DVDs --> hard drive? (Help-a-Newbie)
Hank
and long battery life.
Apparently I can watch movies on long flights by
in-advance pulling videos from DVDs and storing them in
some efficient format more suitable to the screen.
Therefore, I need some software that will read a DVD and
convert or compress it for viewing on a small screen.
I know absolutely nothing about the methods and tools
available.
???
Thanks,
Noguru
Hank
I'd like to preserve subtitles if possible.
Colon Terminus
news:g1p0ng$s5u$1...@registered.motzarella.org...
www.videohelp.com
www.doom9.org
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sandy58
BlazeDVD Professional 5.0.0.1
http://www.blazevideo.com/dvd-player/
Register with any name and e-mail
Serials:
MWKJHPPDWGH3J3
MVX6AGMNJF35J3
6EGR47JJSQN4J3
6B33PDVJESM3J3
7HTJ89EQQMJ3J3
6B99C3W9CHE3J3
LECMKTW9SXL4J3
7VHHFNVBYHB4J3
6PJT8HXWPND4J3
Good Luck Guru :-)
Hank
drive dissipates considerable energy, and battery life
is part of the equation. And, my laptop has an LED (not
LCD) screen that uses power proportional to the
illuminated area. The idea was that the DVD might be
converted to a lower-resolution/smaller display while
it's being pulled from the disc, thus saving further energy.
As an old (8th decade) software writer, I respect those
still in the business - but thanks for the serials anyway.
Hank
Hank
> www.videohelp.com
> www.doom9.org
>
>
>
Good resources -- thanks!
Hank
Hank
> A DVD drive spindle motor uses far less energy than a hard drive
> spindle motor does.
>
> I would sleep the hard drive and watch by DVD.
Whoa!!
How do I "sleep the hard drive"???
Hank
> How many YEARS have you been using windows
Weeks and weeks. I'm an old mainframe guy with a PDP-8
in the living room, then Mac, then Linux. I'll apologize
for my ignorance if you'll consider your (lack of) courtesy.
And I do thank you for the pointer to "sleeping" the
hard drive. It's voluntary ignorance that's a sin.
Hank
Tarkus
> Experience is all any of us need.
>
> That is why Obama is the WRONG choice.
>
> NOT a Leader.
>
> NOT Experienced.
>
> NOT informed.
>
> A scary prospect, actually.
Yes, almost as scary as someone who is "experienced" at supporting the
killing and maiming of tens of thousands of people, for no apparent
reason, and wanting it to continue indefinitely.
Hank
I am SO GLAD this discussion went political!!!
Claiming that Obama is the right choice just because you
believe Bush is the wrong one is fallacious. Those who
support Obama today will be embarrassed by what happens
in October, as revelation after revelation show us how
gullible his party and supporters have been. This man is
one of the most successful political scams in history.
His undoing in the 30 days before November 4 will
probably bring down a lot of other politicians, media
personalities, finance sources, and others who have tied
themselves to him so tightly that as he plummets they
cannot detach.
Hillary may join the McCain campaign, perhaps even as
VP, and will bring her bag of Obamacrapola that could
not be opened during the primaries (there are rules
about Democrats damaging each other). But the gloves
will come off as she inflicts mortal political wounds on
Obama, clearing the way for her 2012 campaign. In return
for a shredded Obama and guaranteed victory in the
general election, McCain will have to keep her in the
limelight for the next four years.
The remaining question: in 2012, will Hillary run as a
Democrat or Republican...?
Interesting times... and (back on topic) you can get it
all on DVD.
Tarkus
> Claiming that Obama is the right choice just because you believe Bush is
> the wrong one is fallacious.
Bush is not running against Obama. The Constitution forbids it.
Ken Maltby
> One more thing...
>
> I'd like to preserve subtitles if possible.
If you copy the VIDEO_TS folder to the hard drive,
any software DVD player will be able to play the DVD
just as if it were on a DVD disk. You may have players
like WinDVD, or PowerDVD, that you might have gotten
bundled with a DVD drive. There are free players like
the VLC Media Player or my favorite Media Player
Classic, that will play DVDs, as well. You can set it up
so the movie menu plays when you click on a shortcut.
All you need is something to decrypt the encrypted DVD
so that you can copy the VIDEO_TS folder. For all but
the newest DVDs you can find free programs to do the
decryption, DVDShrink and DVDecryptor being the best
known.
A well respected commercial approach:
http://www.slysoft.com/en/
Many full length movies are under 6GB in size, so you
could be able to figure out how many you can put in the
space left on your hard drive. These would be exactly
like they are on the DVD. You can shrink them, giving
up some image quality, and put more on your hard drive.
You can convert them to another compression format
and fit more that way as well, but it will take time and
you probably can make space on your laptop drive for
enough, at the original 6GB size DVD quality.
Luck;
Ken
Hank
This is the best advice because I don't need to become
expert. Rather, I'll copy the videos to my hard drive
(there's 100GB empty!) without modifying them.
Thanks -
Tarkus
> is to wait until a couple million US hating asswipes are all gathered in
> the street in front of ONE single total asswipe. Then we drop a single
> neutron bomb, and all the total asswipes go away.
>
> Nothing indefinite about that.
>
> Quite succinct, actually.
Is your real name John McCain?
Otherwise, I couldn't give a fuck less what you'd like to do.
Colon Terminus
Ken always gives good advice.
Be sure to pay attention to what he said about decrypting.
An CSS encrypted (almost all are) video will NOT play back from the hard
drive.
cat...@invalid.address.com
>AnimalMagic wrote:
>
>> How many YEARS have you been using windows
>
>
>Weeks and weeks. I'm an old mainframe guy with a PDP-8
>in the living room
My hero! I cut my teeth on a PDP-8i in 1969.
Alan Keatinge
What is wrong with you guys? A person asks for help and you idiots are
off arguing about your politics. Why not stick to the subject and if
you want to argue politics then find the proper group.
