Copy DVD's?

[Frontrunner]

Can I copy DVD's? Do I have to get a DVD Ram CD?

 

[mastertech01]

You definitely would have to get a DVD RAM.. there is like many gigabytes to a movie... not gonna scratch the surface of that much data on a CDRW, and they are totally different formats.

 

[madthumbs]

DVDram isn't compatible with stand alone DVD players. DVDr will be affordable soon enough if you can wait and have $800+ to spend. You can also compress DVD to fit on one or 2 cdr's if using 2 cdr's usually excellent results can be obtained. This has already been discussed here if you wanna pull up the old threads.

 

[Frontrunner]

thanks! One more question. Can I play a DVD on 2 CDR's and play in a home DVD player?

 

[madthumbs]

I've considered that one myself, however to fit a 90 minute movie on cdr's it would take ~6 cdr's to do it. It may be ok for archiving, but would it be worth it?

 

[Frontrunner]

Well only if you can compress it! That is what I was thinking. But how? How would you compress it. Its not like changing a wav file to a MP3. =-)

 

[madthumbs]

Only variations I may have with this guide is keyframe settings (I usually use one every 8 for better editing options). Some people may prefer mp3 audio for soundcard compatibility and a minimal reduction in file size.


Cut and pasted from morello at arstechnica forums;



