Converting a DVD-RW to DVD-R

[infyniti]

I just spent the better half of 24 hours recording that Spongebob Best Day Ever marathon so my kid will have something to watch on an upcoming trip. Thing is, I recorded it to DVD-RW (using a Pioneer DVR-220), so I can edit out all the commercials and useless babble.

But, obviously, it won't play in my portable DVD player (or any other player for that matter) and my PC won't recognize it as a movie disk.

My question is how can I convert it from DVD-RW to DVD-R with all my edits intact?

[loster]

Was the disc finalized?

[infyniti]

Yes.

[loster]

Try a different computer drive? Try someone else's computer.

[Krispy Kritter]

Some standalone recorders, and I believe Pioneers in particular (I could be wrong), use encryption in the encoding process, which makes the discs totally useless except in the player that made the disc (or a similar model).

[Seeker47]

Some standalone recorders, and I believe Pioneers in particular (I could be wrong), use encryption in the encoding process, which makes the discs totally useless except in the player that made the disc (or a similar model).

Hmmm, first I've heard of that -- at least in regard to Pioneer DVDRs. (I have the 520.) Infrequently, but more than a few times, I have used "Copy Disk" in Nero 6 to dupe a -RW from the 520 onto a standard -R disc. I'm 90 % sure that these -RWs have been a mix of finalized and unfinalized discs . . . but I should have a good opportunity to confirm this absolutely in the near future. The -R copies will of course play in anything. I believe that one installed player or another will play the -RW versions on the computer, but again I'd need to confirm it to verify my memory on this.

[FulciLives]

Some standalone recorders, and I believe Pioneers in particular (I could be wrong), use encryption in the encoding process, which makes the discs totally useless except in the player that made the disc (or a similar model).

That's bullshit. Sorry Krispy Kritter but it is :P

You should have no trouble RIPPING a DVD-RW to your computer's HDD using DVD Decrypter. That is how I do it and I have a Pioneer DVR-531H-s.

I have never had any issues with the DVD-RW not being "seen" by the computer. Then again I only use "Video mode" and I suspect that you might have used "VR mode" which can cause an issue with some computers.

If you used "VR mode" then you might have ummm royally screwed up. Don't do that again. Always use "Video mode" instead.

Anyways you should still be able to read the "VR mode" DVD-RW but I think you might need a special driver or something ... don't know as I avoid using that mode.

Also there is a possibility that a non-standard DVD resolution was used in which case you will need to re-encode it on the computer to make it DVD Video compatible.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[Seeker47]

[If you used "VR mode" then you might have ummm royally screwed up. Don't do that again. Always use "Video mode" instead.
Anyways you should still be able to read the "VR mode" DVD-RW but I think you might need a special driver or something ... don't know as I avoid using that mode.

The (in most cases) un-finalized -RWs that I referred to, which were duped to regular -Rs (typically as backups of some work in progress) were all VR mode discs. So I don't see that being the stumbling block you thought it might be. I use VR a lot, for certain things. It has much more flexibility for making changes of various kinds, and it appears to be the only way to retain High Speed Copy options back into the Pioneer DVDR. And, as I'm sure you are aware, real time copies In < -- > Out of the DVDR not only take much longer, they also involve some loss of pq. The only limitation here is that I have not seen any -RW discs that are rated faster than 4x. But with the 4x, you're still talking about 12 minutes vs. the full 2 hr.s for a movie.

If some non-Nero programs require a special driver for accessing or playing VR mode recordings, I would definitely like to get more info about that. I'll have to do a test with PowerDVD or something, 'cause I don't recall the last time I needed to play anything from a RW.

[FulciLives]

Well if you have a Pioneer DVD recorder with a built-in HDD then you can high speed copy from the HDD to a DVD-RW when using DVD Video mode ... so I really fail to see how VR mode give you any advantage ... yeah I know you said you can High-Speed copy from VR mod DVD-RW back to the HDD but really now ... what the hell use is that? The whole point is to get stuff OFF OF the HDD to a disc ... not the other way around.

Also when using DVD Video mode you will always have a DVD Video compliant resolution. When using VR mode there are recording times that will give you a resolution that is NOT compliant for DVD Video mode. Very bad if you want to make your end final output a standard DVD-R which after all is the whole point of having a stand alone DVD recorder.

Also when I burn to a DVD-RW I always finalize it ... I don't see the point in "risking" NOT finalizing it other than laziness.

