DVD Transfer To MOVIE file folder

[AcWxRadar]

Just a short note... I have been transferring DVDs to my AZBox using MazEDIT 3.0.0.0. I am really happy with how this has been working. I have a few things that I would like to modify and refine, but I am pretty doggone happy so far.

It is a lengthy process, but it is nothing more that dragging and drop[ping the TS_VIDEO file from the DVD drive on my PC to the DATA/MOVIE folder within the AZBox. I say lengthy as it requires the full duration of the length of the movie to complete the transfer, bit by bit.

I am doing this transfer to the internal 1TB HDD via WiFi and FTP, but I think there is probably a better way. For now, I am just experimenting.

Right now, every aspect of the DVD is transferred to the HDD, that means that when I open the file folder with the AZBox, it plays it exactly as if it were the DVD on my PC. I mean, it is a perfect copy of the DVD, with all the menus and special features.

I need to figure out which file I need to reduce this to just the movie alone (none of the extraneous files) but I am not sure how to identify which file/files are absolutely necessary. Too many files here and they take up too much space, I want to reduce them to the bare minimum and just the movie alone (I don't need the special features).

I like how this works, but I would certainly like to refine it.

If you have any further ideas, I would like to test them. But, for now, I just wanted to discuss this progress with you.

Currently, I have 13 movies transferred. These are store-bought movies and they work great! Watching The Hunt For Red October right now, one of my favorites.

P.S. I noticed that I can watch one movie while I am transferring another, it works fine.

RADAR

 

[B.J.]

Just a short note... I have been transferring DVDs to my AZBox using MazEDIT 3.0.0.0. I am really happy with how this has been working. I have a few things that I would like to modify and refine, but I am pretty doggone happy so far.

The transfer part of this is less useful to me, since with my Elite, I'm using an external USB drive, whenever I try anything like this, so it's easier to just put things on when it connected to my computer. However this interests me just from the fact that you can play the files, because as mentioned in another thread, my Azbox could play files from a home made DVD, but wouldn't link the files together, however I couldn't get the Azbox to even play the files from a commercial DVD at all, even though the same format, so I assumed it was a copy protection issue, which was why I was trying to edit and convert files to .mpg format . But now, I'm wondering if I'm just using the wrong playing technique. Ie, I was using the file manager to play files. What menu are you using to play the files once on the disk, and how do you start them playing, ie do you just play the first numbered .vob file or some other way?

It is a lengthy process, but it is nothing more that dragging and drop[ping the TS_VIDEO file from the DVD drive on my PC to the DATA/MOVIE folder within the AZBox. I say lengthy as it requires the full duration of the length of the movie to complete the transfer, bit by bit.

I am doing this transfer to the internal 1TB HDD via WiFi and FTP, but I think there is probably a better way. For now, I am just experimenting.

? How fast is your WiFi? I'd believe those speeds for the old wireless that's around 5 or 6 mbps, as that was barely fast enough for me to play SD arcoss my network, but if you have that medium speed, ie around 54 mbps, that should transfer much faster than the playing time of the movie. If not, I think there is something else involved, perhaps something related to the copy protection.

Right now, every aspect of the DVD is transferred to the HDD, that means that when I open the file folder with the AZBox, it plays it exactly as if it were the DVD on my PC. I mean, it is a perfect copy of the DVD, with all the menus and special features.

I need to figure out which file I need to reduce this to just the movie alone (none of the extraneous files) but I am not sure how to identify which file/files are absolutely necessary. Too many files here and they take up too much space, I want to reduce them to the bare minimum and just the movie alone (I don't need the special features).

Currently, I have 13 movies transferred. These are store-bought movies and they work great! Watching The Hunt For Red October right now, one of my favorites.

P.S. I noticed that I can watch one movie while I am transferring another, it works fine.

RADAR

Well, I don't know much about DVDs. I'm sure that the fellow who responded to my related thread can help you more. The more I learn about DVDs the more confused I get. As I mentioned elsewhere, I have homemade DVDs that I can just directly play the .VOB files, with almost anything, including the file manager of the Azbox. Then there are other DVDs that the Azbox won't play, but VideoReDo will open the files, and it will convert them to .mpg or edit them or combine the files into one big file, etc, etc, and then I can play the .mpg files on the Azbox. THEN, there are other DVDs that VideoReDo won't open, apparently because they are copy protected, and yet that program DVD Shrink WILL open them, even though the version I have is not supposed to bypass any copy protection. Hunt for Red October, is of the latter type. Ie Windows won't let me transfer any of the files, and VLC won't let me access the individual files, and VideoReDo won't open it, however I can PLAY it from media player and other programs. If I open it with that DVD Shrink program to archive it, it looks like it opens it, and is essentially playing it as part of it's archiving process. Ie, like you say above, it's taking as long to save it to disk as it takes to watch the movie.
Anyway, perhaps that is what your MAZ program is doing, ie actually playing it and recording what it plays as it plays. Unfortunately, I can't experiment with MAZ, because the only computer I have that will run MAZ is a computer that doesn't have a DVD player. All my DVD computers won't run MAZ. Although I may try mapping a network DVD drive to the MAZ computer. Maybe that will work.