Alan Keatinge
Hank
Ken,
Is there a difference between DVDecryptor and DVD
Decrypter? I couldn't find the former, but the latter
seems to work properly. However, it delivers multiple
copies of some files - that must be sorted out.
You're right in that the most sensible solution is to
use them undiminished in quality or size - there's
plenty of disk space.
And btw, every dvd that I wish to put on my hard drive
for travel is owned by someone in the household - this
is not piracy, as I understand it.
Thanks,
Hank
Ken Maltby
"FatBytestard" <FatByt...@somewheronyourharddrive.org> wrote in message
news:ke94445mkvulqi67m...@4ax.com...
DVD Decrypter is the original by "Lightning UK" the author of
the great Imgburn. It is bundled with "Gordian Knot".
DVDecryptor is probably a miss firing brain cell, on my part.
DVDFabDecrypter seems to be the inheritor of the original
program, for most people.
I think "AnyDVD" is the best way to go as it enables all the
programs on your system to treat the DVD as if it were
unencrypted. Including Windows Explorer.
It is not piracy, at all. It is against the law in the USA, under
a Digital Rights Management law passed to please the media
powers that be. In my opinion that is an unjust law. It made
it illegal to break the encryption, even if you have purchased
the DVD. The stated intent is to prevent piracy but it also
interferes with my use of what I have purchased.
If you obtain the material on a DVD without purchasing it,
say by just renting and make a copy that is simple theft. If
you make copies and sell or give them away that is piracy.
AnyDVD is sold in the UK. You download a fully functional
program on a timed trial basis, then buy a license code to allow
it to function beyond the trial period.
AnyDVD works in the background when you read a DVD
and you don't need to do anything to make it work once it's
installed.
With AnyDVD installed, you would just put your encrypted
DVD into your computer's DVD drive and any program that
accesses it will not see the encryption. Now you can copy
DVD files and folders just like you do any other files or
folders.
-------------------------
So you can have Windows Explorer copy the VIDEO_TS
folder to your hard drive. Then rename the folder to the movie
title.
Then just play the "DVD" with your media player.
---------------------------
Just make a "Movies" directory on your laptop and copy
the VIDEO_TS folders from the DVDs to C:\Movies\, one at
a time, renaming the VIDEO_TS folder each time. Now the
directory tree of C:\Movies is a list of the movies on your
laptop.
I could describe the steps to create a shortcut to play each
DVD, and how to create an icon for each shortcut, using free
programs.
Luck;
Ken
Hank
As Fra William of Ockham suggested, the simplest
solution... lex parsimoniae.
I have no problem purchasing a utility that will meet my
goals, but there are dozens or hundreds of tools on the
market each claiming to be the aspirin. I trust your
judgment and will seek out AnyDVD.
Regarding 'piracy', I feel that if the publishers had
the ability to selectively allow what I want to do (put
a purchased film on my hard drive) there would be no
objection because it costs the publisher nothing. In
fact, given the capability, we may purchase more - not
less. Malum prohibitum, not malum in se.
And I just discovered AutoHotKey, so Windows growth
should be exponential now...
Thanks, Ken.
Hank
Ken Maltby
> On Sun, 1 Jun 2008 01:06:23 -0500, "Ken Maltby" <kma...@sbcglobal.net>
> wrote:
>>
>> It is not piracy, at all. It is against the law in the USA, under
>>a Digital Rights Management law passed to please the media
>>powers that be.
>
> intellectual property on ALL delivery mediums, not simply DVDs. It
> covers software and any other PROPERTY that is encrypted on its delivery
> medium.
>
>> In my opinion that is an unjust law.
>
>
> So are cannabis laws and referring to a benign self inebriant as a
> narcotic. Does that make it any less illegal? No.
>
>> It made
>>it illegal to break the encryption, even if you have purchased
>>the DVD.
>
> piece of plastic. You bought the right to VIEW what is on the piece of
> plastic. You do not OWN the media on the plastic. So using a piece of
> hardware running a piece of software that performs a task OTHER THAN
> viewing the media, is illegal.
>
So, using them as Christmas tree decorations would be
illegal, as well I suppose? Oh right, that would be the
piece of plastic I really do own.
>> The stated intent is to prevent piracy but it also
>>interferes with my use of what I have purchased.
>
> You USE is limited to viewing the moment you buy the disc, you have
> accepted that agreement.
>
This is where I find the law to be unjust. What use I make of
any thing I may purchase is my responsibility, not the maker of
the product in question. If I buy a handgun and use it to shoot
a coyote trying to eat a 5 year old in a playground, I will have
broken the laws against discharge of a firearm within the City
limits. While Mayor Bloomburg and trial lawyers may feel that
the makers and sellers of the handgun bear a responsibility, I
don't. When you purchase a firearm, you sign an agreement
that you will use the weapon in a lawful manner, but it's not
the violation of that agreement that gets me charged. Nor
would I be beating myself up over my breach of that
agreement, any more than I would over my violation of
municipal law.
My use of a DVD, or anything else for that manner, to
commit a crime should not be the issue - having committed
the crime is what our laws should be addressing. Making
it a crime to use something you have purchased in a manner
other than intended by the maker, is unjust. Where the
maker can show that my use of the product actually causes
him harm, the maker can make a civil claim against me. If
I steal or try to sell or giveaway another's property there
are plenty of laws on the books to address that.
> No, you do not get to make a copy for your kid to watch. If you are too
> fucking stupid to educate your children on disc handling, then you need
> to keep them OFF the discs until they are old enough to learn the
> requisite skills, or until you have enough brains to teach them.
>
> Rule number one for DVD handling: NEVER touch the read surface. Not
> with your finger... not by placing it on a surface. There are only two
> valid places for a DVD to be. That is in the tray of a playback device
> and in it's caddy case. Any location other than that, and you have
> failed at having enough brains to use the medium.
>
>> If you obtain the material on a DVD without purchasing it,
>>say by just renting and make a copy that is simple theft.
>
> Yes, and the fines allocated for breaking that law should even be higher
> than they are. Those are the very bastards that are driving up my cost
> of ownership of a title.
