I'm i doing this right?

[lockett1977]

Hi

I have just recently bought my first dvd - burner and have a few questions for you guys, but before i ask them perhaps i should give you some details about my system:

AMD Duron 1.1Ghz
64Mb Ram
30Gb hard drive
NEC 3500 dvd dual layer rewriter
Windows ME

Here are my questions:

1. I have got Nero 6 ultra edition on my computer as well as Nerovision express 2, my problem is that it took the other day about 14 hrs to burn about 3Gb of material, does this sound right to you guys? , i have a feeling you will probably say yes, because my set up is a few years old now.

2. I have read that it takes longer anyway when you use nerovision express 2 to burn you dvd, and was hoping to use a product called dvdsanta v3 but this isn't compatible with my Win ME, could you guys suggest some other software like dvdsanta, i will mainly be wanting to convert mpeg's and avi's.

3. My last question is, know that i have got my copied dvd, i would like to make another copy but if i use nerovision express 2 it will take 14 hrs again to burn, could you guys suggest a quicker way for me to get another copy, i was thinking maybe i could copy the files off the dvd onto my hard drive then just burn them that way.

Thanks in Advance

[guns1inger]

To answer your questions in order

1. Probably about right. Nerovision is encoding (slowly) the material to make it DVD compliant.

2. Look at Tmpgenc as an aletrnative encoder, and Tmpgenc DVD Author as an authoring tool to create the DVD. This should speed things up considerably, and probably increase quality as well.

3. You should be able to make a disk copy of your DVD using Nero, without having to go through Nerovision. It should take you no more than 30 minutes all up.

[jimmalenko]

I'll start at the bottom first ...

Once you have a copied DVD, it is as simple as putting it in your drive, and using Nero's disc copy. That simple. However, it must be said that copying DVDs on the fly has caused issues for some people, and it would probably be advisable to copy the files from the DVD to your hard drive (using Windows Explorer or just by browsing My Computer). You can then just burn these to disc using Nero's DVD-Video template (guide here).

My personal preference is to use DVDDecrypter. Even though there is no need to rip a copied disc since there is no encryption, I have found that using DVDDecrypter in ISO Read mode (guide here) to read the disc to hard drive and then DVDDecrypter in ISO Write Mode (guide here) to be the most trouble-free and simplest method. A number of people have issues with Nero, so this is a good workaround for that too.

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As for nerovision express, I highly recommend that you look into software such as TMPGEnc and TMPGEnc DVD Author. I personally don't rate NVE and would rather having more control over the process so that I get the output I want, every time, instead of relying on NVE to work things out for me. The same goes for DVDSanta. There are quite a few people here who have experienced problems with audio synch after using that program.

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As for your computer, I would seriously look at upgrading a couple of things if you are serious about this hobby. The processor is on the low end of still being OK, but 64MB of RAM is really holding you back IMO. It might be an idea to see if you can upgrade this as a bare minimum. In all honesty, I have found nothing but problems with Windows ME as well. If finances allow, I would look at pulling out your hard drive and burner, and buying a new box in order to achieve much, much better performance and time-turnarounds.

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Please note these are just my opinions and are "in a perfect world" so to speak. If you are happy with what you've got, or finances don't allow upgrades then so be it. However, I do think you could gain much better performance by spending a few $$$.