Anyway, this is interesting to me, because I have several of these DVDs that have a bunch of old TV shows on them, like Get Smart, Mork and Mindy, etc, and they're all 1/2 hour shows, and I'd like to move them to a computer as half hour shows so that I can play them on the Azbox without having to put the DVD in a player, which I don't even have hooked up normally (because I don't have enough HDMI inputs), and so that I don't have to search the DVD for the particular episode, etc, etc. I've started doing one of these disks using Video ReDo, but the other ones don't work directly with VRD, so I'm having to use the Shrink program (in non shrink mode) to archive them. Not sure if it's going to work right yet, but I'm working on it.

BTW, the Hunt for Red October is one of my favorites too. I have the Collector's edition that has the neat extra where the director explains how the movie was made in the background while the movie is running, and that is VERY neat. I'm retired, but my wife still works (out of the house normally), and has to travel occasionally. When she's away on business, I almost always watch Red October, almost to the regularity that she has to remind me that she's coming home tomorrow and I better get the movie out. She's away now, and coming home tomorrow, so I think I'll watch that tonight.

 

[AcWxRadar]

B.J.

With the Elite not having WiFi we cannot compare everything we do with the same reference point. When I run the speed check on my AZBox is gives me varying results, but it is averaging 200.000 Kbps. That is how it is displayed and I don't know whether that is 200 Kbps or 200,000 Kbps.

I am sending the DVD titles to the /DATA/hdb1/movie folder within the AZBox and therefore I am not utilizing the FILE MANAGER but the MOVIE option. I am wondering how this would work if I tried the same using FileZilla and FTP.

Another thing that I am doing that might be unique is that I use SlySoft AnyDVD software. This scans the entire set of files on the DVD immediately when the disk is inserted and allows it to be duplicated bit per bit, I think. This eliminates or bypasses the copy protection features.

I was trying to reduce the total space used on my HDD and so I deleted some of the files which were on the original DVD. This didn't work quite as nicely as I had hoped. Although the entire movie and just the movie is there (no special feature selections) and it goes directly to the start of the movie rather than having to highlight play and press OK, it also caused problems with continuity. There were several VOB files for the entire movie and the AZBox has to stop playing and load up the next file, so I detect a short break in between sections.

If I transfer the entire DVD, which takes more HDD space and transfer time, it doesn't have these "pauses" throughout the movie, so there must be a file that is needed to run in the background to tie each piece together congruently. Otherwise, it stops at the end of one file and then has to gear up to start the next one. I don't have to manually do this, it does it on its own, but it is an annoyance to watch it happen.

I guess my problem there is trying to disect all the files of the DVD and boil them down to just the movie alone, and not knowing which files are essential.

RADAR

 

[B.J.]

B.J.

With the Elite not having WiFi we cannot compare everything we do with the same reference point. When I run the speed check on my AZBox is gives me varying results, but it is averaging 200.000 Kbps. That is how it is displayed and I don't know whether that is 200 Kbps or 200,000 Kbps.

I am sending the DVD titles to the /DATA/hdb1/movie folder within the AZBox and therefore I am not utilizing the FILE MANAGER but the MOVIE option. I am wondering how this would work if I tried the same using FileZilla and FTP.

Another thing that I am doing that might be unique is that I use SlySoft AnyDVD software. This scans the entire set of files on the DVD immediately when the disk is inserted and allows it to be duplicated bit per bit, I think. This eliminates or bypasses the copy protection features.

I was trying to reduce the total space used on my HDD and so I deleted some of the files which were on the original DVD. This didn't work quite as nicely as I had hoped. Although the entire movie and just the movie is there (no special feature selections) and it goes directly to the start of the movie rather than having to highlight play and press OK, it also caused problems with continuity. There were several VOB files for the entire movie and the AZBox has to stop playing and load up the next file, so I detect a short break in between sections.