>
Theft is normally punishable on a basis of the value of the property
stolen, the penalties can be much more than a simple fine. What I
don't want to see are laws empowering the government to do what
would be needed to track down the renter making a copy.
>> If
>>you make copies and sell or give them away that is piracy.
>
> No shit.
>
The distinction is important.
>> AnyDVD is sold in the UK. You download a fully functional
>>program on a timed trial basis, then buy a license code to allow
>>it to function beyond the trial period.
>>
>> AnyDVD works in the background when you read a DVD
>>and you don't need to do anything to make it work once it's
>>installed.
>>
>> With AnyDVD installed, you would just put your encrypted
>>DVD into your computer's DVD drive and any program that
>>accesses it will not see the encryption. Now you can copy
>>DVD files and folders just like you do any other files or
>>folders.
>>-------------------------
>> So you can have Windows Explorer copy the VIDEO_TS
>>folder to your hard drive. Then rename the folder to the movie
>>title.
>>
>> Then just play the "DVD" with your media player.
>
> Yes, without the subtitles, however. Did you even read the thread?
*******WRONG******
The subtitles are just the same as they were when they
were on the DVD disk. They play fine with the DVD/
Media players on my system, and why wouldn't they,
we have the exact same data and files as are on the
original DVD.
>>---------------------------
>>
>> Just make a "Movies" directory on your laptop and copy
>>the VIDEO_TS folders from the DVDs to C:\Movies\, one at
>>a time, renaming the VIDEO_TS folder each time. Now the
>>directory tree of C:\Movies is a list of the movies on your
>>laptop.
>
> He can name the directory anything he wants. How do you know he
> doesn't have more than one volume on the drive, keeping his data on a
> different volume than C:?
>
I was describing a workflow that avoids the problem of having
multiple VIDEO_TS folders.
>> I could describe the steps to create a shortcut to play each
>>DVD, and how to create an icon for each shortcut, using free
>>programs.
>
> Well, regular old windows desktop housekeeping techniques are easy. If
> he doesn't know how to do that, he ain't real bright.
I find your attitude to be somewhat less than constructive
and I doubt you have much understanding of the range of
features available in windows yourself, if you dismiss them
so easily. There are plenty of features built-in to XP Pro
that I know very little about. I'm sure there are a large
number I know nothing about. The few tricks I have
acquired over the years, include a number of them that
are not obvious, even if they may be easy to implement.
If you ask me your last statement "ain't real bright".
Luck;
Ken
Hank
vocabulary were so limited that I embroidered every
argument with foul language and a loud voice. That was
enough to win when my opponent didn't think a victory
over me was significant enough to be worth the battle.
In retrospect, It's clear now that I lost virtually
every such battle in which my primary weapon was a foul
diatribe rather than convincing rhetoric.
Having stimulated this particular case, I feel justified
in exercising my judgment (since I've been a judge).
Both parties are right, but Ken is with the Gods.
First, there is nothing intrinsically wrong (malum in
se) in copying the video content of a purchased DVD to
one's hard drive. And mala prohibita vary so much from
one jurisdiction to another that this sort of thing
shouldn't even count in this discussion.
Second, when one defeats copy protection to accomplish
that task, it may be correct that a law - somewhere - is
being broken. There is prosecutorial discretion,
however, and such an act for personal use would never be
pursued as a criminal action. Some derivative of that
same law might give the owner of the copyright the basis
for a civil action, but that would be pursued only in
the most egregious cases, where it can be showed that
there was actual damage to the plaintiff. When someone
purchases a DVD, defeats copy protection, and moves the
entertainment to a hard disk - and does all this once
for each DVD purchased - there has been no damage and
litigation is unlikely unless for some reason the
plaintiff seeks an example. If the primary cause of the
suit is to make an example through punitive litigation,
as opposed to the achievement of equity, the suit will
probably fail and may boomerang if judged malicious.
Have you ever driven faster than the speed limit? Failed
to come to a perfect halt at a stop sign? Turned without
signaling? These are either infractions or misdemeanors
(depends on jurisdiction and magnitude) that can
contribute to a situation that can injure others - a
far, far more serious offense against the law and
against others than making a hard disk copy of a DVD.
I'm no expert on videos, etc. but will gladly debate
these issues. Even at this age I have enough functional
neurons to win such an easy argument!
Hank
BlueBuyYoo
Hank,
The fair-use doctrine in US copyright law has been accepted
to include making personal copies of DVDs. However, the Digital
Millenium Copyright Act (DCMA) states that it is illegal to
crack the CSS copy-protection on DVDs.
Personally, I don't download movies, but I don't have a problem
ripping a personal DVD to my laptop for viewing while travelling.
Hank
> Hank,
> The fair-use doctrine in US copyright law has been accepted
> to include making personal copies of DVDs. However, the Digital
> Millenium Copyright Act (DCMA) states that it is illegal to
> crack the CSS copy-protection on DVDs.
>
> Personally, I don't download movies, but I don't have a problem
> ripping a personal DVD to my laptop for viewing while travelling.
>
Sure. And neither does the entertainment industry. There
could be a better term than "ripping", though - the word
alone might color judgment of the ignorant.
When cell technology first went digital (TDMA), some
piece of legislation made it illegal to decrypt such
signals unless you were the intended receiver. The idea
was to place obstacles in the path of eavesdropping, but
they didn't stop anyone who really wanted to do it.
Today, modulation methods and spread spectrum are almost
impossible to follow.
When Jacobs of Linkabit (he left to found Qualcomm)
announced the "uncrackable" videocypher chip, it took
the hacker world only days to continue watching free
satellite video ("if that signal falls on my property I
can do with it as I see fit..."). Linkabit poured epoxy
atop that chip, the solution (literally) to which took
another 24 hours. I think that today, sat TV is uncrackable.
My point is that it makes little sense to erect
technical obstacles to protect information and IP unless
they are truly impenetrable, and it's silly to try to
write law to do the job. The combination of bad law and
crackable tech criminalizes our smartest -- who cannot
ignore a challenge. Once they crack DVDs, who knows
what's next? Perhaps they'll stop signaling their turns!
