Children and DVD issues/ switcher stuff too

[KungFoo Q]

I have some confusion as a recent switcher, and from an hour's worth of searching this forum it looks like many of you have some great insight.

I used this on my PC: DVDdecrypter, IFOedit, and Nero.

I am primarily concerned with Movie only DVD methods, unless its a hair over the single disc size....

so far I have seen OSex and Disco Plus.

My usual procedure was to (usually) split the disc across 2 DVD5s
pulling out the widescreen video and the audio in this order of importance:

1. DTS
2. AC3/6ch/5.1/Dolby
3. everything else such as 2ch /dolby surround

I choose uncompressed 'splits' because of my setup (HDtv 1080i) and
I have DTS surround.

I also pull the english sub if necessary.

Is Disco the best way to achieve this, or might you all have suggestions for me? I am trying to compile some solid info here before purchasing the programs I need.

ALSO:
I have small children, necessitating a DVD backup of any sort of program we purchase for them...I love 'em to death but my kids are hell on discs. Hence, we backup their movies, especially disney films (because of the vault thing, and the destructable DVD garbage). Any other methods for kid-proofing DVDs and DVD-Rs?

As a newbie to the mac platform I guess I just need some sage advice from those more experienced.


thanks for your time!

[markusb]

you need:

DVDBackup 1.3 and/or OseX for rippin/decrypting

and

DVD2oneX or ffmpegX for shrinking or re-encoding.

My personal choice is dvd2oneX for dvd and ffmpegX for vcd/svcd/avi, but check 'em out and choose whats best for you.

Also forty-two may be of some use but make sure you test it out thoroughly before buying it, it doesn't seem to work for some people.

Others here may have some other options for you as well. Welcome to the Mac!!!

[KungFoo Q]

thanks for the warm welcome! the mac community is a breath of
fresh air for me. computers are fun once again (sweet!)

per your suggestions- I've taken your advice and toyed
around with the apps you recommended. I'll probably try and keep
my films uncompressed, splitting across a disc isnt a problem for me
and I'm a quality nut so no worries there!

I've been experimenting with a new DVD i bought today, Comedian.
i just tested DVDbackup, it extracts and runs fine from the HD.

I'm now trying OSex and really like the feel of that, I enjoy being able to choose audio/ video/ subs...this looks like the app I've been looking for, but a search on the forum didn't return a tutorial , just references to one that I could not find. unfortunately, it looks like extracting to streams is going to be more work, but that way I can *choose* what i want since i only care about movie only copies (with a subtitle perhaps)

my next step here, is trying to copy my Video_TS folder I suppose, but I'm worried that there is very little info on which video track you snag, since I typically would go for widescreen when possible.

does that make sense?

I've yet to see how Disco fits into this equation, is it possible to use it with a pre-decrypted etc Video_TS folder? that might be easiest i guess.

[pusa]

That is so true when you said "computers are fun once again (sweet!)"
I'm so glad that you're using a Mac computer. Hooray!!!!!

[KungFoo Q]

thanks!

i was looking into DVDSP as well, might this offer more flexibility in what features i want (not menus, just audio and subtitles) when making movie only DVD backups. it seems like this would handle 2 disc spans very well (when going from DVD-9 to DVD-5s).

[the future]

Unfortunately the Mac scene does not have an easy, reliable 1-click application to split DVD-9s yet. Your choice (as far as I know) would be:

1. Disco+
It's *supposed* to be the easy, 1-click splitting tool, but it isn't very reliable, sometimes it will work, sometimes it won't. Quite frustrating IMO.

2. 0SEx + Sizzle/DVD Studio Pro
You can rip 'by chapters' with 0SEx (fmt: element streams) and thus split the video and audio tracks. After that you will have to author the dvd with Sizzle (free + very buggy in my experience, others seem to have more luck) or DVDSp (expensive but reliable.) You will not be able to preserve any subtitles this way as the subtitle rips of 0SEx are just useless (you *can* in fact get subtitle streams that work in DVDSP, but it's a lot of work involving several other tools).

Conclusion: try out what we have and keep your fingers crossed that an easy, reliable application to split DVD-9s on the Mac will be available sometime.

Oh, and welcome to the Mac! You'll never go back...

[ZeroSix]

my next step here, is trying to copy my Video_TS folder I suppose, but I'm worried that there is very little info on which video track you snag, since I typically would go for widescreen when possible.

does that make sense?

You can open each individual VOB files to find out which ones you want. I recommend using either VLC or Mplayer. Both you can find on version tracker.

[KungFoo Q]

Well, it looks like I've got the info I need here-
Thanks guys, I really appreciate your responses
and suggestions, I've decided to use DVDsp along with
OSex and Disco+.

I'm also going to compare this with some of the compression
programs and see what my milleage is.


either way, I'm not touching that athlon box in my garage
unless it starts sprouting money- and thus far it has been doing
the inverse

love that G5

[galactica]

love that G5

Wait a min . You mean you have a G5! man..... how nice that would that be to "switch to" I have the dual g4 1.25 and id love to "switch" to the dual G5

[KungFoo Q]

yeah, it was A HUGE step in my life, even though that sounds sooo trite. I mean, I'm doing all this crazy stuff, going through all these steps, and then I'll discover I'm going about things the hard way.

all these apps for DVD backup, even in their infancy, have so much potential- i will support the authors with my money, and soon we'll have powerful tools that rival IFOedit.

[galactica]

yeah, it was A HUGE step in my life, even though that sounds sooo trite. I mean, I'm doing all this crazy stuff, going through all these steps, and then I'll discover I'm going about things the hard way.

I hardly doubt its "hard" on your machine. Freak, you can practically do realtime encoding on that thing cant you???

let me guess.... 1.5 hours of movie (DV) takes 1.5 hours to encode to mpeg2?!?

I wish I could afford one of those beasts...... Man,.... what a time to switch