This is my preferred way. 2 CDs of course.
Well usually for under 1.38 gigs you can get near perfect video and get the full DD 5.1 audio. It will look just like a DVD on your system, it's rather good.
Head over to http://go.to/doom9
Download Smartripper
DVD2AVI
VFAPI
Virtual Dub 1.3c, & Vdub 1.3 w/ ac3 support
ac3pack
Get all the programs installed, rip the movie to a .vob file on your hard drive. (Smartripper)
Open the vob up in DVD2AVI, and if it's a movie select preserve film to leave the framerate at 23.76 fps, and select dolby digital for the audio, and demux for dolby, and then you can preview it to make sure it's right. Then save the project, and you'll get a .d2v file and a .ac3 file. In the .ac3 file it will tell you the delay and bitrate of the file.
Run the .bat file in (or .cmd for 2k) VFAPI's folder to install the virtual frameserving, then open the .d2v file with VFAPI and convert it to an avi.
Now using the vdub that is with ac3 support open up your movie, and select add .wav. Change it to *.* and then select the .ac3. If the ac3 is over 400 kb/s then you need to make the audio interleaving #s set to both 120, and put the thing where it says frames to ms. If it's under 400 kb/s set the #s to 160 and also put it to ms. Enter the delay # into the delay box, keeping the - value if there is one.
You can crop & resize the videos under the filters command. Add a null transform to crop, and add a resize to change the proportions. Use bicubic resizing, and then resize the width and height to the aspect ratio of the movie (you can look it up on www.dvdexpress.com ). For example, 2.35:1 would be 704:300 or anything in that 2.35:1 ratio, keep the #s divisible by 4 if you can, sometimes it matters sometimes it doesn't. You base this on how big it is after cropping. If after cropping the height was 240, then never increase it more to that, you would decrease the width appriopiately.
Once all that is setup give it a test run, select just a small portion, and encode it (under compression choose mpeg4v2 and then setup the following: bitrate 1800-2400 depending on length and complexity of movie, keyframe interval 60 seconds, smoothness 100). Save your avi, and then see if it works. If it works you're ready to try the final go.
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1800?
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How can you do 1800? If I do 1800 I'll never fit that plus the AC3 onto two cds
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Bitrate means nothing as you found out, except in the highest action scenes. X-Men the DVD fits in around 1 gig at 6000 kb/s in 480x204. It's the resolution of the encode that will affect the file size the most, unless you start reducing the bitrate below 600 kb/s, then you'll start decreasing the file size dramatically.
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I use a bitrate calculator, and it's pretty accurate for sizing, and 1800 is pretty large!
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Bitrate calculators are pretty worthless for anything but 1 cd rips. They can't predict how much motion the movie contains in order to calculate the bitrate to use, without actually running a pass through the entire movie first.
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If I lower the resolution, does the movie look bettter or worse?
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If you lower the resolution, it looks worse. BUT, and this is a big BUT , only if the bitrate is not being maxed out at the higher resolution. For example, if you are encoding a movie at 704x300 and using 1500 kb/s, and you get artifacts/macroblocks in the movie, lowering the resolution will help clean up those scenes. This is because you are not allowing the codec to use high enough bitrates when it's needed. More pixels = higher bitrates needed. This is why for 1.33:1 aspect movies, you should probably use something as low as 384x288 @ 1800+, and it still will look good. Going for higher resolutions is suicide.
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What resolution do you usually use for 1 cd movies? 2 cd movies?
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I think its 640x480 mpeg4v2 @ 870kb/s mp3 128k
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That would make me never want to download a single thing from PG ever. 870 kb/s is not even enough to properly do a 352x240 video, and that would just look god awful.
My proposition is to use LAME 192 CBR with whatever resolution is necessary for the movie, at no less than 1500 kb/s.
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The ones I did for my friend were 480x360
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That's pretty huge for 1.33:1 aspect ratio. The Full Metal Jacket I've encoded is at 384x288. It's always trickier to encode full-screen. The main reason why everyone uses such high resolutions is because the wide-screen movies take up about 1/3 the screen. 384x288 played back fullscreen looks fine to my eyes.
I ran a test at 416x312, and during the high action scenes, it was too pixelated for me even at 1800 kb/s. So i have to drop the res to 384x288. It should work out like that fine.
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Any comments on the encoding standards morello?
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The only thing you can standardize is the audio format. I think 192 kb/s LAME should be sufficient. The resolution and data rate can vary incredibly from movie to movie, and it's hard to say. I do greatly prefer 2 cd rips to 1 cd, so my standards would be for 2 cd rips.
I generally find the following to be true.
For movies around 2 hours.
2.35:1 Aspect ratio yeilds good 2 cd results at 584-704xWhatever @ 1800-2400 kb/s. The longer the movie, the lower you may have to go with resolution and data rate. Heat is 3 hours long, and looks absolutely incredible at 528x224 @ 1500 kb/s. Each half is around 630 megs.
1.85:1 Aspect ratio yeilds good 2 cd results at 480-584xWhatever @ 1800-2400 kb/s. The longer the movie..... blah blah blah. Shawshank Redemption looks stunning on 2 cds at 480x260 @ 1800 kb/s.
1.33:1 Aspect ratio yeilds good 2 cd results at 352-480xWhatever @ 1800-2400 kb/s. The longer the movie... Full Metal Jacket looks good on 2 cds at 384x288 @ 1800 kb/s.
I absolutely cannot stand DivX. I HATE the blurring it does to everybody's face and skin, and textures of similiar color.
I guess that's all, any questions let me know.
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I was under the impression that the resolution at which you encode a movie has no effect on it's overall filesize at all.
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See above. Resolution is the most important factor in determining file size.
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If you increase the resolution, then you'll have more macroblocks in each frame
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Correct, assuming the bitrate you set it at is too low to handle the video.
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Then when I reduced resolution, it looked better, but darker
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Resolution and brightness are two entirely seperate things. Try checking the brightness controls in the playback options, or use a player that can render the colors differently such as Sasami2k.
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What I don't get it, if resolution is smaller, it's in essence using "more infomation per area of movie" or something like that...so theoretically the smaller you make it, the better it should look...I guess where the bad part comes in is when you make it too small and it gets stretched when you watch it?
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Yeah, pretty much. You either have to increase the bitrate to use higher resolutions if they look bad or go with lower resolutions if it makes the movie too big. Just experiment. You'll get the hang of it. The guidelines I quoted myself with earlier are pretty acceptable in my opinion.