Hank
www.defcon.org (since inception)
sandy58
Decrypter?" Just a typo, Hank. If your e-mail is OK I can send you a
"graphic tuition" for DVD Decryptor & DVD Shrink.
justin baker
it DVDecrypts much better
"Hank" <noguru...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:g1t1v1$uvr$1...@registered.motzarella.org...
Hank
> "Is there a difference between DVDecryptor and DVD
> Decrypter?" Just a typo, Hank. If your e-mail is OK I can send you a
> "graphic tuition" for DVD Decryptor & DVD Shrink.
Thank you, that email works if you delete delete.
I am trying Slysoft, which has a generous 21-day
full-function trial period. Last evening we downloaded
AnyDVD and CloneDVD, which are costly but excellent, and
work well in Vista. However, their free
VirtualCloneDrive does not, so I shifted to VLC.
Is there a better choice for playing .iso files on my
hard drive that will preserve the subtitles?
Hank
Hank
> "Is there a difference between DVDecryptor and DVD
> Decrypter?" Just a typo, Hank. If your e-mail is OK I can send you a
> "graphic tuition" for DVD Decryptor & DVD Shrink.
Thank you, that email works if you delete delete.
I am trying Slysoft, which has a generous 21-day
full-function trial period. Last evening we downloaded
AnyDVD and CloneDVD, which are costly but excellent, and
work well in Vista. However, their free
VirtualCloneDrive does not, so I shifted to VLC.
Is there a better choice for playing .iso files on my
hard drive?
Hank
BlueBuyYoo
Ken Maltby
Just curious, why bother with an image file? Or CloneDVD
for that matter. By the way "Sandy of the 58 IQ" is our resident
Pirate.
Luck;
Ken
Hank
> Just curious, why bother with an image file? Or CloneDVD
> for that matter. By the way "Sandy of the 58 IQ" is our resident
> Pirate.
>
> Luck;
> Ken
>
>
Ignorance, but hopefully with time there'll be less of
it. My original intent was to store videos (quite a few
of them) on my laptop's hard drive, to support travel,
vacation, etc. There's more than 100GB of open space...
Image files? My initial fumbling around led to a folder
with vob and inf, etc. files - no clue as to which was
what - so .iso made sense with a player (such as VLC)
that's just click and go.
Best
Hank
Ken Maltby
The .iso file would be the same size as the DVD, unless
you used CloneDVD to shrink it some. If you installed
AnyDVD you could use the free DVDShrink to do the
same.
Your 100GB of open space should hold 8 or 9 full DVDs
at least. By just copying their VIDEO_TS folders and
renaming them. VLC has an "Open Directory..." function
and it plays such renamed VIDEO_TS folders that way.
You can also right-click on the folder and select "Play with
VLC media player" or "Add to VLC media player's Playlist",
an ISO (image file) provides no special playback benefits, that
I am aware of, over playing a copy of the VIDEO_TS folder
off your hard drive.
If you want to put more than 10 or so in your 100GB of
free space, preserving some features like subtitles complicates
things and adds to the processing time and/or steps involved.
I personally store captured TV series in shared drives on
my gigabit LAN. I edit the MPEG2 files that my capture
card creates using VideoReDo TV Suite, then use TMPGEnc
4.0 XPress to encode them into AVC/H.264 .mp4 files.
With this process I have high quality video and one hour TV
episodes in >450MB files. But I do this transcoding as an
overnight two pass process.
( An example: the 10 seasons of Stargate 1 are 199 files
[I edited most multi-episode story arcs into one file] and
take up 84.4 GB , I have no idea how many hours of video
that is.) I have all of Firefly, captured and transcoded, but
the "Serenity" movie I have as a 5.26GB .mpg simply
extracted from the DVD. I made HD menus to select and
play the video I have stored up, using MMB. I can select
any episode of any of the 52 seasons of hour long TV shows
that are stored in < 340GB.
A more practical approach, for playback on a laptop, of
more compressed video would be with the free "Auto Gordian
Knot" (AutoGK) http://www.autogk.me.uk/ You still need
AnyDVD installed for AutoGK to work with any encrypted
DVDs . VLC likes Xvid, so you would use that on the
laptop.
Luck;
Ken
CLicker
> My new Vista Business laptop has a very large hard drive
> and long battery life.
>
> Apparently I can watch movies on long flights by
> in-advance pulling videos from DVDs and storing them in
> some efficient format more suitable to the screen.
> Therefore, I need some software that will read a DVD and
> convert or compress it for viewing on a small screen.
>
> I know absolutely nothing about the methods and tools
> available.
>
> ???
>
> Thanks,
>
> Noguru
Hank,
If you don't want all the features of the DVD but actually desire only
the movie itself, sans extras, then DVDShrink (a misnamed program if
ever there was one) is the simplest approach. With it, you can select
just the movie, the sound track(s) in which you're interested, and
retain subtitles in your native, or favorite, language. You can even
further reduce file size by snipping out unrelated headers and credit
crawls. "Shrinking" any portion of the DVD never has to be considered
unless disc space is at an absolute premium and a larger or added drive
is out if the question.
DVDShrink will then, if asked, write those selections as an ISO file.
While VLC and MPC will play ISO files, they do so poorly. Mounting the
ISO file as a pseudo-drive (Daemon Tools is but one program which
enables this) would then allow any player, including VSO and MPC, to see
the ISO as if it were a disc - thus supporting chapter nav, audio track
selection, and subtitle display.
So a more concise method of achieving your goal might be:
a) AnyDVD running (if necessary)
b) DVDShrink to read the disc, select only the desired media segments
c) create a folder on the hard drive (DVDS will usually suggest a name)
which optionally contains a VIDEO-TS sub-folder.
d) Use VLC, MPC, or a host of other players to play the folder.
OR - alternately
c) create an ISO (again DVDShrink will suggest a name)
d) mount the ISO as a pseudo drive with Daemon tools
e) play with any player.
