Can we keep it simple?

[AlSat]

There is a LOT of software out there for doing all sorts of things with video and audio.( I know, Iv've experimented with most of it). I just want to do two (3) things quickly (FAST) and easily (SIMPLE). I am looking for your recommendations on the best software available for this.

1. Make copies of DVD,s, protected or not. (FAST copies). Some people I know say " Man, I can copy all my DVD's in 15 minutes on a single DVD/R no matter what the size, but they don't say what they use. I think they are trying to impress me with their vast knowledge and expertise and saying "we're smarter than you are". Or they are full of it

2. I want to create Good quality DVD's from torrent or other files I download, regardless of the format they are in.

This is all for personal use. I would appreciate honest, helpful replies basesd on actual experience. Thank You.

[mats.hogberg]

1) DVDFab Decrypter + a dual layer DVD writer.
2) convertx2dvd
But neither will handle all you can throw at it.

/Mats

[guns1inger]

1. The fastest method is AnyDVD (latest version) with DVD Decrypter (ISO->Read), then write to disc with Imgburn. If the source is DL, write to DL. If you need to reduce the size to fit then you have to accept that it will take time and affect the quality to some degree

2. There is no single, foolproof method. The best one0lcick solution I have found is ConvertXtoDVD, which covers most common source formats, and does a reasonable job with quality. However, like it or not, the quality of most downloaded files is not DVD quality, so it is unreasonable to expect anything like DVD quality from conversions. The issues with the source files become even more obvious when viewed on a TV that exposes the problems often hidden on your PC. The best quality will only be achieved by using the right tools for each stage, and learning how to get the best from each of them. It takes longer, but soon becomes second nature to set up. Like it or not (and many tears seem to be shed by frustrated, lazy people), simple comes at the cost of compromised quality.

[Bjs]

Fast , and simple = Aint ever going to happen considering torrents , and ms updates keep stuffing things about .

Mr ms can stop breaking my crap ... stupid ie7 just clears off without warning now days for no reason when it feels like it .

As for 1 :

A: Reasonably experienced in knowledge , plus associated tools , and they do it as fast as they can , and dont give a rats butt if its not there next week - slower burning is superior .

Or

B: Just yanking your chain completely to justify how clever they think they are , in considering they may have been doing it longer than you have ... or maybe not ... tossers we call them .

Dvd's also include many tricks , not just protection , and if you want to see a good example I suggest you buy "up the creek" (cheap) , just to see how they went about screwing dvdshrink up ... its really funny stuff , and I include the same technique in all my dvd's .

For 2 :

Good quality dvd's from converted torrent content is in many cases a guessing game as you can not be certain of the quality in at least 90% of all downloaded content .

I don't waste my time on "unknown" quality , or content that may contain copyrighted material .. or just plain rubbish to start with .

I mean you could be downloading something call tv short cuts , which describes itself as tv bloopers or similar , just because you were interested in such things , and did a search related to it ... yet be the very latest released movie title ... trouble brewing .

----

My friend download something the other day , and when he played it back it including animals ... well just leave it at that ... thankfully his wife had a sense of humor ... under normal conditions it would have been head for the shelter , shes about to blow .

----

About all you can do is limit the number of programs required to complete the conversion process to final outcome required .

Convertx2dvd is ok for what it is and dose , but can not cover 100% on its own .
Imgburn covers the burning to media .
Super is maturing nicely and has some capabilities in converting stubborn files that other programs choke on .
Besweet to convert specific audio formats to ac3 (allowing more video content to disc) .
Dvdfab covers most needs for ripping dvd content to hd .

I personally still use the psl2 plugin for pgcedit in conjunction with dvddecrypter , still works fine .

If you really want to go nutts :

The gimp - create menus
Dvdauthorgui - basic authoring
Visualsubsync - subtitle creation .
Throw in virtualdub / mod as a great utility .

Well , thats only 11 programs and it covers all your needs apart from you may still get the odd file that simply will not convert , there the ones requiring more attention and a few more tools to break their backs .

Creativity might include :

Ssmm
Dvdslideshowgui
Wax2
Blender (3d animation)
GAP (gimps animation package)

----

Now if only 1 codec had ever made , things would have been simpler , but knowing mankind's history , why not just make a mess of it all and confuse (screwup) most of the population while there at it ... lol

[mats.hogberg]

"Keep it simple" !

/Mats

[zoobie]

total tossers...punks...lamers...ha ha
I've been online now for 7 years and, honestly, I think the average internet mentality is around 15 years of age.

[AlSat]

What an arrogant attitude. If you think you are too smart to answer an inquiry from someone that's trying to learn something, shut the F*** up and let someone that's ot so full of his own S*** respond. Thanks.

You are in breach of the forum rules and are being issued with a formal warning. Your remarks are uncalled for.
/ Moderator redwudz

[lordsmurf]

There is nothing to "keep" simple. Video is complex in nature.

[zoobie]

huh? I'm commenting on the experience you had.

I think they are trying to impress me with their vast knowledge and expertise and saying "we're smarter than you are". Or they are full of it.

Full of it is more like it...

[smitbret]

Here's my two cents (with emphasis on speed).

1) CloneDVD 2 +AnyDVD will rip, compress and burn pretty much ANY DVD (movie file only) to a decent quality DVD-R and do it in about 20 minutes or less, depending on processor speed. Even better quality and faster is to use the same software and burn to a Verbatim Dual Layer DVD if CloneDVD shows that there will be any compression involved.

