Is it really worth the trouble??

[shinomen]

I started trying to make VCD's and SVCD's with the hope that I would have copies of movies without paying full price for them. But is it all really worth it? Anytime I rip a DVD it normally takes anywhere from 13 to 15 hours to make once I've gone through all the processes it takes to keep it at almost perfect quality. And even then it has to be fit onto at least two cdr's. What's the point, there's no special features, the quality isn't always the same as the original DVD and you have to get up half way through the movie to change cd's that's if you even have standalone DVD player that can read your cd's. And downloaded movies, forget it. I've seen one movie out of about 50 that was good quality before encoding and that had obscene parts chopped out of it. I figure I'll just keep buying my DVD's until I can find a disc to disc copier for DVD's.

Just thought I'd throw in my two cent.

[zzyzzx]

I've never ripped a movie. Only music videos. For music videos it's worth it.

[neomaine]

Of course it is!!!

At 14-15 hours you musn't have everything in your system tuned correctly, your PC isn't up to par or have the right drivers!!

I've burned seperate copies of many movies so my kids can either watch them on my standalone Panasonic (cdrw), their Playstation (cdr) or my laptop (cdr/cdrw, road trips for hockey games) and all come out with as good as or better then the quality I get for VCD movies I've purchased.

I'm gonna try a de-macro unit for my vcr and dvd player to cut down the time and see what real-time ripping will do. I'm VERY happy with TV capture to vcd (again using ATI settings recommended from this site) quality. Even though this is contrary to Baldrick's latest review, I've seen little to no blocking or effects on my captures.

Smartripper 2hr movie = @10-12mins
DVDx to mpeg-1 (VCD)= @4.5hrs (all best quality settings)
Burn to cdr 10mins, cdrw 12mins (per disk)

My setup:
Biostar M7MIA DDR ($110US)
AMD Athlon 1.2/266 ($99)
256mg DDR ($40)
ATI AIW Radeon 32 DDR ($200) (excellent buy)
Creative 12x PC-DVD ($100) (you can find cheaper)
Creative 8x4x32 CD-ROM ($100) (again, cheaper)
Creative SB 64awe ($25) (yeah, its old, but it works fine)
2-20gb Maxtor 5400 ($120) (good buy at the time)
All devices (hd/cd/dvd) have DMA enabled.
Mobo has latest BIOS
ATI has all latest drivers (see the forum for excellent reccomendations)

[shinomen]

It takes that long because I use the Cinema Craft Encoder Method with 4 pass variable bit rate so that I can fit a two hour plus movie onto two svcd's while retaining as much picture quality as possible. (there's nothing worse than seeing macro blocks after you've taken the time to make these things, that's why I use that method)

Now as far as burning movies for kids, maybe it is worth it cause kids don't nit pick quality as much as older people do so you don't have to put as much into making it. Of course I'm comparing all this to a professionally made DVD that people put a hell of lot more work into than what I have for the SVCD. Like I said before I'll just wait until they come out with a disc to disc DVD buner. Or maybe someone will come out with an genious method of copying everything (special features, menus, and all) from a DVD to CDR that will play in a standalone with some sort of modchip method (just wishful thinking

Snoogins

[thxkid]

Well I use the Hauppauge PVR TV MPEG2 capture card so Capture directly to MPEG2 real time, demux to SVCD. Do I still do DVD's still instead of buying, no way, not when I can buy them for $10-15. Yea Right, Try putting the entire DVD of Pearl Harbor coming out on Jan 4, 2002 on VCD or SVCD, it has 3 DVD's with over 20 hours of extra's for $30.
But where else can I make a back up copy of all my Star wars extended versions from Laser Disc.
I make backup copies of out of print movies from Laser Discs to SVCD, like Disneys "Song of the South", Lion King, Aladdin, Beauty & the Beast, Mickey Mouse Black/white years, Cinderella, etc.....
I get music video's from VH1 classics from the dishnet or music video's from GAC.
With the new 99min. CD-R's I get most Backup copies on 2 CD-R's.