Note: either the ISO file or the folder would be the size of the
selected and trimmed materials not the size of the DVD per se.
One added convenience, when using the folder approach, would be to add
the desired player to the "send to" shortcuts. (see this Help topic:
How to Add Items to the "Send To" Menu in Windows XP) Yet it may be
even simpler to merely drag the folder onto the player or its icon. I
think the folder approach is much cleaner than the ISO approach, and
dragging much cleaner than another entry in the menu system.
By the way, one need not pay any attention to, nor be distracted by, the
folder's content. And, you do not need to resize the video to see a
smaller picture, resize the player window instead. If size has an
impact on battery life, it should achieve the same effect.
Note: MPC does not navigate folder trees, drag the VIDEO_TS folder to
it. VLC does dive into the directory, so one can drag the folder which
contains the VIDEO_TS folder to it.
Hank
Whoa!! You deserve a PhDVD.
I've saved this. AnyDVD is running, and I now see that
DVDShrink works with Vista if you just want to watch the
video.
Priceless. Literally.
THANK YOU!
Hank
Ken Maltby
"CLicker" <nospam@invalid> wrote in message
news:JgkBKu1C8LG7Q48nnospam@invalid...
As I mentioned before there is no benefit to using an ISO image
file for this purpose. (An ISO image file is very useful in certain
circumstances, just not this one.)
DVDShrink is a longtime favorite and well worth using when
it can make a difference. Like anything involving video processing
its use takes some time and requires the proper selection of the
program's parameters.
An Example:
A DVD that I copied VIDEO_TS folder to a folder on my hard
drive, with the title of the DVD as the folder name. = 4.24GB
The same DVD processed through DVDShrink, removing
everything but what was needed to have the menu and one
of the subtitles selectable, no compression applied. = 3.89GB
Of course, if your DVD had more or less extra material, the
amount of the difference in size would be effected.
If you were to spend the time and effort to use DVDShrink,
(It's not a lot of time or effort, though.) you should give its
shrinking/compression function a try, especially as you will be
playing these on a smaller screen; so a few artifacts or some
softening will go unnoticed. DVDShrink lets you select the
amount of compression to be applied. A little trial should
let you establish how much compression you can live with.
The same example with the main movie shrunk to 66% and
using deep analysis took ~15min. =2.82GB 4.24 to 2.82GB
is a significant reduction, and could be worth the 15min.
As for Playback, the DVDShrink output folder is essentially
a renamed VIDEO_TS folder. If you name it with the title of
the DVD, it should make it easy to select the folder from a
directory on your hard drive.
VLC makes it easy to play such a folder, just right-click on
the folder and select "Play with VLC media player".
MPC and its command line switches can make it even easier,
but you need to create a shortcut or use some kind of menu
program to select the DVD(s) to play back.
To create a Shortcut for playing the DVD folder on your hard
drive:
On your laptop:
1. Find mplayerc.exe right-click on it and select "Create
Shortcut".
2. Copy the shortcut just created to the folder you will be
selecting your DVDs from.
3. Right-click on the shortcut and select "Properties".
Now we add the command line commands, into the
"Target:" box:
4. Add a space after the end quote then a start quote.
5. Find the renamed DVD folder click on it. You should
have the full path to the folder in the "Address" box, click
on that to highlight it. Use Ctrl-c to put the path into the
clipboard.
6. Back to your shortcut and use Ctrl-v to add the path
then add a close quote.
7. Now add a space then /dvd (you can add more switches
if you want, but that is all you need to play the DVD)
8. Rename the shortcut to the DVD title, and change the
icon if you want.
You can then just copy the short cut and replace the path
to the next DVD folders.
Luck;
Ken
Ken Maltby
"Ken Maltby" <kma...@sbcglobal.net> wrote in message
news:0LGdnSuGD_hJ0trV...@giganews.com...
>
>
> DVDShrink is a longtime favorite and well worth using when
> it can make a difference. Like anything involving video processing
> its use takes some time and requires the proper selection of the
> program's parameters.
>
> An Example:
>
> A DVD that I copied VIDEO_TS folder to a folder on my hard
> drive, with the title of the DVD as the folder name. = 4.24GB
>
> The same DVD processed through DVDShrink, removing
> everything but what was needed to have the menu and one
> of the subtitles selectable, no compression applied. = 3.89GB
>
> Of course, if your DVD had more or less extra material, the
> amount of the difference in size would be effected.
>
> If you were to spend the time and effort to use DVDShrink,
> (It's not a lot of time or effort, though.) you should give its
> shrinking/compression function a try, especially as you will be
> playing these on a smaller screen; so a few artifacts or some
> softening will go unnoticed. DVDShrink lets you select the
> amount of compression to be applied. A little trial should
> let you establish how much compression you can live with.
>
> The same example with the main movie shrunk to 66% and
> using deep analysis took ~15min. =2.82GB 4.24 to 2.82GB
> is a significant reduction, and could be worth the 15min.
>
Update:
Taking the shrunk DVD at 2.82GB and transcoding the
movie (loosing the menus) into AVC/H.264 at my usual
settings =945MB .mp4 file So from a 4.7GB DVD to
a 945MB file, with no noticeable difference in image quality.
( I did have to boost the audio during the transcode of the
shrunk DVD track, for some reason.)
Bill's News
I'm curious, Ken, is this done simply because of a disc space
crunch? Regardless, would you share how long it takes vs. play
time and what program(s) and processor you might be using to do
so? I know that I've posted in the past of my transcoding TV
captures to smaller files, usually xvid at 2 mbps, but finally
gave up on that effort when the price of HDD and DVD+/-RW
reached near parity. Now I favor HDTV capture almost
exclusively and merely remove whatever portions of the video are
of no interest, leaving files that are about 2/3 their capture
size.
The new Hauppauge HD capture via component cabling to produce
H264 images at up to 15 mbps is definitely going to be tried
here whenever TV begins showing anything of interest again.
http://www.hauppauge.com/site/products/data_hdpvr.html I
presume it won't be long before the industry clamps that
interface down to 480, but it looks like a fun toy in the
interim.
