VERY newbie Questions

[zincmann]

Hello as you will be able to tell in a few minutes I am VERY new to the VCD/DVX/DVD Scene. I just bought a Pioneer DV-C503 5 Disc DVD changer that is capable of playing VCDs. I am wondering the following and hoping someone has an answer, sorry for the lack of knowledge:

1). Can normal new DVD players play burned CD-Rs with Divx movies on them?

2). In order to rip DVDs on my computer do I necessarily need a DVD Rom drive to read them? Is there some kind of software that circumvents the DVD rom drive and lets you use a CD-RW Drive?

3). If I am able to rip DVD's are these DVD rips playable on a DVD player once burned to a CD-R?

and Finally:

4). WHat kind of resolution can I expect from a VCD on a 36" television?

OOops sorry one other question, if my friend gives me Movies already in a VCD Format on CD-R (broken into two parts) can I just go ahead and use Roxio EZ CD Creators CD Copy function to copy the disc, I have already done 1 amd ot seemed to have copied all the files exactly the same.

Thanks again !!!!

Thanks for help in advance!!

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: zincmann on 2002-01-12 22:33:22 ]</font>

[WildParadise]

1) Normal or not, you can't play any divx on dvd players.
2) You need a Dvd rom to read and rip dvds.
3) If you rips dvd, depending of the conversion method (vcd,svcd,xvcd,xsvcd,dvd-r) you will or will not be apble to play it, depending of the conversion and burning.
4) A vcd resolutin on a 13" or a 50" televison is the same: 352x240

[zincmann]

Thanks WIldParadise, one other question, if you would, the question about VCD copying from a CD-R to a blank CD-R..is it straightforward?

[BerrantRyke]

Easiest way to do that would be to make an image from the origional, and burn the image to a new cd-r...

At least thats the best I can think of.

[zincmann]

Thanks BerrantRyke, so what youre saying is i will not have any luck copying a copied VCD that is already on a CD-R to a new CD-R by doing disc to disc copy?

[BerrantRyke]

I've fount it best to NEVER do "on-the-fly" CD copying. It almost always fails (at least for me)...

So now a days I just burn an image file and then burn the image.

You might wanna try cd-mate software. I used it other day to make a copy of *******. and it worked fine.

Dont remember the site, but you could just google search for it.

Good luck.

[Vejita-sama]

I do on-the-fly coping all the time, but that's with SCSI drives. For IDE I won't do it unless the source drive and CDR drive are on different IDE chains. Even then...
It's safest to do a disc -> image -> disc copy. I recommend XDuplicator (ie. freeware). Do a google search, it's a gui for CDRDAO (another freeware program).

In RAW mode you can copy ANYTHING (hint hint)...

[zincmann]

Thanks everyone for their answers I will be back and hopefully be the one to help someone else someday. Okay one other quick question, what is the best FOOL Proof and easiest method to rip DVDs and then burn them to CDR? I notice there are several methods listed on the site, which of these methods is the easiest?

[BerrantRyke]

http://www.vcdhelp.com/DVDConversionGuide/index.php

This is where I started.

Good luck...

[zincmann]

Thanks Berrant, appreciate all your help!