[PimpInDaHouse]

I do it so I don't have to pay 20 dollars for a DVD, if it is a good movie I will buy it but if it isn't worth buying then why pay the money. And it doesn't take that much time to make a DVD not that I have made one personaly but I am guessing.

[adam]

shinomen its already possible to include all the dvd extras on a svcd. You can have 2 audio tracks, 4 removable sub streams, static or moving menu's, chapters and chapter selection even that dvd extra internet crap, etc... Just about anything you can do on a dvd you can emulate on a svcd. I always include all of the features from the dvd and they play perfectly on a standalone dvd player.

[dangermouse]

Yeah, its worth it!

1] Ripping a film with Smartripper takes me about 14 mins. Need to have around 4-5 gigs of free HD space mind.
2] Converting .vobs to MPEG-1 format with CCE encoder takes about 4 hours. I generally put movies on 2 CDs, using audio of either 112/128k, and then all remaining space allocated to bitrate, giving a bitrate of around 1900-2200 (CBR).
3] Split the file in two, demultiplex and then multiplex with TMPGEnc, not especially long, but a bit more hassle than the first two stages, but probably done inside half an hour.
4] Burn onto 2 80min CDs doesn't take too long.

With this XVCD, the quality looks fine for me, and the whole process takes about 5 hours, 4 hours of which you can just leave the PC ticking over. For reference, I'm running an Athlon 900mhz/256mb ram/ATI AIW Radeon/40 + 12GB HDs/12x Plextor CDRW/some Toshiba DVD drive/etc..

Once you work out exactly what your standalone DVD player can handle, how to keep audio/video in sync, how to minimise macroblocks, etc., then yep, I'd say its worth it. Yep, I'd like to have a nice set of covers, but when you consider that its an extra £16 or so for essentially a bit of packaging and a couple of extras (personally I'm not fussed about 'em, but I expect most people are?), then its not that tempting...

[Erwin]

It's definitely worth it to make VCDs if you can't get the movie on DVD(yet) and it's only on VHS, or if you want to record your favorite sitcoms. But, as far as DVD goes, I don't think it's worth it. You won't have that DD5.1, DD EX audio or dts.

[SatStorm]

Yes, it worth it!
For staff like music videos, cartoons, TV series etc, Yes!
For movies? Well, not always...
- If you rip from satellite feeds,yes. In a year (when dvd recorders will became cheap and the format universal - hope so), you simply feed the burner with those files. No encoding, nothing...
Now you can encode movies to SVCD or other formats in about 7-9 hours. When you sleep or when you work. Ain't bad really.

But if you rip from DVDs... No. All those extras etc, worth to have them. Also the quality, AC3, etc...
so depands from your needs...

i have a 350, going to upgrade but the prices keep falling, it takes me 2-3 hours to rip a dvd, and about the same time to convert it to a avi, to convert to a mpg it takes about 18-20 hours, but for me its still worth it, keeps the kids happy for hours and doesnt cost that much.
but listening to how fast you can make them with the upgrade computers I cant wait....

[hitechjunkie]

i've also got a (amd k6-3) 350mhz machine, so XVCD backups of DVDs takes me awhile too, but like someone mentioned earlier, most of the work is taking place on the PC while i sleep or i'm at work.

rips take about 15-20 minutes, dvd2avi another 50 minutes, and the actual encoding will vary depending on whether i'm going for a one disc XVCD (8-12 hours) or a higher quality two disc XVCD set (8-10 hours per disc).

i WAS buying DVDs whenever they were on sale, and thru DVD clubs averaging about 9-10$ per DVD sometimes, but even that got too expensive (imagine - 250 DVDs at an average cost of about $13 = $3250!!). that's when i decided to stop buying DVDs for awhile.