Another poster mentioned dragging the video folder to MPC's or
VLC's icon. I just did some experimenting.
a) If the content of the folder which would normally be VIDEO-TS
is moved up one level to the folder which is the name of the
video, then dragging that folder to either MPC or VLC opens the
"DVD." Using DVDShrink was mentioned; I believe there is an
option in that program to create, or not create, a VIDEO_TS
folder.
b) If the content of the folder are several AVIs, say all the
episodes in a series, then dragging the folder to MPC's or VLC's
icon places the content in its playlist, alphabetically, and
play begins with the first - continuing on to each subsequent
entry.
Either of these would seem way simpler than creating tailored
shortcuts in video folders, no?
I don't allow programs, which offer the option, to enter
themselves into the short-cut menu system, so I may be missing
the opportunity to right click a folder and have VLC play its
content. But I presume that, if I did allow this, VLC would not
be the only choice proffered for folder processing and therefore
whatever miniscule potential time saving, if any, vs. dragging
might be offset.
Ken Maltby
"Bill's News" <bill...@pcmagic.net> wrote in message
news:48486ec2$0$4251$4c36...@roadrunner.com...
The thread was addressing the methods for putting DVDs
with menus and subtitles onto a laptop with 100GB of free
space. The methods which included shrinking and then
compressing were given as options to allow more video in
the allotted space. I tried to point out the costs in time and
effort, as well as the benefits in size reduction. The update
was just an example of what can be accomplished in terms
of saving space, at the additional cost of an overnight encode.
( It could be said that the update gives a false impression
because you would need a pretty high powered laptop to
handle my AVC/H.264. )
>Regardless, would you share how long it takes vs. play time and what
>program(s) and processor you might be using to do so?
The DVD I used for the examples in this thread was "The
Gathering" 95min Babylon 5 Movie from "The Movie
Collection" Boxed Set. PowerDVD information shows
the Video bitrate from ~5 to 8Mbps and the Audio
Dolby Digital 5.1 448Kbps
I didn't time the Copying of the VIDEO_TS folder to
the hard drive, but that should be done before any further
processing anyway. If you just do that and rename the
folder as I described, you would have the quickest and
easiest method. ( You would need to have AnyDVD or
DVD43 installed to be able to do that, though.)
As I mentioned the 66% DVDShrink use including the
processing time was ~15min. (the after processing report
said it took <8min for the processing alone.)
This much benefit, at so little cost, really surprised me.
This system is an ASUS A8N-E
Windows XP Pro SP2
DualCore AMD Athlon 64 X2, 2418MHz (12x202) 4800+
2048 MB DDR
ATI Radeon X850 XT Platinum (R480)
2ea. WDC 10000 RPM, SATA Raptor Hard Drives
other drives.
> I know that I've posted in the past of my transcoding TV captures to
> smaller files, usually xvid at 2 mbps, but finally gave up on that effort
> when the price of HDD and DVD+/-RW reached near parity. Now I favor HDTV
> capture almost exclusively and merely remove whatever portions of the
> video are of no interest, leaving files that are about 2/3 their capture
> size.
>
I still capture at SD in MPEG2, primarily because it is so
easy to edit. I have tools that can cut edit AVC (the Elecard
XMuxer Pro, primarily) and Magix Movie Edit Pro 14 Plus
a full featured editing program. But I'm spoiled with the
workflow I have using VideoReDo. The only component
capture card that I have is for SD only. I can watch HD over
the component output from my DirecTV HD DVR, but I'm
still using S-video for my capture card and that is only 480i.
I do play the captures upconverted to 720p, though.
> The new Hauppauge HD capture via component cabling to produce H264 images
> at up to 15 mbps is definitely going to be tried here whenever TV begins
> showing anything of interest again.
> http://www.hauppauge.com/site/products/data_hdpvr.html I presume it won't
> be long before the industry clamps that interface down to 480, but it
> looks like a fun toy in the interim.
>
A hardware AVC/H.264 approach sure sounds interesting,
maybe I should hold off on that Intensity Pro?
>>> As for Playback, the DVDShrink output folder is essentially
>>> a renamed VIDEO_TS folder. If you name it with the title of
>>> the DVD, it should make it easy to select the folder from a
>>> directory on your hard drive.
>>>
>>> VLC makes it easy to play such a folder, just right-click on
>>> the folder and select "Play with VLC media player".
>>>
>>> MPC and its command line switches can make it even easier,
>>> but you need to create a shortcut or use some kind of menu
>>> program to select the DVD(s) to play back.
>>>
>>> To create a Shortcut for playing the DVD folder on your hard
>>> drive:
>>>
<Snip the how to>
>
> Another poster mentioned dragging the video folder to MPC's or VLC's icon.
> I just did some experimenting.
>
I guess I missed that.
> a) If the content of the folder which would normally be VIDEO-TS is moved
> up one level to the folder which is the name of the video, then dragging
> that folder to either MPC or VLC opens the "DVD."
Or you can just rename the VIDEO_TS folder, as I described.
> Using DVDShrink was mentioned; I believe there is an option in that
> program to create, or not create, a VIDEO_TS folder.
>
Yes, the default is no VIDEO_TS folder, or more exactly a
VIDEO_TS folder with another name, that you supply.
> b) If the content of the folder are several AVIs, say all the episodes in
> a series, then dragging the folder to MPC's or VLC's icon places the
> content in its playlist, alphabetically, and play begins with the first -
> continuing on to each subsequent entry.
>
"AVIs" were not part of the discussion. The same thing works
for folders containing other media files; .mp3, .mov, .mpg, .wmv,
ect...
> Either of these would seem way simpler than creating tailored shortcuts in
> video folders, no?
(I would make a movie menu folder with the shortcuts there.)
Less work overall, I'd admit, but once the shortcut is made you
just double-click on it. (For me, it also lets me set the playback
size 1280x720 and the action to take when the playback ends.
