 30   
 Number of Frames = 216000   
  
  In case you really hate Math and refuse to make those very simple calcs, just get a proggie
  called DVTool (avaliable at http://privat.schlund.de/m/muscle/), and it will do all the math
  work for ya. =)   
  
 3) Set the Output Format to "Video Server"   
 4) Open the Output Format Option in FlaskMpeg, and set the Server Mode to "Connect to AVISynth"
    (I prefer this way rather than AVIWrapper because encoding seens to go a bit faster and I had
    a few problems with the AVIWrapper also)   
 5) Start the encoding. It will create a file called c:\IPServer.avs   
 6) Edit this file on Notepad or any other text editor. Probably it will contain a single command
    line like:   
  
  IPCSource("flaskout0")   
  
 or   
  
  IPCSource("videoout0")   
  
 depending on your FlaskMpeg version.   
  
 Just add this other command line BEFORE that one:   
  
  LoadPlugin("avisynthEx.dll")   
  
 So, your AVS file will probably look like this:   
  
  LoadPlugin("avisynthEx.dll")   
  IPCSource("videoout0")   
  
 7) Load up the RPGui and open the IPServer.avs file you just edited. BE SURE TO UNCHECK
    "Disable 2-Pass encoding". That's due an AVISynth limitation, which I hope will be improved
    soon =) - Set the compression options on RPGui and command 'Start Encoding'   
    You can also do this directly from RealProducer, if you're a command line freak.   
  
 This way, RealProducer will read the DVD input directly from FlaskMpeg, eliminating the need to
   generate a .AVI file first, which would get way too big and would slow down the process a lot.   
  
 Wait till the encoding to finish and get amazed with the results =))