Ripping & Burning

[StarvingForHDTV]

Thank you Gregg.  That's a nice setup you have then!  Now I see why it would be worth purchasing.

Starving

[tazman]

Hey Greg
Check out the Office MAX weekend fliers. They almost always have one for sale every weekend for under $80 after rebates thats where I got mine, and yes I did what the other genttleman suggested And replaced the CD burner and not the DVD player.  DVD decrypter is OK, Smart Ripper might be a little better it's your preference.  Also get a copy of DVD Shrink, you will need it to make those 2-1/2 to 3 hour movies fit into a -R or +R disk;)

Tazman

[Gregg Lengling]

Actually I'm very happy with the Pioneer drive and it is in the spot where the CD burner was so I still have the Read Only CD/DVD drive.   I've tried Smart ripper but it's not as good or quick as the solution I finally found.

I use DVD Decrypter to open and copy the DVD to the drive.  Then I use IFO edit to format it and strip it.  You can use IFO edit to split the files to make it fit a 4.7 disc and then the rest on another disk.  Shrink reduced the quality too much.

Then for burning I use Ulead DVD Movie Factory 3.0, which is a great program and is also allowing me to make great slide shows with music, titles, captions and voice overs for my photographs from trips.  I just make a set of 2 DVD's of all my England photos and it's just super.  DVD Decrypter and IFOedit are free on the internet but the Ulead program came bundled with my drive, but the bundled version wouldn't allow DolbyDigital, so I upgraded to the full version for 69.00 and it was worth every penny.

I can rip and burn a double densisty DVD to two single densisty DVD's in about 40 to 60 minutes, so it's much better than some of the other options where the ripping could take up to 8 hours.

[tazman]

Hi Gregg

Ya I know what you say about DVDshrink.  I have found that myself.  So long as I have kept the compression under 25 or 30% the degredation is hardly noticable.   I only bump the compression no higher than what is needed to make it fit.  I started using Smart Ripper before I found DVD decrypter and gotten used to that, like I said its a matter of prefference.  I have to get my self a new 8mm cam corder one of these days.  My Sony V99 took a dump and can no longer be repaired, Sony says that parts are no longer avialable and if they were it would not be cost effective.  I would like to get a digital 8mm, one that can also play back standard and high 8.  Then I can finally get around to getting my camcorder tape collection onto the computer and burned onto DVD's.  I'm using Cyberlinks Power cinema package, it came bumdled with the computer that I have hooked up to my Sony KF60XBR800 LCD.  The only problem I have with that software is that the Power Producer Pro part of it will only run on resolutions of 768 V or higher and the MAX I can drive The HDTV is 720.  Thankgoodness for dual head vga cards.  Its a little hassel but I can always hook up a second regular computer monitor to the second vga port.

If you have any suggestions on a camcorder let me know.  I was considering the Sony TRV350, but I'm not sure if it will do standard 8mm.  I know it does Hi8 as well as digital.

Tazman

[Doug Mohr]

I also use DVD Shrink. Actually I use it to "backup" the DVD to my hard drive at 0% compression, then if I don't want to play it directly across the network (which is virtually never) in full DVD res, I'll use DVD shrink again to pull out the foreign languages, subtitles, extras, trailers, etc. I can usually squeeze it onto a blank DVD at 10-20% compression.

I then use Roxio 6 to burn it to a Sony DRU510A.

Doug

[Gregg Lengling]

When I'm creating and ripping, I usually take all the garbage off except for the english captioning....I don't see a need for the all the rest of the garbage.  I'm not interested in shrinking because once I strip off all the garbage I've got plenty of room for the whole movie without compression (except for monsters like Lord of the Rings).  Of course this will all be different in a couple years depending on the HD format that wins, I just hope we don't have another VHS/Beta battle to win.....and we actually lost that one.

On another note, anybody using a video input card to take their VHS tapes and create DVD's.  I've looked around and it looks like everyone has their own favorite.  I can't find a real trend towards one card or another.

Just looking for opinions if you have one and the ups and the downs....I won't blame you if I buy the card you have and don't like it.  Of course the way things are going in my Family Room right now, I think the wife is going to ask me to create a Cable Trough for all the cables going to the computer from the HD=SET and vice versa....it's getting to be a pretty big bundle....sure will be nice in the future if someone comes out with an Optical Interface between a Media Center and the computer.

Yeah I know big wishes....but what the hey....Just as long as they don't go wireless...there is way too much RF floating in my house on 900MHz, 2300MHz and 5200MHz right now...don't need another wireless network.