----------------------------------- SuperGenius Thu Dec 30, 2004 12:42 am I got a new dvd writer drive... ----------------------------------- It's external, made by BenQ and it is listed in My Computer, and it can play commercial DVDs. However, some of the software that I already had on my computer can't recognize the drive (Roxio VideoWave Movie Creator, Easy CD Creator 5 Basic) The program that came with the drive is InterVideo WinDVD Creator 2, although it is a little confusing to me. My goal for my first project is to take as many files as I can(they are on my HD and are about 215MB, 22min) and put them on a DVD disc which can subsequently be played in a standalone DVD player. Also, on the box and on web sites about the drive it mentions that it has dual-layer capability... how do I use it? ----------------------------------- Martin Thu Dec 30, 2004 2:02 am ----------------------------------- I didn't know that they sold DVD burners with dual layer burning capabilities. I would imagine that it would be automatic. ----------------------------------- SuperGenius Thu Dec 30, 2004 9:39 am ----------------------------------- well when I put in a disc and clicked the 'disc info' button I got something like: DVD+R, 4438MB Free I don't have to use a certain kind of disc to get up to 8.5 GB do I? ----------------------------------- Andy Thu Dec 30, 2004 9:48 am ----------------------------------- yes u do.. dual layer disks has a thin membrane seperating the first layer from the second, the burner/reader is capable of using a strong laser which can penetrate the membrane and a laser which cant, to read the first side, the burner/reader simply uses the weaker laser and to play the second side, use the stronger. most of the movies now days are dual layers since they include extra featuer. a blank dual layer disk costs around 2 dollars each. you may have to reinstall some of the software so it can recognize your burner ----------------------------------- SuperGenius Thu Dec 30, 2004 5:20 pm ----------------------------------- I had to format a while back and when i got this thing I noticed I never reinstalled that software so i just installed it the other day, after i had installed the drive. ----------------------------------- SuperGenius Fri Dec 31, 2004 11:17 am ----------------------------------- where would I get discs like that? I've checked a couple electronics stores and they don't seem to have any. ----------------------------------- Andy Fri Dec 31, 2004 11:48 am ----------------------------------- www.tigerdirect.ca ----------------------------------- SuperGenius Fri Dec 31, 2004 1:16 pm ----------------------------------- i checked there actually and the only thing that I fould was a single disc for $14. I was hoping that they would be a bit cheaper than that. ----------------------------------- josh Fri Dec 31, 2004 2:17 pm ----------------------------------- eventually they will get cheeper but right now, like with any new tech, it is expensive. ----------------------------------- SuperGenius Fri Dec 31, 2004 6:08 pm ----------------------------------- ok then, that makes two questions. 1. does anyone know of software that allows backup copies of dvds to be made? I know that most don't because they are illegal in the states. 2. Does any of this software make it easy to compress a dual layer disc down to the size of a single layer one? ----------------------------------- Andy Fri Dec 31, 2004 6:14 pm ----------------------------------- [url=http://www.dvdshrink.org/what.html]dvd shrink ----------------------------------- SuperGenius Fri Dec 31, 2004 6:59 pm ----------------------------------- the website's down. I hope that it did not get shut down peremenantly by THe Man. However I looked up the program and I got the idea that it has the ability to bypass the encryption, but then i saw people talking about "copy protection errors" does it, or does it not have the ability to deal with protected dvds? ----------------------------------- Andy Sat Jan 01, 2005 9:49 pm ----------------------------------- works perfectly fine for me.. and the website works fine for me :? ----------------------------------- josh Sun Jan 02, 2005 12:05 am ----------------------------------- the site did not work for me before, but it is working now. ----------------------------------- SuperGenius Sun Jan 02, 2005 1:11 pm ----------------------------------- pretty neat software. and free! EDIT: does anyone know of a tool which can isolate the main movie of a disc and convert it into one .avi file or something of that sort? RE-EDIT: When I'm trying to make a dvd the setting which allows the most time per disc is "DVD-2 hours" does this mean that the max is 2 hours or am I allowed to put more than 2h on a disc if the filesizes are small enough? ----------------------------------- Blade Mon Jan 03, 2005 3:54 pm ----------------------------------- well.. i know that in nerovision when you load mpg's or avi's it will