I can also use Gimp2 to create a special icon for that movie's
shortcut)
Once you have one shortcut made, all you need to do is replace
the path to the DVD folder or media file, in a copy of the shortcut
and rename the shortcut. A quick Ctrl-c on the new path then
highlight the old path and Ctrl-v, that's it.
> I don't allow programs, which offer the option, to enter themselves into
> the short-cut menu system, so I may be missing the opportunity to right
> click a folder and have VLC play its content. But I presume that, if I
> did allow this, VLC would not be the only choice proffered for folder
> processing and therefore whatever miniscule potential time saving, if any,
> vs. dragging might be offset.
>
I find Windows Explorer extensions to be very handy, why do
you avoid them? Is there some disadvantage I'm not seeing?
Bill's News
>
<snip>
Thanks for the info, Ken. Yes, I find that Blu-Ray and HD-DVD
using H264 almost always whips up all the horses in my little
AMD 3800+ (ATI x1300pro - no GPU usage by the player). Some,
perhaps 3 so far, overwhelm the horses. These are usually a
combo of H264 and TrueHD audio.
>> I don't allow programs, which offer the option, to enter
>> themselves into the short-cut menu system, so I may be
>> missing the opportunity to right click a folder and have VLC
>> play its content. But I presume that, if I did allow this,
>> VLC would not be the only choice proffered for folder
>> processing and therefore whatever miniscule potential time
>> saving, if any, vs. dragging might be offset.
>>
> I find Windows Explorer extensions to be very handy, why do
> you avoid them? Is there some disadvantage I'm not seeing?
>
>
I try to maintain an uncluttered desk top. These machines have
one or two folders, a magnifier, and trash barrel on the
desktop - occasionally a to-do list text file. The two PCs are
identical in every way except their Windows authorization IDs.
I open the desktop "Video\Edit" folder, then the
"Video\Captures" folder from which I drag the first file of
interest to an editor (usually VideoReDo - which, BTW, handles
HDTV captures - and its multiple streams - as easily as A->D
MPEG2 captures). If there are more files to edit with the same
editor, Ctrl-O is all that I use. The target of the edit will
be whichever external SATA drive I'm using to contain the edited
capture(s). I store view-&-discard TV shows on different 750 GB
drives than captured movie files or episodic TV which are both
retained for longer periods.
To play the videos, I open and leave open "Video\Players" and
the desired TV or Movie folder from the external drive. Then
drag the selected video or folder to the chosen player. My
index to all the video files is kept in an HTML page with the
HDD or DVD location of the video and, where pertinent, a link to
IMDB (which is often used during playback to look up info
relevant to the story, cast, or others involved in creation of
the video's content).
I could make one player the go to player when clicking a file or
choose "send to," eye scan for the player of choice, click that
and begin play of a folder. But, in order to maintain the
simplicity I like for these systems, I'd also have to remove the
unsolicited clutter inserted in to explorer extensions by
Windows and other apps - which merely gets in the way of my
objective - simplicity. File or folder, just drag it to the
app's icon.
One of the nicest things about Windows (or the Mac OS) is that,
unlike DOS, there are several different ways for a user to
organize for and solve any given problem. One of the
peculiarities of us humans is that, having chosen one way, we
typically each consider our way to be the best way ;-0)
I considered writing scripts regarding these ops but soon
figured the current procedures to be the laziest and cleanest
way - emphasis on laziest;-)
Ken Maltby
>
> "Ken Maltby" <kma...@sbcglobal.net> wrote in message
> news:ppGdnbN3QZvoe9XV...@giganews.com...
>>
> <snip>
>
> Thanks for the info, Ken. Yes, I find that Blu-Ray and HD-DVD using H264
> almost always whips up all the horses in my little AMD 3800+ (ATI
> x1300pro - no GPU usage by the player). Some, perhaps 3 so far, overwhelm
> the horses. These are usually a combo of H264 and TrueHD audio.
>
You might want to try the latest http://www.coreavc.com/
with that.
>>> I don't allow programs, which offer the option, to enter themselves into
>>> the short-cut menu system, so I may be missing the opportunity to right
>>> click a folder and have VLC play its content. But I presume that, if I
>>> did allow this, VLC would not be the only choice proffered for folder
>>> processing and therefore whatever miniscule potential time saving, if
>>> any, vs. dragging might be offset.
>>>
>> I find Windows Explorer extensions to be very handy, why do
>> you avoid them? Is there some disadvantage I'm not seeing?
>>
>>
>
> I try to maintain an uncluttered desk top. These machines have one or two
> folders, a magnifier, and trash barrel on the desktop - occasionally a
> to-do list text file. The two PCs are identical in every way except
> their Windows authorization IDs.
>
> I open the desktop "Video\Edit" folder, then the "Video\Captures" folder
> from which I drag the first file of interest to an editor (usually
> VideoReDo - which, BTW, handles HDTV captures - and its multiple streams -
> as easily as A->D MPEG2 captures).
By HDTV captures, you mean the MPEG2 TS captures, right?
Not AVCHD.
I have nothing against the "Drag & Drop" way of working,
even if it is more a "Mac" thing, and I'm a "PC" kinda guy.
I agree that users should find the techniques that work best
for them, and that both OS allow for many variations.
Luck;
Ken
Hank
though the information is moving beyond my understanding
and needs.
GOAL:
Install purchased DVD content on my hard drive
Watch them when traveling
Delete when finished
RESOURCES:
Fast Vista laptop, >100GB of unused hard drive space
AnyDVD purchased - seems to be a universal solution
VLC
CloneDVD2 (trial)
DVD Decrypter
DVDShrink
WMP
Obviously, if I continue to install various software
that hard drive will fill up.
VLC sees either .iso files or .vob files, but with a
stack of .vob files I have problems with subtitles,
which I need.
All-in-all, mission is mostly accomplished.
Hank
Ken Maltby
As I see it the simplest most direct way to accomplish
your stated goal would be:
1. Install AnyDVD on your laptop.
2. Install your player, VLC is good if you like it and it
works in Vista.