If I transfer the entire DVD, which takes more HDD space and transfer time, it doesn't have these "pauses" throughout the movie, so there must be a file that is needed to run in the background to tie each piece together congruently. Otherwise, it stops at the end of one file and then has to gear up to start the next one. I don't have to manually do this, it does it on its own, but it is an annoyance to watch it happen.

I guess my problem there is trying to disect all the files of the DVD and boil them down to just the movie alone, and not knowing which files are essential.

RADAR

Well, figuring out which files are the movie is usually easy. For example, I just started up the Red October movie, playing on Azbox from my computer downstairs over the network. I used that Shrink program to copy it over to the hard drive. This time I used the MOVIE tab, went into NETWORK, navigated to the drive and directory where I had stored the DVD's files, and found all the files. The ones associated with the movie itself are usually the one where the numbers just to the left of the dot get biggest. For example my disk had VTS_01_ VTS_02_ VTS_03_ and VTS_04_ VTS_05_ . The first 3 and the last one just had a couple .VOB files, but the 04 on had .VOBs that went from 0-6 . This was the movie. What I did, was start it running on the #1 file, since the #0 file was real small. Anyway, I think you can probably tell which .vob files are from the movie just from the number of files there.
Anyway, one good thing about using the MOVIE tab, is that when it got to the end of the first file, there was a short pause, and it then continued on with the #2 file. When I ran from the File Manager, it stopped, and I'd have to manually start up on the next file. Not sure if it's supposed to work that way or if it was just the particular disk I was using.
I'm not sure HOW to activate the special feature where the director talks in the background. I guess I'd have to start it up in another way. I'm still curious how you actually started the movie when you did it, since you apparently got the menus that let you get into the special features, etc. I'm guessing that perhaps running one of those .IFO or .BUP files might get the menu options.

Re the speed check, I think that is checking your speed out to the internet through your Wild Blue, and it's probably 200 Kbps. It's probably fooled a bit by the latency over satellite if it's sending out multiple small files. I can't remember the results I got when I did that speed check. But I don't think it measures speed between the computer and Azbox. That should be at least 10 times that, and probably 100 times that if you have one of those 54 mbps wireless systems. From what I saw when the Shrink program stored the files, I think your weak speed link is the extraction from the DVD, not the speed between computer and Azbox.

Re FileZilla, I'm guessing that you'd get a read error on the DVD. Let me know if it works though, because that would be better than what either of us are doing.

EDIT: I just tried copying from DVD to the USB drive on the AZBOX via FTP. Didn't work. I then tried FTPing from the files I had extracted from the DVD to the hard drive, ie FTP'ing from computer to USB drive on Azbox. The file transferred at a rate of about 20 Mbps, which is similar to the maximum bitrate video that can be played by the Azbox via streaming or from recordings. I think I once ALMOST played a 25 Mbps video via UDP transfer.

Also, had a slight hiccup on playing Red October. It played to completion, except the Azbox locked up after the movie ended. Had to reboot. I think that if I had hit exit sooner I would have been OK.
Not to work on some Mork & Mindy and Get Smart.

 

[Anole]

a step beyond:

I need to figure out which file I need to reduce this to just the movie alone (none of the extraneous files) but I am not sure how to identify which file/files are absolutely necessary.
Too many files here and they take up too much space, I want to reduce them to the bare minimum and just the movie alone (I don't need the special features).

As mentioned above, on most discs you can go for the 1gb .VOB files as they probably contain all the movie.
There may be smaller VOBs, which contain menu video and other special features.

But, since you asked for a space-saving feature and none of the extras, here's another approach.
Convert all the movies into XviD format, which the AZbox should play just fine.
It's a hell of a dandy media-player.
I'm not going into the "how", as there are a number of different ways from free to co$tly.
Likewise there are other formats you might like to use (such as h.264).
And, you can put them into different wrappers such as .AVI, .MKV, etc.

The storage reduction will be significant, and it's unlikely you'll notice any change in picture quality.
Whenever I do similar conversion processing (sometimes I re-make real DVDs from compressed video) I set the software to insert chapter marks every 5 or 10 minutes, just to make playback easier.
Some of the above containers support chapters, too.

This idea is even more important when you are using HD video of any sort.
The storage requirements can be onerous!
Here is an example of an hour 'n a half show that takes 2.2gb of storage.

