Aces High Bulletin Board

General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: Nilsen on December 25, 2003, 02:54:16 PM

Title: DVD questions...
Post by: Nilsen on December 25, 2003, 02:54:16 PM
Im about to order a dvd setup for my "old" laptop

btw, see this :

http://www.hitechcreations.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=104538 (http://www.hitechcreations.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=104538)

and i have a few questions.

Is dvd just  Mpeg2 format? Can i just convert any clip i have to mpeg2 and make it work on my dvd player thats connected to my tv ?

Any good and free software to convert clips of diff formats to mpeg2 (if that is the correct format) ?
Title: DVD questions...
Post by: Pfunk on December 25, 2003, 03:38:08 PM
If your laptop does not have either USB2 or Firewire dont even bother, most if not all external dvd burners require that you have at least one of the two.  You can however buy a PCMCIA USB2 or Firewire card, then it "should" work
Title: DVD questions...
Post by: Pfunk on December 25, 2003, 03:40:40 PM
Depending on the company the burner should come with software that allows you to make DVD's with video that will work in your standalone.
Title: DVD questions...
Post by: Nilsen on December 25, 2003, 04:33:45 PM
Thx pfunk.

Im getting an external firewire dvd cabinet, dvd recorder and firewire cardbus pcmcia.



http://www.hitechcreations.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=104538 (http://www.hitechcreations.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=104538)
Title: DVD questions...
Post by: SLO on December 25, 2003, 04:34:15 PM
DVD's use .CUE(info file) and .BIN(image file)

too convert....use IsoBuster....its a fantastic tool for converting.....if you have kazaa it will take you 2 minutes to get it.

about your DVD player to TV.....it really depends on your setup

Windows Media players plays most formats now.....

maybe a few things you will need to get though.....such as CODECS.....these will help Windows media player to play such files(.Bin)

I use only 1....its a codec package.....called SLD...very easy too get on the NET.


hope it helps:aok
Title: DVD questions...
Post by: Nilsen on December 25, 2003, 05:03:23 PM
Thx SLO

I have SLD and getting IsoBuster later.

Mostly im gonna burn movies from a DVI camera and some clips in alot of diff formats that ive gotten on kazaa etc ;)

How about resolutions etc....?

Lets say i wanna convert 10 clips of different resolutions on one dvd, will that cause problems, or will the DVD player sort it out?

Any max or minimum recomended resolutions? will the software that makes the dvd sort that out for me?

Thx for all the help, im close to ordering it.
Title: DVD questions...
Post by: Nashwan on December 25, 2003, 05:29:21 PM
I'm not sure about the NEC 1300A. It had a reputation for being picky with disks not long ago, but new firmware might have fixed that.

http://www.dvdrhelp.com has a large user maintained database of writers, what disks they are compatible with, desktop players and what format they are compatible with, and tutorials on capturing, editing and converting video clips to dvd.
Title: DVD questions...
Post by: Vulcan on December 26, 2003, 06:05:14 AM
Quote
Originally posted by SLO
DVD's use .CUE(info file) and .BIN(image file)


Ummm no they don't. .cue and .bin are a proprietery binary image file format (usually of a CD). IE if someone takes a snapshot of CD it is in a .bin/.cue file format. Its also used (more rarely) for the same thing with DVDs.

Video files on DVDs are usually .vob format.

Windows media player does NOT play .bin files, this are a binary image of a CD/DVD. As such they include the file system structure and confuse the crap out of media player.

Nilsen if you want some reasonable authoring software try WinDVD Creator, its reasonable. Or for a complete suite try the Ulead products (mediastudio pro). Both are easy to use and do all the resolution conversion etc for you.

Nashwan I use the NEC1100A, its lovely drive (couldn't see the use for -R/RW). I've heard LOTS of feedback that cheap DVDs are the main cause of problems with all DVD burners.
Title: DVD questions...
Post by: Nilsen on December 26, 2003, 06:31:12 AM
Thc Vulcan, ive also heard that the main culprit is usually cheap, low qulaity empty dvd's.

Ill se if i can find the software you suggested to.

I downloaded IsoBuster, and it looks like some sort of recovery program.
Title: DVD questions...
Post by: Vulcan on December 26, 2003, 06:41:36 AM
ISOBuster basically lets you extract individual files or add files into a CD image.

