Copy to hard drive

[DarkLogan]

I'v ripped my dvd movie to my h/d and used windows movie maker to just get the parts i want. It came out ok but you can see some distortion. What can I use to crop the video so that there is no quality loss ?? Thanx

[daamon]

When you crop a video, you either:

a) end up with a smaller picture and (mostly) retain the quality
b) end up with a picture the same size as the original (probably 720 x 480 for NTSC in the US) and, because the smaller picture has been stretched to meet the original size, poorer quality.

You can have one or the other.

More info on what you're aiming to end up with and what you're going to do with it will help.

P.S. Change the subject description to something more meaningful, as "Copy to hard drive" isn't very descriptive and doesn't really relate to your problem. More people will be inclined to take a look if you do.

[guns1inger]

I suspect that WMM doesn't recognise 16:9 material for what it is, and will therefore load it as 4:3, hence the distortion.

[DarkLogan]

Ok here is what I've done. I have a dvd of drum solos. I put it into dvd decrypter to copy it to my hard drive. Well the only solo i want is in the middle of the video. So i converted the file to avi and put it in wmm so that i can take out all other solos but that one. For the most part it isnt bad but there are parts of it that look like a scrambled digital signal (blocks of boxes). Is there a way i can get this one solo but retain the quality ?? Thanx guys

[daamon]

Well the only solo i want is in the middle of the video. Is there a way i can get this one solo but retain the quality ?? Thanx guys

The term "crop" is generally understood to mean "cut some of the picture away". What you want to do is generally referred to as "trim" - i.e. remove either side to leave only a wanted segment. But that's OK - part of it is learning terminology and we now know what you want to achieve.

Use DVDShrink (free) on your ripped DVD files (VOBs etc.) in Re-Author mode and select the "Start / End" as required for you desired segment. This also avoids converting to another format (AVI etc.) and so no quality issues.

Guides:

http://www.dvdshrink.info/re-author-v3beta5.php
http://www.dvdshrink.info/reauthor_intermediate.php

[DarkLogan]

Yes your right trim is the word I was looking for lol. After I get the portion that I want what do I have to do to be able to view that portion on a website. Do I have to convert it to another format or is there another option. Thanx

[daamon]

I've never posted video content to a website - either embedded or something like YouTube.

As far as I know, common options are WMV or FLV - using a smaller resolution (i.e. smaller size in terms of width and height) and lower bitrates will give you a small enough file for the net.

Have a hunt around the forums, the guides and on-line. Good luck.

[DarkLogan]

Ok I was able to get just the part I want. Now the trouble is when I go to convert it to mpeg2 format i get a really good picture but no audio. Am I missing a codec or something ?? If I convert it to mpeg1 i get sound but lose quality

[daamon]

How are you converting to MPEG2? Are you sure you're telling the encoder to do the audio too?

Open your MPEG2 (with apparently no audio) in GSpot and post a screenshot. That'll tell you want audio is (or isn't) there and if you need the codec.