Where's the fun?

[mats.hogberg]

Where's the fun?
Been the proud owner of a DVD burner for a month, and after 2 years of DVD to (S)VCD conversions, finally took the quantum leap to DVD9 to DVD5 "conversion". And I must say - All the fun is gone. I may not have done the most advanced stuff yet, but (as usual) armed with only freeware tools (DVDShrink, DVD Decrypter, IfoEdit, ImageTool Classic), backing up a DVD (even 2 DVD9 titles to one DVD5) is as exciting (and requires about the same skill level) as washing your underwear in the washing machine. No more bit rate calculators. No more day long waits for encoding. No more exotic audio conversions. Just open up the hatch(es), insert the source disc(s), adjust a few knobs and press the button. Make image. Burn image. And the quality (even heavy shrunked) outshines every (S)VCD I've ever managed to make by far. Thank God, things are not yet that easy using Linux, so I still can get a little challenge when I feel like it.

/Mats

[Treebeard]

Where's the fun?

I agree, it is soooo easy to make backups I could teach my 3 year old to do it. However I think the fun is creating DVD's of home movies and such. You get to be creative making menus and stuff. It is more satisfying to create your own DVD then to backup an existing one. Although people with no knowledge of how to do this will still be equally impressed with either.

[housepig]

I'll second Treebeard - I'm not challenged by backups (most of the time!). I get my challenge from authoring captured content.

if you really want to add some spice, do your transcoding for size with DVD Shrink, then rip the shrunk disc to elementary streams and reauthor it with your own menus, chapters, etc...

[Gazorgan]

I agree, what once took 10 hours and much space to produce "awesome" 3 and 4 CD backups no takes exactly 28 minutes to produce a (usually) perfect backup. No skills required.

Now taking my captures (typically 640x480 Xvid at 700 MB/hour bitrates) and Authoring them is more challenging. Sometimes lots more getting the dam DAR correct....hehehehe. 4 hours of cartoons on a DVDR is easy, 6 is more challenging. I did manage to put 12 hours of kids cartoons on 1 DVDR and it's great for long weekends!

I have yet to find the 'killer' Authoring package. No single app seems to do everything, so that's my current challenge.

[MackemX]

once you know the basics, I think it's as hard as you want to make it

[Treebeard]

once you know the basics, I think it's as hard as you want to make it

Is that why I have 10 programs that can all do the same thing but just a little different,