I need MAJOR help on burning DVDs!!!

[joker4499]

First off i do not know anything about this stuff, im getting ready to buy a comp with a dvd burner, and i have some questions about burning dvds.

1. What knid of disk do you use to burn DVD movies?

2. Can you rent a DVD, copy it and then burn it?

3. Will burnt DVDs play in an XBOX or a PS2, if not will my comp? and can you hook up your comp to your TV?

4. How long does it take to copy and burn a DVD?

5. How long will it take to download a movie off the net using a 56k?

6. Is there anyway for a person to send movies to another?

7. Is the HP DVD burner a good one?

8. Is DVD better than VCD, SVCD?

[joker4499]

someone please help me out.....

[johneboy]

1. What knid of disk do you use to burn DVD movies?

a blank one
if you mean what brand.. i use Memorex DVD-R and they seem to work fine for me.. it all depends on what kinda burner your getting, either DVD-R(W) or DVD+R(W) , unless you get one that does both (sony)

2. Can you rent a DVD, copy it and then burn it?

yes, illegal, but yes.

3. Will burnt DVDs play in an XBOX or a PS2, if not will my comp? and can you hook up your comp to your TV?

Dont know.. havent tried.. i would ASSUME so tho

4. How long does it take to copy and burn a DVD?

Depends on the speed of your computer, and whether or not you will have to re-enode the video or not.

5. How long will it take to download a movie off the net using a 56k?

Too long..
Say the average movie is 700MB, and you can download at 5Kb constantly.. that would take just under 40 hours non stop..

6. Is there anyway for a person to send movies to another?

Burn it on DVD, and mail it to them?

7. Is the HP DVD burner a good one?

Cendyne A05 is.. dont know about the HP one.. Tho i do recall someone saying it WASNT.. couldnt say as i dont have one..

8. Is DVD better than VCD, SVCD?

Of course

[mijman]

1. What knid of disk do you use to burn DVD movies?

Well, you seem to be interested in a HP drive, so I'd say DVD+R discs. If you're making a movie, you probably wouldn't care about rewriting it. Be aware that there is a big difference between DVD+R and DVD-R.

2. Can you rent a DVD, copy it and then burn it?

Sure, I suppose. But it wouldn't be right.

3. Will burnt DVDs play in an XBOX or a PS2, if not will my comp? and can you hook up your comp to your TV?

It depends. Some say yes, some say no, sometimes it depends upon the brand of disc you use. My experience is no. Computers play them fine.
Output to TV is achieved several ways. It also depends upon your system. Some video Cards include a video out port for this. Some need to get an attachment that adapts the signal to the TV. I don't remember what these are called.

4. How long does it take to copy and burn a DVD?

It depends heavily on your system. Whenever I have backed up DVD's it has taken quite a lot of time.
First, there's the ripping and frameserving. This is the easy part It takes between 1 and 2 hours (especially if there are bonus features I want to preserve.)

Then I need to make my menu screens. This is not necessary for every project, but I almost always have chapter stops and bonus stuff. So, I tend to make screen captures and corresponding buttons in a photo program. Then I usually need to capture the menu audio file for my menus. Usually I record audio/video straight from a standalone DVD player for this stuff. (Also, at this point, I know how much space all my other crap will take up, and I can determine what bitrate to encode it at.)
This step takes me about 3-4 hours.

Then, I encode. It is rare that a ripped movie will fit onto a blank as-is, due to the dual-layer nature of most originals. Also, unless you have a higher-end program which allows for dolby audio support, you'll need to use wav format audio, which takes up more space. This makes it necessary to re-encode the movie. Using TMPGenc, with a 1.4Gh computer, a 90 minute movie takes about 30 hours to encode to DVD specs.

After that, I feed all my stuff to my DVD authoring program, and scan through the movie, inserting chapter points. After that, I finish my menus, making the buttons point to where they should. This step takes a couple of hours too.

Finally I can burn the movie. It needs to be multiplexed and compiled by the program. If everything is correct, it'll take about 45 minutes for this, then another hour and a half for the actual recording of the disk.

So, all-in-all, you're looking at about 40+ hours to cpy a rental disc.
I don't know about you, but I'd consider shelling out the $15 bucks and just buying the damn thing.

5. How long will it take to download a movie off the net using a 56k?

DVD quality/format movies online are rare. Usually they're uploaded in DiVX format (which means you'll have to re-encode it anyway.) Also, most Divx movies have a reduced screen res, instead of the full DVD resolutions you'll need, so quality will be lost there. But, 700MB file will take you a hell of a long time to download with 56k modem. several days, assuming your source stays connected that long.

6. Is there anyway for a person to send movies to another?
Only via person to person setups, like a hub or something. Any other sources would have the possibility of multiple transfers. But even if not, you're still using a 56k modem.

7. Is the HP DVD burner a good one?

I've not heard anything bad about it. It's not the one I use, personally.

8. Is DVD better than VCD, SVCD? Video quality, yes. Turnaround time, Not really.

I only make DVDs these days of things I cannot buy at the store. Things that are out of print, or simply do not exist in that format. Anything else isn't worth the trouble, quite frankly.