Has anyone thought of this? Its important

[Commander XJL]

I would really like some opions on this. First there's VCD, so we spend money on renting movies and buying CDR's to make VCD's. Then SVCD's come around and we rent the same movies over and buy more CDR's and re do them because they look better. Now we rent the same movies again and spend way more money on DVDR's, but to get the duel layer DVD's to fit on single layer DVDR's we strip stuff out or transcode to lower quality so we really don't have a real copy, just a half ass one. I suppose in 2 years there will be duel layer burners and duel layer DVDR's for us to buy then we'll rent everything over for a 4th time so we can make a better copy. Its really starting to get me thinking by the time we spend all this money renting and re renting and buying media over and over we could have just bought the DVD's and saved all that work, and had the real thing with the real printed DVD case and disk. Are we a bunch of idiots or what? I would really like some opions on this because it really has got me thinking maybe I'm stupid for being in this hobby.

[klona]

I quite agree with you.
Even, if you add cdr burner price (I know now it's quite cheap, but it was'nt when I started) plus the price of the DVDR burner, plus, I am sure I am not the only one, the new CPU you buy just because re-encoding take too long, plus the extra memory to be a bit more confortable, plus, plus...) you will find out that your ripped movie cost quite a lot.

In fact, the only way to be money-OK is to sell hacked movies around you.
I hate vendors as they just use work from others (studio/artists but also hackers/ripping gurus) and quite never contribute to forums, just leech.

It's really obvious on the sat hack scene, less in rip but still.

On my side, I know for a while that is not really for money I do all that, it's mainly for fun. A bit also to show friends "Hey, you but your DVDs ? Hugh, look, i just burned this one nanannananna...."
child ? Yes I am ! old happy child !

just to come back to the original thread, I don't think i will redo movies from one layer to dual-layers, as I really have all I want on my rip. Movie, 2 ac3, subs, even extra sometimes when nice (reencoded also) and even sometimes I did new menus, better than original.

[mpucoder]

Who rents? I actually own the DVDs I backup. :)
Although I buy them from a rental store, after the rush is over. They sell off excess copies at $6 to $10

[erwan]

it does indeed cost money but i always saw it as a hobby.
like was said by klona, i do this for fun.

i never bothered to burn vcd, svcd for i thought quality was not great enough. the only convenient aspect with vcd/svcd is that it plays in my standalone player. so if i happen to find some movies on internet, may be i'll burn it on a cdr-w to see it. otherwise, i never spent time & money with these.

concerning divx, i have some friends that burn hundreds of them but it dont see the point. quality is not that good. for now you have to watch it on your monitor or to plug your tv on your computer.
besides i have to hear the fan of my computer while watching a movie !
and what is worst, i'm sure that when divx standalone players will be available, most the actual burned divx wont be iso compliant !

now, about DVD-R. this is my dream come true :)
it is cheaper than cd-r (i'm talking about the megabyte price).
quality is great : about 2/3 of my movies dont need to be reencoded, and the last third is reencoded with CCE and i cant see the difference.
i do strip about everything on the dvd (menu, extras, ...) but i personally dont care much (but i can understand do care).

and what is nice is that i really enjoy spending time playing with these wonderful toys i always dreamed about : dvd burner, audio/video authoring tools and i'm always very proud (like klona said : just like a child) to see "my" dvd-r's. i do my own compilations, sometimes i redo my owns menus or i add some personal extras, and so on ...

so like i said, this is a true hobby for me and i'm glad there is forums like DOOM9 and to push everything further.

hope this will cheer up a bit Commander XJL for he looks like a bit depressed ! :)

erwan

[kilroy]

imho i believe that for some movies i will of coarse go out and buy the DVD for extras ie: LOTR, Star Wars, Back to the Future etc... others i really dont care about extras.. think of it this way though.we are ALL losing money..in years to come DVD will be like VHS today. so EVERYONE are idiots :) like many others said i do this for fun. i myself do not notice a difference in quality and dont really give a crap about extras ( but i respect peoples reasoning for liking them). for a few bucks i have a dvd that i like..what more could u ask for :) the day i stop having this as a hobby is when i have enough money to just go out and buy every new format that comes out and get ALL the movies i love..i dont see that happening anytime soon :) later fellas

[Commander XJL]

I guess I'll copy movies I like and buy the ones I think are worth it, like Wrath Of Khan new edition today! I also don't care about menus or extras and I'm saving a crapload of money copying instead of buying, and I don't even buy generic DVDR's but the good ones. Still I wish I could afford to buy everything, but I don't have the money, I tried becoming a male prostitute to make more money but it didn't work out

[Tatjahna]

On my side, I have directly passed from VCDs to DVDs ... I have read on the vcdhelp.com forum one day, a guy told us : "When you will have your dvd burner, you will never ever consider doing VCDs again!!"