[FONT=Fixedsys]   
     
General
Complete name                    : \\HistoryChannel\History.Channel.The.Real.Robin.Hood.x264.720p.mkv
Format                           : Matroska
File size                        : 2.19 GiB
Duration                         : 1h 27mn
Overall bit rate                 : 3 557 Kbps
Encoded date                     : UTC 2010-05-13 00:26:34
Writing application              : mkvmerge v2.9.8 ('C'est le bon') built on Aug 13 2009 12:49:06
Writing library                  : libebml v0.7.7 + libmatroska v0.8.1

Video
ID                               : 1
Format                           : AVC
Format/Info                      : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile                   : High@L3.1
Format settings, CABAC           : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames        : 4 frames
Muxing mode                      : Container profile=Unknown@3.1
Codec ID                         : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration                         : 1h 27mn
Bit rate                         : 3 102 Kbps
Nominal bit rate                 : 3 171 Kbps
Width                            : 1 280 pixels
Height                           : 720 pixels
Display aspect ratio             : 16:9
Frame rate                       : 23.976 fps
Resolution                       : 8 bits
Colorimetry                      : 4:2:0
Scan type                        : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame)               : 0.140
Stream size                      : 1.90 GiB (87%)
Writing library                  : x264 core 94 r1570 d9db8b3
Encoding settings                : cabac=1 / ref=3 / deblock=1:-1:-1 / analyse=0x3:0x113 / me=umh / subme=8 / psy=1 / psy_rd=1.00:0.15 / mixed_ref=1 / me_range=16 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=1 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / fast_pskip=1 / chroma_qp_offset=-3 / threads=8 / sliced_threads=0 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / interlaced=0 / constrained_intra=0 / bframes=3 / b_pyramid=2 / b_adapt=2 / b_bias=0 / direct=3 / wpredb=1 / wpredp=2 / keyint=250 / keyint_min=25 / scenecut=40 / intra_refresh=0 / rc_lookahead=50 / rc=2pass / mbtree=1 / bitrate=3171 / ratetol=2.0 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=10 / qpmax=51 / qpstep=4 / cplxblur=20.0 / qblur=0.5 / ip_ratio=1.40 / aq=1:1.00
Language                         : English

Audio
ID                               : 2
Format                           : AC-3
Format/Info                      : Audio Coding 3
Codec ID                         : A_AC3
Duration                         : 1h 27mn
Bit rate mode                    : Constant
Bit rate                         : 384 Kbps
Channel(s)                       : 2 channels
Channel positions                : Front: L R
Sampling rate                    : 48.0 KHz
Stream size                      : 242 MiB (11%)

     
 [/FONT]

The above data was extracted from the file by using this free software:
MediaInfo

.

 

[Mikhel]

I think the best way its by converting the movie to another format, in this case Anole has a MKV file (MKV its just a container, and inside it has an AVI file proccesed with an encoder, be it plain DIVX/XVID or mpeg-4 = h.264), but from what i've been reading, the AZ has no problem whatsoever reading it.

That process, however, like all good things in life, takes time, the amount of time to process a 1hr movie/show it's about the same time of it's lenght, 1 hour (with a PC 3.0 GHz and 512 MB RAM, in faster computers the time diminishes but not a lot).

Still... if you want to do it the quick way you could use the little tutorial i made for BJ (for those VIDEO_TS folders on your HDD):
http://www.satelliteguys.us/azbox-discussion/214267-how-link-dvd-files-together.html#post2211627

And you can do the following for those DVD's still in the disc (i'll use one of those 50movies for 1 dll orwhatever they are LOL, for examples purposes and to demonstrate it, because those have no restrictions as movies with copyright do... ;P):

You'll need either DVDShrink (an old software still pretty effective to this day) or DVD Decrypter (also an old but pretty good program), i'll first demonstrate it with "shrink":

Open up Shrink:

Click on Open Disc:

Select your DVD, in my case it's Nightmare Worlds Vol 5:

Click ok and you'll see the following (if you deselect "Enable Video Preview" it'll be faster):

Once it's complete you'll see the following (notice the folder named MAIN MOVIE and its size):

In my case there's two movies, and i only want one, so i'll preview it to see if i have the right one, click the PLAY icon, wait until you see either the name of the movie or wait to see if you recognize it:

If the DVD only has one movie then it'll only have one title, in my case it was title #2.