For example, if I downloaded a CD-Image of a warez cd that say had a whole pile of Adobe programs on it normally I'd have to burn the CD then copy off what I wanted from the written CD. Isobuster lets me explore the .bin file and take out only the stuff I want (without burning a CD).

Oh, and if you want to copy DVD's the XcopyExpress from 321Studios is pretty damn good ;)
Title: DVD questions...
Post by: Nilsen on December 26, 2003, 06:55:33 AM
Thx, its good that its legal to make copies of my dvd's....as backup incase they get destroyed :p
Title: DVD questions...
Post by: SLO on December 26, 2003, 07:39:33 AM
Quote
Originally posted by Vulcan

Windows media player does NOT play .bin files, this are a binary image of a CD/DVD. As such they include the file system structure and confuse the crap out of media player.

 


explain then how come I just watched TimeLine, ROTK, Bad Santa, Last Samurai, Looney Tunes etc etc all in .Bin format in Windows Media.

how come i can get a .bin file and 5 minutes later have it formated in MPEG just like he asked.....by using IsoBuster.

and yes i was wrong....Bin .Cue are for CD's....sorry nilson....fugged up on that 1.
Title: DVD questions...
Post by: Nilsen on December 26, 2003, 07:57:17 AM
np SLO :)
Title: DVD questions...
Post by: Nashwan on December 26, 2003, 08:42:08 AM
Quote
Nashwan I use the NEC1100A, its lovely drive (couldn't see the use for -R/RW). I've heard LOTS of feedback that cheap DVDs are the main cause of problems with all DVD burners.


Definately. It's nice to be able to use cheap DVDs though. I just wish any DVD blank would work in any DVD drive. Perhaps they'll get it right when dual layer writeable drives come out next Spring.
Title: DVD questions...
Post by: Nilsen on December 26, 2003, 09:21:42 AM
Any tips on good brands of empty dvd -r and -rw discs?

There are so many to chose from, and it seems that price does not always mater that much.
Title: DVD questions...
Post by: Pfunk on December 26, 2003, 12:56:57 PM
Thing with DVD media is there is no clear standardized manufacturing process.  I wish I could just tell you a brand name like Memorex or Verbatim.  There isnt a single company that produces their own media.  It is all outsourced to about 4-5 companies.  You could buy Verbatim Datalife + one week and it will be made by CMC, then buy it from the same store 2 weeks later and it will be made by MCC.  This is where the DVDInfo program comes in handy, you use the program to get the media info from a DVD blank and then go to http://www.dvdrhelp.com and look it up in their media section.  Stay away from anything with the CMC media code.  MCC is good so is RICOH

I will tell you that I have had my best results with TDK media, as it had the least amount of compatibilty issues with MY standalone.  Yours might be different.
Title: DVD questions...
Post by: Pfunk on December 26, 2003, 12:57:52 PM
http://www.dvdrhelp.com/dvdmediaform.php?dvdinfo=1#dvdinfo
Title: DVD questions...
Post by: Pfunk on December 26, 2003, 12:58:35 PM
Compatibility list

http://www.dvdrhelp.com/dvdmedia
Title: DVD questions...
Post by: Nilsen on December 26, 2003, 01:57:56 PM
Thx :)
Title: DVD questions...
Post by: Vulcan on December 26, 2003, 03:08:33 PM
Quote
Originally posted by SLO
explain then how come I just watched TimeLine, ROTK, Bad Santa, Last Samurai, Looney Tunes etc etc all in .Bin format in Windows Media.

how come i can get a .bin file and 5 minutes later have it formated in MPEG just like he asked.....by using IsoBuster.

and yes i was wrong....Bin .Cue are for CD's....sorry nilson....fugged up on that 1.


No idea. Perhaps you've got a codec that allows you to read VCD/SCVD images straight into mediaplayer? Or perhaps isobuster lets you mount cd images as virtual drives. Do a search on ".bin" and ".cue" in google if you don't believe me. My media player certainly doesn't support .bin format.

As for extracting the mpeg, yes thats exactly right. Isobuster is ripping the file from .bin cd image, there is no conversion done at all. All its doing is 'unpackaging' the file from the CD image.

If its a VCD image then the file you extract is something like avseq1.dat in the \mpegav directory correct? I forget what the SVCD structure is.

The only two 'odd' filenames you should see for video files are .dat (found on VCDs, which is actually just plain mpeg), and the DVD .vob files.

Heres a link for further reading Slo: http://www.vcdimager.org/guides/burning_cuebin_images.html