As for VR mode on a computer ... well I haven't used VR mode recordings since the early Panny days of DVD-RAM (only uses VR mode) and that was on a different computer. I'm pretty sure that some sort of special driver is needed to properly work with VR mode discs. Some programs I think come with that driver which I think explains why some people have no trouble and some do. At least I seem to recall reading something like this and when I did play around with DVD-RAM so many years ago (on a different computer) I do seem to recall needing to install some special driver or something to work with DVD-RAM properly.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[Seeker47]

yeah I know you said you can High-Speed copy from VR mod DVD-RW back to the HDD but really now ... what the hell use is that? The whole point is to get stuff OFF OF the HDD to a disc ... not the other way around.

Also when using DVD Video mode you will always have a DVD Video compliant resolution. When using VR mode there are recording times that will give you a resolution that is NOT compliant for DVD Video mode. Very bad if you want to make your end final output a standard DVD-R which after all is the whole point of having a stand alone DVD recorder.

Here's the use: I haven't yet advanced to the level of editing on the computer with TMPEGenc, Womble MPEG, DVDAUTHOR, Cuttermaran, or the other software tools much discussed here. I hope to, but it hasn't happened yet. I've tried using stuff like IFOEDIT, PGCedit, and VOBblanker, but even with the help of guides I'm still pretty clumsy at it, and it really is a struggle. (All learning curve issues, no doubt.) So far, the closest I've come is a fair amount of clip extraction with DVDShrink's reauthor mode . . . and I can rip anything I need to rip with the well known tools available. BUT, I do find editing and authoring on the Pioneer to be quite accessible and satisfactory, at least for now. So, suppose one could rip anything, and copy it to VR mode on the computer ? Voila -- you can have a whole 2 hours of material on the Pioneer DVDR for processing about 12 minutes later. You don't see a large door opening right there ? Certainly, the designers of these DVDRs and the industry at large have taken great pains to keep us from being able to easily get any material we like onto these machines !

I'll give you a f'rinstance. Say I'd like to have a certain movie, but the full frame version, whereas the few occasions it shows on cable, it's always letterboxed. (Yeah, I'm one of those folks, who don't always automatically prefer the lbx version. The cable version may not look as good as the dvd, either, depending on channel transmission factors, and it will have the channel's watermark.) So I buy the movie from a bargain bin somewhere, it's the FF version, and it actually looks quite good. But of course it has a bunch of unwanted junk on it, plus Prohibited User Operations, etc. Rip it, and this will all be editable on the Pioneer, and then high speed burnable to a new -R.. I can't preserve the chaptering this way, but in this case I'm willing to give that up, and it will otherwise be the way that I want it.

As to the MN 5 thru 19 recording speeds that one must avoid for VR, no problem -- I avoid those anyway. MN 19 would be useful for some longer movies, but hey, you can't have everything.

There have also been situations where I wanted to redo something that was long removed from the HDD, but if I had to real time copy it back -- re-encoding along the way, rather than bit-copying -- I just wouldn't bother. (The Copy Disk feature of the DVDR -- which doesn't let you have access to the material to make any sort of change or adjustment, while it is temporarily back in a special "buffer" area of the HDD -- is something I've yet to find any real use for.) And I do a lot of stuff with clips compilations, the mechanics of which I prefer doing on the Pioneer.

All this makes a pretty good case for VR, in my book. In fact, in search of a computer VR-creation solution, I have purchased an OEM version of Cyberlink Power Producer, which supposedly offers this, but I haven't had time to install or test it yet.

Also when I burn to a DVD-RW I always finalize it ... I don't see the point in "risking" NOT finalizing it other than laziness.

I must agree with you that there is some degree of risk. To date, I have trashed a couple of these VR -RW discs in some mishap or another, but this is out of a couple dozen. The only way to avoid that, assuming the contents are important enough, is to back up the unfinished work periodically to regular Video Mode -R.

As for VR mode on a computer ... well I haven't used VR mode recordings since the early Panny days of DVD-RAM (only uses VR mode) and that was on a different computer. I'm pretty sure that some sort of special driver is needed to properly work with VR mode discs. Some programs I think come with that driver which I think explains why some people have no trouble and some do.

You may well be right about that. Here's what I've managed to test. I tried some playbacks, using Power DVD 5 and the Showtime player inside the Nero 6 Ultra suite (which could possibly be an OEM derivative of Power DVD, using a different UI or skin ??). A two show episodes disc, VR and finalized, played acceptablly in both. We might assume the driver you refer to would be present in the Nero suite, so that is not a huge surprise. (I never did any separate install of such a driver.) Then, I tried an unfinished and unfinalized VR clips compilation -RW disc in each. It also played, but there were some problems. In both players, there were correct speed and speed consistency issues. In one player or the other -- I think it was Power DVD -- I got some strange display of English subtitles that should not have been there at all, as the language being spoken was English only. The strange part was that only a couple words of each subtitle sentence displayed, and flashed by so fast as to be nearly unreadable.

I've long intended to try out some other players, such as VLC or GOM, but that's really on the back burner.