Click Re-Author, because we'll be stripping the DVD off of its menu and extras:

The next screen will appear:

Select the title (in my case title #2) and drag it to the left side of your screen, right where it says DVD, below DVD Structure:

You know have the MOVIE ready to be copied to your hard disc drive, but first we have to make sure it copies it in a single archive instead of various 1GB VOB files:

Click the OUTPUT tab and make sure those are set as in the next image, go to the FILE I/O tab and deselect "Enable Nero":

and

Click BACKUP, and make sure you select HARD DISK FOLDER, and you select the output folder (where it'll save the movie archive)

Click OK, and wait until it copies everything (not more than 10minutes), then all you need to do is copy that big VOB file to your AZBox.

Hope it helps =)... cheers!

Mike

 

[Mikhel]

The DVD Decrypter way:


Click Mode and make sure IFO it's selected:

Insert DVD


Since i'm using a DVD with two movies and i only want the second title, i'll make sure that TITLE 1 it's not selected:

And i'll select everything from TITLE 2:

Select destination:

Click on Decrypt:

Wait while it makes the copy:

It's completed:

Go to the destination folder, and there you have it, the VOB file ready to be renamed and copied:

Chers!

Mike

 

[AcWxRadar]

Well, figuring out which files are the movie is usually easy.... .....For example my disk had VTS_01_ VTS_02_ VTS_03_ and VTS_04_ VTS_05_ .... .....Anyway, I think you can probably tell which .vob files are from the movie just from the number of files there.
Anyway, one good thing about using the MOVIE tab, is that when it got to the end of the first file, there was a short pause, and it then continued on with the #2 file. When I ran from the File Manager, it stopped, and I'd have to manually start up on the next file. Not sure if it's supposed to work that way or if it was just the particular disk I was using.

Yes, I was able to figure out which files were the movie pretty quickly. However, what you experienced with the pause in-between segments is what I ended up with after removing all the other files (IFO, BUP and other VOB files). If I transferred the entire content of the disk over to the AZBox, the movie would play straight through with no pauses between the individual files. So one or more of those other files must tie all the individual files together that way.

I'm not sure HOW to activate the special feature where the director talks in the background. I guess I'd have to start it up in another way. I'm still curious how you actually started the movie when you did it, since you apparently got the menus that let you get into the special features, etc. I'm guessing that perhaps running one of those .IFO or .BUP files might get the menu options.

Here, the same thing, and I agree that those other files are needed to activate this. If I retain all the files on the DVD and start the movie, it comes up with the screen to "PLAY MOVIE", "SELECT LANGUAGE", "SPECIAL FEATURES", SCENE SELECTIONS", etc. Then I have to use the <> remote buttons to highlight which option I want and press OK.

If I remove all the other files, except the movie files, it omits this menu screen and goes directly to playing the movie itself. But, again, it pauses in between the individual files.

Re the speed check, I think that is checking your speed out to the internet through your Wild Blue, and it's probably 200 Kbps. It's probably fooled a bit by the latency over satellite if it's sending out multiple small files. I can't remember the results I got when I did that speed check. But I don't think it measures speed between the computer and Azbox. That should be at least 10 times that, and probably 100 times that if you have one of those 54 mbps wireless systems. From what I saw when the Shrink program stored the files, I think your weak speed link is the extraction from the DVD, not the speed between computer and Azbox.

Your right on the speed thing... I am certain that it is checking the connection to the external internet through my Wild Blue and NOT my WiFi connection between it and my PC via the router - which is a WRT54G Linksys.

Re FileZilla, I'm guessing that you'd get a read error on the DVD. Let me know if it works though, because that would be better than what either of us are doing.

Well, I tried FileZilla this morning. It works, but I was really dissapointed in the speed and I can't explain what went wrong here on the first try. It required twice the time to transfer. I tried this with John Wayne's "The Cowboys" which I had previously transferred before using MazEdit. It went on and on forever (close to four hours) and I darn near aborted the process. Well, I let it complete its mission and it worked just fine in the end. I plan to try it once more and see if it does the same.

By the way, I am just dragging and dropping the main file folder of the whole DVD to the DATA/MOVIE file folder on the AZBox.

EDIT: I just tried copying from DVD to the USB drive on the AZBOX via FTP. Didn't work. I then tried FTPing from the files I had extracted from the DVD to the hard drive, ie FTP'ing from computer to USB drive on Azbox. The file transferred at a rate of about 20 Mbps, which is similar to the maximum bitrate video that can be played by the Azbox via streaming or from recordings. I think I once ALMOST played a 25 Mbps video via UDP transfer.

Also, had a slight hiccup on playing Red October. It played to completion, except the Azbox locked up after the movie ended. Had to reboot. I think that if I had hit exit sooner I would have been OK.
Not to work on some Mork & Mindy and Get Smart.