what's great about this hobby for me is that the CD-R/RW media i buy costs me (practically) NOTHING, NADA, ZILCH! i buy all my media from my local circuit city and always pick up their STI brand media (CD-R/RW) whenever there's a rebate, which is usually every other week. after the rebate, the cost is usually only the sales tax, usually about 45 cents for spindles of 25 or 50 discs.

one more thing, since this is just a hobby for me, there is no trouble in it for me at all.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: hitechjunkie on 2001-09-18 10:06:17 ]</font>

[nidoran]

to me its not the fact i get movies cheaper anymore; every movie i download/rip/create/whatever becomes a chalenge to make it SVCD with the best possible quality; i dont care if my cpu is running while i am working

[webeye]

I have considered making VCD's etc by many of the above
methods outlined but I really question it. There are too many other areas of tech that I want tinker with..
I seriously considering getting the new Malata VDR-RI VCD
Recorder.
www.avdeals.com USA 600.00
www.avdeals.ca CANADA 900.00
I would like to hear from anyone who might have additional
info

[Bullworth]

For anime, old movies that are hard to find or not available on DVD it is completely worth it. I'm getting ready to rip ALOT of anime. I'd buy the DVDs if they were cheaper buy at about 20 to 25 per disc especially when much of the anime I enjoy are series with 25 or more episodes that's just too much. I know some places online sell for less but I just don't have the money to buy all the stuff I want. I may just copy it to tape or get the disc if I want it enough. Movies I definitely just buy since there is a quality issue there since high-speed movement will cause noticeable blocking in some cases.
Like some here it's mostly a hobby and the challenge of finding some way of getting the best quality somehow. Some TV series I watch aren't on tape or disc and I don't want to search an entire tape for a particular episode I'd want to watch

[mmi64]

There are now standalone DVD writers, just like VHS in the old days, a tuner, a get-it-wrong-every-time timer, OSD, the lot, the discs are over £20 GBP for re-recordable, which in real terms is cheaper than VHS used to be. Ofcourse the price will come down, at the moment these discs are not compatible with all DVD players(although that is not what the manufacturers may say), but I dare say that will change too, and sooner rather than later I think.
Someone recently said to me they thought DVD's were supposed to be of suberb quality, I don't know where he got that information from, its Mpeg2 and heavily compressed, so by the time its been converted to another format and then recompressed at an even lower bitrate, it's more by good luck than good management that the result is anything like super.
If you made it yourself you can't concentrate on the film cos you're just looking for the aliasing artifacts, blocking and such-like, and telling your friends what a hard time you had in putting it together, and if someone else is viewing it, they'll probably think it would be just as good on hifi VHS!
Home movies and soundtracks - that's the thing for me, and the pleasure in putting them together and produce the best quality I can at the time for a given price.


<TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD><font size=-1>Quote:</font><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR><TR><TD><FONT SIZE=-1><BLOCKQUOTE>
On 2001-09-17 12:28:45, shinomen wrote:
I started trying to make VCD's and SVCD's with the hope that I would have copies of movies without paying full price for them. But is it all really worth it? Anytime I rip a DVD it normally takes anywhere from 13 to 15 hours to make once I've gone through all the processes it takes to keep it at almost perfect quality. And even then it has to be fit onto at least two cdr's. What's the point, there's no special features, the quality isn't always the same as the original DVD and you have to get up half way through the movie to change cd's that's if you even have standalone DVD player that can read your cd's. And downloaded movies, forget it. I've seen one movie out of about 50 that was good quality before encoding and that had obscene parts chopped out of it. I figure I'll just keep buying my DVD's until I can find a disc to disc copier for DVD's.

Just thought I'd throw in my two cent.
</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>

[BxB]

I was definitely asking myself this same question at one time! With all the time I've spent dorking around trying to find formats that work, I could have worked a few nights at Burger King and bought the DVDs and still come out ahead!

You basically have three choices:

1. Buy the DVDs. If quality is REALLY important, this is
probably the best option.
2. Find a format that works consistently, and just repeat
that process. If it doesn't give you the best quality,
live with it (you didn't pay for it anway!). I usually
use 1550kbps CBR xVCD since I've yet to find anything
that won't play it.
3. Spend hours and hours finding the best method for any
given movie. Call it your hobby.

