DVD burner/backing up question
 

Ok, I know I'm asking a lot of questions, sorry, but bear with me, I'm new to this whole burning DVD's thing.

My setup is using DVDShrink 3.2 with Nero, now is it possible to either shrink the movies to where more than one can fit on each DVD or can you buy bigger DVD's than the 4.? GB. Also, does it take everyone like 3-5 hours to burn a single film, granted that's with all the menus and special features and such but still!

Turn off automatic compression and change the percentage. Also you can try taking out some of the language or subtitle tracks. Or just rip the movie itself. They free up more room.

most movies are larger than the single layer disk.... but the new dual layer disks are hitting the market. they will be 8.7 or so gig.

like lk said, you can remove all the bonus stuff, and menus, and then the quality of the film doesnt have to be decreased as much.

Well first your computer has to compress that movie..and that depends primarily on how ballsy your computer is. And the actual burning time is depended on what speed discs you have.....once dual layers become more popular there will really be no need for movie compression.

Generally if the compression is greater than 75% then I split the movie to two or more discs. Dual layer discs are still too expensive to use to backup movies. You'd probably spend less money joining a movie club and buy it on sale. Chances are you will burn some coasters alone the way. A $10 dual side coaster is a big waste for me.

The video standard for pre-HD DVD movies (MPEG-2) is not space efficient and as mentioned, dual layer blanks cost ~20x single layer. If you want to fit more on a disc move to MPEG-4 compression: XviD, DivX, et al.

Look into Auto Gordian Knot as a quick and easy converter. You won't retain the original disc layout or menus, and it does take time, but it's much more space efficient. (~3 movies on a single layer DVD with very good quality).

Here's a guide:

http://www.doom9.org/autogk.htm

Stand-alone DVD players with MP4 compatibility are just now becoming common so PC playback isn't the restriction it once was.

I went to best buy today, looking to upgrade to 16x speed dvd burner, and the guy said that movies shouldn't be burned that fast . . . . 2 questions,

1. Why?

2. With an 8x +RW, should it be taking me 4 hours to burn a single movie? I have a 1.7 Pentium, with 128 RAM

4 hours? Jesus.

After I compress the movie, it's taking me 20 minutes or so to burn a full movie at 8x on a DVD-R. Maybe 12 minutes or so for a 16x DVD+R.

Using an Athlon 1800+ (1.53 Ghz, 1gig ram).

What I do is go to Hastings, rent 3 movies, go home and rip them completely with DVD Decrypter, use DVDShrink to pull just the movie out and remove extra sound streams and subtitles, and then burn using nero. Take the movies back by the next night at 10pm and receive $3 credit.

How far do you compress it? I use the DVDShrink, with Nero as well, does the compresson decrease the quality as well? If so, by how much?

I'm suspecting that 4 hour estimate includes _everything_ that dvdshrink is doing ...


*just* burning a dvd (as in, start nero, choose dvd-video, and dump in the contents of the video_ts dir) should be about what bendsley said, ~20 mins @ 8x. Same here.

and the problem with 16x is basically, with DVD's, the faster you burn, the lower the burn Q, lessens readability.

for a more scientific explain, google. (I'm curious as well, just havent gotten that far yet).

regarding compression/quality ... god, that's so personal. some people have an eye for those things ... I don't. reeeally.

A properly encoded single layer dvd in a 1-2 disc divx (xvid) is going to pe perfectly acceptable to my standards.

I download lots of movies, and lately i've been reencoding the dvd's, just for space concerns...

if the movie is particularly visually interesting, I leave it as a dvd...

cyrnel - thanks for the auto gordian knot info - i'll look into that.

I've been using SimpleDivx, but maybe this will work better for me.

:)

Keylogger?
 

I saw advice regarding DVDShrink on this forum.

I downloaded it, used it a few times, no problems.

The last time I ran a complete system scan, Norton claimed it had a keylogger in it. I don't always trust Norton, though.

Anyone else experienced this?

Hi FailedEagle,

You might increase your ram to 512mb from 128mb. That should help your system.
XP wants 128mb for itself. That leaves nothing for programs to run with.
Memory for your speed is cheap these days.

Your burn times are too long, my burner burns 8x dvd in a little less than 9 mins and 16x dvd in ~5 mins.