I also had my AZBox lock up at the end of one of the movies where I had omitted all the other files on the DVD except the MOVIE. I wonder if the AZBox was looking for another file in the series to play. Similar to the pause in between the individual files. I suspect that without that extraneous file or program to tell it what to do, it didn't know that it was at the end, so it just locked up searching for another file to play. The message on my screen displayed "PLEASE WAIT". I don't know if I am right in my assumption, but it did not do this when I sent the entire DVD over to the box.

RADAR

P.S. I did try something else that I found to be a plus... Using MazEdit, I FTP'd a DVD while at the same time, I watched a DVD that I had already transferred. When the movie I was watching was done, the new movie had completed its transfer. So this is a nice perk.

 

[Babadem]

Lots of usefull information, guys!

 

[AcWxRadar]

As mentioned above, on most discs you can go for the 1gb .VOB files as they probably contain all the movie.
There may be smaller VOBs, which contain menu video and other special features.

But, since you asked for a space-saving feature and none of the extras, here's another approach.
Convert all the movies into XviD format, which the AZbox should play just fine.
It's a hell of a dandy media-player.
I'm not going into the "how", as there are a number of different ways from free to co$tly.
Likewise there are other formats you might like to use (such as h.264).
And, you can put them into different wrappers such as .AVI, .MKV, etc.

The storage reduction will be significant, and it's unlikely you'll notice any change in picture quality.
Whenever I do similar conversion processing (sometimes I re-make real DVDs from compressed video) I set the software to insert chapter marks every 5 or 10 minutes, just to make playback easier.
Some of the above containers support chapters, too.

This idea is even more important when you are using HD video of any sort.
The storage requirements can be onerous!
Here is an example of an hour 'n a half show that takes 2.2gb of storage.

Anole,

I have acquired some conversion programs like this and will have to give them a try. I had experimented with them in the reverse (trying to take recorded programs from the AZBox and making DVDs out of them), but I found it to be really messy and long.

I think the best way its by converting the movie to another format, in this case Anole has a MKV file (MKV its just a container, and inside it has an AVI file proccesed with an encoder, be it plain DIVX/XVID or mpeg-4 = h.264), but from what i've been reading, the AZ has no problem whatsoever reading it.

That process, however, like all good things in life, takes time, the amount of time to process a 1hr movie/show it's about the same time of it's lenght, 1 hour (with a PC 3.0 GHz and 512 MB RAM, in faster computers the time diminishes but not a lot).

Still... if you want to do it the quick way you could use the little tutorial i made for BJ (for those VIDEO_TS folders on your HDD):
http://www.satelliteguys.us/azbox-discussion/214267-how-link-dvd-files-together.html#post2211627

And you can do the following for those DVD's still in the disc (i'll use one of those 50 movies for 1 dll orwhatever they are LOL, for examples purposes and to demonstrate it, because those have no restrictions as movies with copyright do... ;P):

You'll need either DVDShrink (an old software still pretty effective to this day) or DVD Decrypter (also an old but pretty good program), i'll first demonstrate it with "shrink":

Hope it helps =)... cheers!

Mike[/B]

Mike,

Yes, I read the tutorial that you posted in the other thread and printed out the instructions. I would like to try this, too. Thanks for compiling such nice instructions to illustrate it.

RADAR

 

[Mikhel]

Your welcome =), if case you need any help just ask me and i'll gladly see what i can do.

Mike

 

[Anole]

Anole,

I have acquired some conversion programs like this and will have to give them a try.
I had experimented with them in the reverse (trying to take recorded programs from the AZBox and making DVDs out of them), but I found it to be really messy and long.

Yes, proper "authoring" of DVDs can be a quite a technical process.
When I started about five years ago, I edited out commercials with VideoReDo, then swapped over to DVD Labs Pro for turning the raw video into a DVD.
(then NERO for burning) - - (so three programs to master)
While you can author near-commercial quality discs with DVD Labs, it's not something I'd recommend to the beginner.!. -

For some quick 'n dirty projects I now rely on "ConvertXtoDVD".
It's pretty much fully automated.
And it's what I referred to above, when I said:

Whenever I do similar conversion processing (sometimes I re-make real DVDs from compressed video) I set the software to insert chapter marks every 5 or 10 minutes, just to make playback easier.

It's no more trouble to have multiple half-hour shows on a disc, with menu, etc. than it is to have a single movie.

 

[caseyman]

i use mediainfo s/w to determine what file i need to watch just a movie with one soundtrack and mux it with trMuser. happy ripping!