As far as getting a DVD writer, the writers are expensive & the disks cost as much as some DVDs...you'd have to copy a ton of DVDs to make that pay off.

And does anyone REALLY care about those "extras"? I've yet to see any extras that were even worth the look (and I see no reason why I couldn't encode those if I wanted them)

[juliencomputer]

have u heard of downloading movies? thats where its good!

[shinomen]

Ok, I never thought of putting vhs movies on vcd but I guess that is a good idea. I'll probably do that as my next project. Anyway, to Juliencomputer, if I could find something better that vcdvault on dalnet to download high quality movies I would. On top of that, there's alot of really crappy movies coming out lately that aren't even worth the download (i.e. the musketeer). If you know of somewhere better to go email me at shinomen@hotmail.com

[hitechjunkie]

<TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD><font size=-1>Quote:</font><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR><TR><TD><FONT SIZE=-1><BLOCKQUOTE>
On 2001-09-18 15:55:11, BxB wrote:
I was definitely asking myself this same question at one time! With all the time I've spent dorking around trying to find formats that work, I could have worked a few nights at Burger King and bought the DVDs and still come out ahead!
</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>

as an employee, would u get free burgers and fries?

[juliencomputer]

yeah have you ever downloaded from an ftp hub? try gpu.hackers.sk you will have to do some stuff to register but you can find any movie at fast speeds and good resolution.

[mikewg]

I worked at McDonalds before and I got free drinks and half priced food, and only free food when the place was swamped and I convinced them I'd work through my break (for more money) if I got free food too. Worked out to be a good deal. I also invented about 10 new burgers while working there... not that it has anything to do with the subject, but no, not free food, but cheaper food definately. And that free Hi-C punch has Vitamin C, which is good for you too!

[vitualis]

<TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD><font size=-1>Quote:</font><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR><TR><TD><FONT SIZE=-1><BLOCKQUOTE>
On 2001-09-17 12:28:45, shinomen wrote:
I started trying to make VCD's and SVCD's with the hope that I would have copies of movies without paying full price for them.</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>

If this is your ONLY reason for making S/VCDs, then it probably isn't worthwhile.

<TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD><font size=-1>Quote:</font><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR><TR><TD><FONT SIZE=-1><BLOCKQUOTE>Anytime I rip a DVD it normally takes anywhere from 13 to 15 hours to make once I've gone through all the processes it takes to keep it at almost perfect quality. And even then it has to be fit onto at least two cdr's. What's the point, there's no special features, the quality isn't always the same as the original DVD and you have to get up half way through the movie to change cd's that's if you even have standalone DVD player that can read your cd's.</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>

As what others have said.

Most of the time, your PC won't be doing anything anyway (e.g., when you are sleeping, when you are at work, etc.) The trick is to get your PC working on this task when you otherwise don't need it.

As for special features, as ?adam stated before, you can put them all in if you know what you are doing -- this is one of the more enjoyable aspects of VCD authoring, the creativity.

If you really want to quality and features of the original DVD, the you should purchase it.

VCD authoring and creation is a hobby and it should be enjoyable (even if you find some things frustrating). If it is NOT enjoyable and the only reason you are doing it is because you want to copy movies, then it is probably not for you.

Regards.
_________________
Michael Tam

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: vitualis on 2001-10-15 22:50:26 ]</font>

[vice86]

I just got into making VCDs this weekend and I'm pretty excited about it. Although the quality isnt DVD, its still decent. What do you want for free anyway? I can live with the quality on my 32" TV....now once I get my 65" HDTV 16:9 Widescreen TV...then I don't know about doing VCDs...whats the point of having a $4000.00 TV to watch "average" quality movies. But until then I'm very happy with VCDs

My friend buys a lot of DVDs so I'll just be borring the ones I like from him or rent from my local Blockbuster and XVCDing them. If I know there is a movie I really love, I'll buy the DVD...some of these movies are Tommy Boy, Dumb and Dumber and T2 just to name a few.