automatically encode it into dvd format with a wizard making your menus and such... but there are encoding options. ex: long play, standard play ... like your vcr .. it determines the quality.. obviously the lower the quality it will encode it as, the more time you are able to have on your dvd.. i think the "standard play" is 2 hrs on a normal dvd ... i dunno how long it is on a dvd-9... most likely twice as long since its exactly twice as big... wow imma sherlock holmes.. as for the encoding it to avi .. you'll have to rip the vob files with at tool like smartripper.. then get some tool to multiplex the sound and video into an avi.. http://divx-digest.com.. this place has lots of articles, tools, pretty much everything you need for doin video stuff ----------------------------------- Andy Mon Jan 03, 2005 8:18 pm ----------------------------------- dr divx does a fine job of ripping movies from dvds ----------------------------------- SuperGenius Mon Jan 03, 2005 11:09 pm ----------------------------------- dr divx does a fine job of ripping movies from dvds bah. software that costs money sucks. ----------------------------------- Andy Tue Jan 04, 2005 8:45 pm ----------------------------------- err rite.. money heh... :roll: mine came with my cable bill :lol: ----------------------------------- SuperGenius Sat Jan 08, 2005 10:53 am ----------------------------------- does anyone know how i can put more than 2h of video on a dvd5 disc? that seems to be the limit to what I can do but i know that since it is possible to compress a dvd9 disc and put it on a dvd5 that a dvd5 can store more than 2h. ----------------------------------- Andy Sat Jan 08, 2005 2:16 pm ----------------------------------- if u use dvd shrink, u can compress the video so that it fits ----------------------------------- josh Sat Jan 08, 2005 2:21 pm ----------------------------------- well we are on the topic of DVD writers, Iin my PC I have a 48x CD burner and a DVD rom. I just bought a 16X +/- burner and I have no more drive bays to put it in. SHould I replace the DVD ROM with the DVD burner and kep the CD burner, or replace the CD burner with the DVD burner and keep the DVD ROM ( so if I am coopying a disc it does not need to go onto the HD first). And Andy, does DVD shring need to copy a movie to the HD first, or does it go directly from disk to disk? ----------------------------------- SuperGenius Sat Jan 08, 2005 2:26 pm ----------------------------------- well my dvd burner still burns cds at 40x, vs 48x for my cd burner. i ended up getting an external one because it was much more convenient, and not much more expensive. to answer your question, replace the cd burner for sure. EDIT: yeah, i know that shrink will compress the video, but what i'm trying to do is something different than backing up a disc. i have some video files on my hard drive, which I would like to put on a dvd disc which could be played in a standalone player. The quality of the files is such that almost 430 minutes worth of them would fit into 4.4 GB, although so far i have only been able to fit 120 min onto one disc. ----------------------------------- Andy Sat Jan 08, 2005 4:00 pm ----------------------------------- i would replace the cd burner, since the dvd burner can burn cds at approximately the same rate, but it doesnt really matter since when u cpy dvds, it'll usually be movies, which requires u to put the movie on the hdd first. and yes, dvd shrink forces you to cpy it to the hdd first, but u can just delete it afterwards, only 4.4 gigs, not too big of a deal. well if u use tmpgenc, you can choose how many hours of videos you want to fit on the dvd ----------------------------------- josh Sat Jan 08, 2005 4:24 pm ----------------------------------- thanks for the help :D ----------------------------------- SuperGenius Sat Jan 08, 2005 4:42 pm ----------------------------------- well if u use tmpgenc, you can choose how many hours of videos you want to fit on the dvd can you tell me anything more about this? ----------------------------------- Andy Sat Jan 08, 2005 4:45 pm ----------------------------------- go dl tmpgenc first, its pretty much self explanitory ----------------------------------- SuperGenius Sun Jan 09, 2005 12:44 pm ----------------------------------- from a google search, it's pretty confusing how the thing is actually supposed to work. ----------------------------------- Andy Sun Jan 09, 2005 5:32 pm ----------------------------------- lol dl it first, before you make any assumptions ----------------------------------- SuperGenius Sun Jan 09, 2005 5:52 pm ----------------------------------- lol dl it first, before you make any assumptions i like to do as much research as i can before dling something... call me paranoid but this program struck me as sort of shady. EDIT: which program were you refering to? it seems like there is more than one, but the one called "tempgencDVD" or whatever looked like it wouldn't do what I wanted...