That would be all the software you need to add, if you
don't plan on having more than ten DVDs on the laptop
at a time. Install DVDShrink also, if you want to have
say 18 to 22 DVDs on the laptop at one time.
Setup your laptop with a directory to hold the DVD folders.
( I think naming it "Movies" makes sense but you can use any
name you wish. ) Find your "Movies" folder using Windows
Explorer, right-click and drag it to your desktop. Select
"Create shortcuts here".
----------------------------
The workflow would be as follows:
1. Place DVD to be copied to your laptop hard drive in the
laptop's DVD drive. Close drive.
2. Right-click on the Fox icon, click on the "Rip Video DVD to
Harddisk..." text.
3. Make sure the "Destination Directory:" box still shows the
path to your "Movies" directory (or whatever you are using).
Then click on the "Copy DVD" button.
4. Do something else for the ~15min it takes to put the DVD
onto your laptop's harddrive. ( I tested just copying the
VIDEO_TS folder, and it took the same amount of time, and
had the same size 6.11GB [ I_AM_LEGEND ] and played
back the same.)
5. If you don't like the folder name AnyDVD made, change it
to what you want. ( It used "I_AM_LEGEND" for my test.)
---------------------------------
For Playback:
1. Double-click on your "Movies" icon.
2. Find the DVD folder you want to watch, from those listed.
3. Right-click on it and select "Play with VLC media player"
------------------------------------
With this process you will have all the features of the original
DVD available. It should take less than a minute, on your part,
plus the ~15min. copy time; per DVD.
Luck;
Ken
Ken Maltby
P.S. Add the following if you want to use DVDShrink to get
more DVDs in your 100GB:
Additional setup; create a "PreShrink" directory.
3a. For shrinking; Make sure the "Destination Directory:"
box shows the path to your "PreShrink" directory.
4.5. Use DVDShrink on the copy of the dvd in your
"PreShrink" directory and have it make a folder in your
"Movies" directory. Then delete the DVD folder in your
"PreShrink" directory.
Hank
use when picking up the DVD.
I got to this point on my own, but encountered a problem
when trying to PLAY...
MOVIES >> DVD-TITLE >> right click does not elicit an
option of playing. Opening the DVD-TITLE folder shows
.vob, .bup, and .ifo files - but there is no choice of
playing unless I directly click on a .vob file (.vob has
been associated with VLC). Then there is this issue:
Figuring out how to start playing through all the .vob
files, with subtitles, is what stumped me before your
tutorial. That's why I originally was thinking an .iso
image was required, since it can be mounted and will
look like an intact disk.
Am I missing some critical setting in anyDVD or in VLC?
Henry
Ken Maltby
>
>> For Playback:
>>
>> 1. Double-click on your "Movies" icon.
>>
>> 2. Find the DVD folder you want to watch, from those listed.
>>
>> 3. Right-click on it and select "Play with VLC media player"
>>
>> ------------------------------------
>>
>> With this process you will have all the features of the original
>> DVD available. It should take less than a minute, on your part,
>> plus the ~15min. copy time; per DVD.
>>
>> Luck;
>> Ken
"Hank" <noguru...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:g2crth$6ko$1...@registered.motzarella.org...
> Thanks, Ken -- you've practically told me which hand to use when picking
> up the DVD.
>
>
>
> I got to this point on my own, but encountered a problem when trying to
> PLAY...
>
> MOVIES >> DVD-TITLE >> right click does not elicit an option of playing.
> Opening the DVD-TITLE folder shows .vob, .bup, and .ifo files - but there
> is no choice of playing unless I directly click on a .vob file (.vob has
> been associated with VLC). Then there is this issue:
>
> Figuring out how to start playing through all the .vob files, with
> subtitles, is what stumped me before your tutorial. That's why I
> originally was thinking an .iso image was required, since it can be
> mounted and will look like an intact disk.
>
> Am I missing some critical setting in anyDVD or in VLC?
>
> Henry
>
Well... Maybe it's a Vista thing?
Or it could be the VLC version or interface, mine's 0.8.6
(wxWidgets interface) Version 6.4.9.1
When I right-click on a folder with any playable media in it,
among the options listed are two for VLC - one to add to the
playlist and one to play whatever media is in the folder ( or
even a subfolder)
You might try removing VLC then reinstalling it, there may have
been an option, during the install, to integrate VLC with Windows
Explorer.
If that doesn't work, you can always make a shortcut to
vlc.exe in your "Movie" directory and Drag & Drop the folders
like "Bill's News" described.
To make the shortcut:
With your "Movies" folder open:
1. Right-click on the VLC desktop Icon and select "Properties".
2. Then click on the "Find target..." button.
3. Right-click and drag the vlc.exe file onto the "Movies" folder,
select "Create Shortcuts Here".
You don't have to deal with the files in the VIDEO_TS folder
at all, nor do you want to, in order to just play the DVD.
Luck;
Ken
Ken Maltby
It looks like there is an install option for Contextual menus or
Shell Integration.
http://forum.videolan.org/viewtopic.php?t=14665&highlight=recycle+bin
Luck;
Ken
Hank
reinstalled the same version of VLC as you have, ticked
the "Context Menu" button, and jetzt ist es perfekt
funktioniert!
Thanks for your persistence and meticulous tutorial
help, Ken.
Hank
al...@example.invalid
<alec...@googlemail.com> wrote:
>On Jun 1, 3:35 am, Hank <noguru.del...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> Ken Maltby wrote:
>> > "Hank" <noguru.del...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
>> >news:g1p5pk$j14$1...@registered.motzarella.org...
>
>"Is there a difference between DVDecryptor and DVD
>Decrypter?" Just a typo, Hank. If your e-mail is OK I can send you a
>"graphic tuition" for DVD Decryptor & DVD Shrink.
Sandy, I am not too learned ref. these two.
Could you please email me the 'Graphic Tuition'
= <allenandpaulineattalktalkdotnet>
I thank you for any help you can give me
Allen