I also think the whole VCD process is like a hobby to people....just like overclocking your computer...we dont really need to do it, but its fun to tweak with your system.

My system is an Asus A7V133A mobo with an Athlon 1.2Ghz Tbird at 1.333Ghz. Takes me about 25 minutes (ugh) to rip a DVD with my 6x Toshiba and about 4.5 - 5.5 hours to encode using highest priority on Flask. I just leave it on before I go to sleep...no big deal.

For now I'll stick with XVCD until DVD recorders become as cheap and fast as CD recorders.

[Kdiddy]

"Although the quality isnt DVD, its still decent."

its not suppose to, when you cutting the bitrate by close by 85% by most cases, you cant EXPECT DVD quality when you are losing 85% of it...but of course you use Flask, which I rank 3rd or 4th on the quality list.

"now once I get my 65" HDTV 16:9 Widescreen TV...then I don't know about doing VCDs...whats the point of having a $4000.00 TV to watch "average" quality movies."

The point I'd hope would be if you could to drop 4000 grand on a TV, you should be able to spend 18-22 bucks on a DVD and not have to worry about illegal copying procedures,

[vice86]

kdiddy...you are just ripping me apart....let me rephrase some of this.

I didn't know what to expect of VCD quality because I never seen a VCD before. I didnt not know about percentage loss compared to DVD and all that stuff so I meant...sure VCD is not DVD quality but its very much acceptable. I didn't expect near DVD quality to start with anyway. I was expecting really bad VHS quality.

Even though i can drop 4000.00 on a TV...still nothing wrong with making VCD's.....just doesnt make sence though on a TV like that. But that TV wont be coming until next year summer time anyway.

You say Flask is 3rd or 4th on your quality list....Can you tell me what you believe to be the best quality software to use....I'll try anything for better quality or speed.

[DiViNeLeFT]

its definitly worth it... ive got it down to where i can rent or borrow a dvd, rip it, frame serve it at night, then set it up to encode while i sleep, store on my HDD until i want to burn it. so the time needed for my comp to do the work doesnt matter to me... im sleepin while it happens!! and anyway... i dont look at it like it is a hassle... i look at it more like a hobby... so it is worthwhile no matter what.

[Frisco]

Personally, I don't think it is worth it.

I always buy my DVD's because they are now relatively cheap and are much better quality than anything I could rip at home. Besides that, I like to get all the extras and have the options that the DVD provides. Never mind the fact that I'm not into doing the 2 or 3 disc thing. May as well stick with the laser disc if I want something like that.

I only make VCD's of tv shows or home movies. With my digital dish, I can get very good captures of anything on TV.
Until DVD recordable's are plentiful and cheap, I will continue to actually BUY the movies on DVD and make my mind up when the time comes if I want to do things differently.

[Kdiddy]

yeah but who TRULY uses the extra scenes, commentaries, videos, etc more than ONCE,..bottom line, you buy the DVD for the movie, and I would say most are concern with the movie only...and Divine said, I have the whole process down to the point where I can have it done in 6-8 hours..leave it will Im sleep, burn to the disk in the morning or whatever....now I mainly do it for my kid, who likes to watch EVERY movie he has over and over....so the quality works for him....I agree, if its a movie I TRULY want to have good quality on, then I will buy it...but the other reason there are a lot of times, I rent, something comes up cause Im on call, and I dont have time to watch in my viewing period...so I always rip it first, just case that happens.

[shinomen]

Well finally I got a DVD Burner and I'm back in the game! Whoohoo! I purchased the DVD-R A03 from Pioneer, this thing kicks ass. The only bad part is the good quality discs are about $7 a piece in the 10 pack (I'm experimenting with other cheaper brands now) Now I can't bitch and complain about getting the special features and extras that normally come on the original DVD.

Thanks to everyone who responded to my rant.