My Newbie DVD Exp after 30 Days

[in7ruder]

First off, a huge hats off to everyone in the forums. Tho I didn't post much, I was very keen on reading most of the posts the last several weeks. It's amazing what you can learn by just reading.

My favorite apps to work with thus far:

1) AnyDVD v1.4.3.1

2) DVD2One v1.2.2

3) DVD Rippers. all about the same ( Any advice here? )

4) CloneDVD v1.1.7.1 w/ AnyDVD ( might be my new way of backing up )

5) DVD Shrink v2.3

Special mention, DVD2One, reason: Speed and Quality.

DVD2One is VERY fast. For those of you ripping DVD-9's with DVD Shrink, you're looking at 30+ mins transcoding, but with DVD2One, it takes 12 - 13+ mins with as good if not better quality. More than twice as fast.

Two sorta off-topic items I want to mention is DVD-r Media and DVD storage cases. I've often seen questions asked regarding these items, of course the question being, "the cheapest and where" hope the nfo below helps.

As far as cheap media goes, I was able to get 25 Pro Media 4X DVD-r blanks for $28 shipped. Anyone use these? And can tell me what to expect. Where? From: Supermediastore

Was also able to get 100 Amaray® II DVD Storage "clear" cases from: http://shop.store.yahoo.com/shoppingmatrix2/index.html for $28 Shipped.



Discuss.

[housepig]

It's amazing what you can learn by just reading.

yes - Yes - YES!!! keep up the reading - there's tons of information here, if you know to look for it.

3) DVD Rippers. all about the same ( Any advice here? )

I like DVD Decrypter for general purpose ripping, and for doing ISO copies of dvd-5's. I use SmartRipper on discs where Decrypter has problems.

Between those two, I really haven't had to look for any others.

welcome to the wonderous world of dvds....

[DVDJunkee]

DVD2One is VERY fast. For those of you ripping DVD-9's with DVD Shrink, you're looking at 30+ mins transcoding, but with DVD2One, it takes 12 - 13+ mins with as good if not better quality. More than twice as fast.

However, depending on your ripping speed, DVDShrink can be a faster alternative, as it will rip-on-the-fly, while with DVD2One you have to rip to the hard drive first.

[Baldrick]

DVDJunkee: Not if you are using AnyDVD, it removes the decryption without having to copy anything to your hd. But $40 is a bit too much for only a few less minutes...

https://www.videohelp.com/tools?tool=294#comments

[DVDJunkee]

Ah yes I forgot about that one. I would only use AnyDVD if HD space was an issue as it skips the intermediate ripping step, saving 5-9gb.

[zzNyQuilzz]

It's amazing what you can learn by just reading.

yes - Yes - YES!!! keep up the reading - there's tons of information here, if you know to look for it.

3) DVD Rippers. all about the same ( Any advice here? )

I like DVD Decrypter for general purpose ripping, and for doing ISO copies of dvd-5's. I use SmartRipper on discs where Decrypter has problems.

Between those two, I really haven't had to look for any others.

welcome to the wonderous world of dvds....

yes there is alot of good info on here that how i learned by reading alot but i do the same thing like u if dvd decryptor has problem giving me a read error i use smart ripper but i usually just use smart ripper cause if that has a problem ripping now other program rips anything it cant rip so i usually go with that one

[Gurm]

Here's my rundown on the apps I use:

--------------------------------------------

DVD2One:

Not enough damn options. But then again it doesn't purport to have 'em. I just think for a commercial product, it ought to ... TRY to be competitive with DVD Shrink.

DVD Shrink:

This is the 9-to-5 program I tend to use the most, if simply squishing up everything will work. Once in a while it has ripping problems. VERY customizable.

CloneDVD:

Excels at higher-bitrate transcoding, meaning that at very light compression levels, it wins the contest (although I haven't compared it to Instant Copy 7 yet). Also has some features which DVD Shrink lacks, such as the ability to do minor reauthoring without losing menus (blanking out extras, or making two discs one with the movie and the other with the extras). However, the interface, while trying to be simplistic, sometimes is too difficult to understand. The level of compression is also not easily customizable. I forsee this, with some improvement, being my app of choice.

DVD Decryptor:

The standard in ripping, of course. But I've stopped using it for 5-to-5 copying because of:

AnyDVD:

This program isn't as mature as DVD Decryptor, of course. However, it not only decrypts CSS and removes region codes, it also:

- Removes Macrovision
- Removes those "can't do this now" areas, allowing you to skip past FBI warnings, nag screens, etc.
- Runs in realtime (although some system configurations have seen this program running VERY slowly, it runs in realtime for me).

-------------------------

As for "quality", the quality of a transcoded video is a pretty subjective thing. It involves the tides, and phases of the moon, which house Jupiter is in, etc.

BUT, I'd say that DVD2One probably has, at the same compression level, slightly better output than DVD Shrink (in less time). At higher bitrates (like squishing a 5GB movie to 4.5GB) CloneDVD wins, and at absurd compression rates, DVDShrink wins (although I'm told IC7 is great for this).

However, if I had to shrink a 7+GB movie to 4GB, I'd likely re-encode anyhow.

- Gurm

[blueyedboy]

This is what I have learned in here. I have always tried to remember which standalone players require the disc to be done in UDF1.02 (Nero DVD Rom Iso mode) and which ones to do in UDF1.05 (Nero DVD Video mode).

Trouble is, I couldnt always remember. I have found that Ghosty 6 (a forum member in here ) method of creating an Iso image using Img tool classic works on all players when burned using DVD Decrypter. I always use Rytek Dye discs or Yellow Datawrites if I am feeling cheap, but Never ever Red 4x Datawrite, Grey 2x datawrite nor Tango Bulk Paq. Sh*t in, sh*t out!!

My burning software of choice is Alcohol 120%. I like the graphs, and the fact that you can mount the image as if it were a disc. which means if you wanted you could burn an Alcohol file using Nero or Prassi and you could still run it through DVD2One (my compression of choice).

The brilliant thing also about Alcohol is you can also use it to burn ISO images... so you dont have to use Dycrypter... but so far I have. No comebacks.