2) Harder to do (at least for me). My biggest problem is getting audio and video to be in synch when I convert over. DVD Flick seems to give me the most consistent results and was pretty easy to set up. It does take an hour or so to get it done with and AMDx2 4400+. Slower processors will take longer. Look up the guide here in VideoHelp. Use ImgBurn to burn it to DVD.

Like Lord Smurf said, there's really not much easy about converting video. Good luck.

[SCDVD]

Speed and quality of encoding are diametrically opposed. Only you can decide what is right for you by your own observations.

[overloaded_ide]

Much will depend on both your system and the disk being ripped how long it will take.

DVDshrink Beta 3, NOT using deep analysis, ran pretty darned fast ripping and shrinking right from the DVD to hard drive in one step for me, then all I had to do was burn the VIDEO_TS and AUDIO_TS folders to a disk. Should still work good for older DVDs and maybe some of the new ones?
With a new LARGER system and FASTER drives I bet I could get close to the 15 minutes if I cared to.

The size if the DVD, rather movie only or full disk, speed of computer, amount of ram, hard drive speeds, how you have the hard drives set up like a Slave IDE1 and Slave IDE2 and OS on IDE1 Master helps, takes 3 drives though.
Of course speed of burner and the disks used matters also.

With a AMD 1700XP 1 gig ram, 3 hard drives ATA133, DVD drive NOT RIPLOCKED speed crippled, I could rip shrink a large DVD in about 15-20 minutes as full disk cutting foriegn langauges and subs and other not wanted audio tracks to save space.
Then what ever the burn speed of my Drive and disks at the time, Mostly 4X burns.

New stuff DVDShrink Beta 3 may have trouble with, there was a newer version I got but not used much. I haven't been backing up many DVD's for awhile. Just not much new stuff that I like enough to buy, if I don't buy it I don't need to back it up, nice way to save money

There's stuff that does the new DVD's that shrink can't ripp itself, use AnyDVD and DVDshrink, or DVDFab decrypter I think it is.

If I had a 64bit CPU around AMD 3800+ or bigger, 4 gigs rams I am sure I could rip/shrink a disk much faster and then burn at 16X or 18X on a newer drive than I use now, probably would be near 15-20 minutes total. I don't want to do that though.

Some people do risky stuff also, like rip and burn on the fly, drive to drive. BIG chance of trashing disks that way!! But it does take much less time. Since your burning the disk as it is ripped and shrank it is a one step deal, not like having to burn it after it's ripped! So that saves time and for most people ruins some disks! But the disks that work are probably done in 15 minutes!
I don't want to do that either myself.
I did the rip/shrink/burn on the fly once just to see if I could on my system and it worked, don't remember what programs that was I was using right then. That worked, but the the next disk I try to rip to the hard drive had a read error and the rip crashed and I had to clean the disk and polish it, came just that close to making a coaster cause I almost tried that one on the fly also!

I figure what's the rush, I'll only do this once per movie normally but watch it many times, might as well do it right and put some effort into making it good. Heck sometimes I even re-author the movie and put the deleted scenes back in if they were any good

[AlSat]

My apologies for my earlier remarks. And thanks to those who responded to try to clear up this quagmire of software and techniques. I will favor quality over speed any time.

[EddyH]

Hm, I don't know how it would fare for a protected original disc, but I'm pretty sure Nero 7 Premium (if you're prepared to pay for it...), in non-updated form at least*, should be able to copy discs and burn yer average DivX/Xvid without too much issue.
* glad i saw the warnings on here about the damage updating does to NeroVision before I actually did it...

That said, it worked fine for some TV eps when my uncle wanted them put on DVD, but went ga-ga loopy when I tried burning some captures that I'd done in Xvid (very low on disc space at the time! lots of wierd corruption and image smearing that didn't happen in any other program).

Quality of course won't be the best, but the authoring process is hammer-simple, and it can at least have a stab at 2-pass encoding and 5.1 AC3...

Given the previous transcoding difficulty, I'm now embroiled in a seething mass of freeware to do the same job but better, error free, and for no moolah. Not entirely convinced it's the better way yet, but it's not terrible either...:

VirtualDub both for getting the original capture, and for splitting WAVs out of resultant AVI files.

HC for encoding said AVIs to MPG2 (M2V), with AVIsynth for the express purpose of piping the files into it, and resizing if necessary (tried to use it with Nero, it failed hard)

Cooledit for any WAV editing needed (e.g. 44->48khz conversion, levels, noise reduction, stripping a false stereo track to twin-mono etc) and high-treble MP2 encoding.

BeSweet for regular MP2 and all AC3 encoding.

GUI for DVDAuthor to put the disc together and perform on-the-fly muxing and chaptering.

Nero Burning ROM to burn the VOBs, IFOs and BUPs to a compliant disc. (OK, it's not free, but it's as-good-as considering a lot of drives bundle it or a workalike).

..... argh
My external HD is covered with the litter of literally 100 files (about 30 capture test clips, generating at least 4 files each along the way...)

Now that I've got a bit of external HD space and the HuffYUV codec, I might give Nero a second chance... Surely it can't drag motion artefacts out of a lossless file?

[drifter666]

my 2 cents, stay away from torrents the movie companies actually put a tracker in the files i got caught once, nothing happened all i got was a letter saying they caught me and that if i did it again they would take legal actions, my method for backing up my dvds is DVD decrypter for older movies and dvd shrink to compress, currently im using any dvd "until my free trial is up" and it works great, i use decrypter to burn to disk, i have a 2ghz Intel with 3gb of ram total process takes me about 50mins give or take, BTW if anyone knows of a good free ripper that will make ISOs let me know dvd fab hd decrypter doesnt creat ISOs any more