At this time I have loved that quote and now, I own a dvd burner, and... DAMN*D that he was right! :D

Finish the headaches for finding the perfect receipe for the best quality and the long process for that ridiculous rendering quality.

I often rent movies, and *ahem*.. would like to back them up all, but I think that ripping all the stuff, working with 25 tools to make the DVD work, and all the hours spent to the rendering encoding and authoring, plus the price of the dvd-media do not worth the price of simply buying it.

I will do it if and only if I know that this serie or movie won't be available in DVD, or only will be available in English (I listen my movies in French). I then go rent VHS and do them.

IMHO, all the efforts and sacrifices do not worth the 25$ to buy one of them. Just choose them wisely before buying them! :sly:

[slk001]

Yeah, it can be an expensive hobby. But then, so is buying an expensive car when a "mini" will get you where you want to go just as well. If this were the prevailing attitude throughout human history, we would still be in caves, dragging our women back after we bonked them over the head with our clubs (humm, I guess that not all progress is good!).

As for dual-layered DVD-R's, dream on. They have never been burned, and are not likely to be soon. Technological hurdles are extremely severe - even the major companies have given up on a dual layered burner.

For me, I examined and experimented both the VCD and SVCD stages - and determined that they both sucked. The DVD's that I am doing are captures of movies and shows (from laserdisks) that ARE NOT YET on DVD (SW, EMPIRE, JEDI, ON A CLEAR DAY, CAPTAIN HORATIO HORNBLOWER, DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL, WARNER CARTOONS, etc, etc). I endeavour to make my DVD's as PROFESSIONAL as possible (animated menus, AC3 audio, closed captioning, subtitles, quality encodes, etc). It takes a shit load of time to do it properly (just try to sit down and transcribe the dialog on JEDI!).

Is it a waste of time? I don't think so... it's better than sitting in front of the TV all night watching the dribble that is presented as "entertainment".

I you don't want to do this, then I don't think any of us are going to "break your arms" for leaving. I enjoy my hobby, and enjoy the copious exchanges of accomplishments and ideas that occur on these boards. So, you are an idiot, or are stupid if you continue to pursue this hobby when you clearly do not like it.

And Tatjahna, I was wondering if it was me who told you about going to DVD (I've said that many times). If it was, then I am very pleased that you are satisfied with your results!

[atreides93]

I like the fact that my backup copies don't force me to watch stupid fbi warnings, or previews (like some disney titles), and they don't force me to sit through some menu animation. I like the fact that my movies start playing immediately without pause.

i also think its fun to create my own menus sometimes...if i am bored...

anyway i disagree with it taking so long to copy a movie. its really easy now a days. just a couple of steps if you don't mind fitting them on two discs.
________
green crack pictures (http://trichomes.org/marijuana-strains/green-crack)

[Commander XJL]

I'm just saying if you spend 5 dollars on a blank DVDR (I think most people have learned their lesson with generic media) then you spend 3 dollars to rent a movie, 50 cents on a DVD case, 50 cents for a sheet of photo paper to print the cover, then the cost of ink, your up to about ten bucks. Your still saving 5 to 15 dollars per movie, but you may also have lost a bunch of what the real DVD had to offer like extras and menus. So like I say its a tuff choice

[Tatjahna]

@slk001

I really don't remember who told that to me but if it's you, "God bless you!" :D:D It was on the vcdhelp.com forum I guess.. I was begging about the poor quality of the CBR at 1150 for VCDs... How much nights of headaches! Never again!

Happy you say? I am so happy to be now able to backup my old VHS to decent quality DVD that I ... dunno what to say .. (just imagine how I could feel okay? ;) )

Cya guys! And long life to this forum without whom we wouldn't be as king/queen as we feel when we find answers to our questions! :D

[Arky]

Why not BUY the original DVDs and enjoy them, then turn your attentions towards authoring DVDs with other content, either using other formats, as slk001 said, or using DV footage? (I do appreciate that not everyone can afford a DV camera). The point is, that I think both slk001 AND Commander XJL have made valid comments. It IS (ARGUABLY) not worthwhile creating DVD-Rs from DVDs, from an economical point of view, UNLESS you have a secondary reason for doing so.

There again, one could just as easily argue that the secondary reason need be nothing more than keeping oneself occupied with this challanging hobby! :D


Arky ;o)

[John Miller]

I only started copying and burning DVD's when DVD-R appeared.
Before that i didn't bother. I never re-encode because i wan't maximum quality since i use a big screen projector to view my movies. Even the slightest quality loss from re-encoding shows up bigtime when you project to a 3x2.5 meter screen.
I still do buy a few DVD's with extra's that i'm interested in, but for about 90% i just copy the dvd's that i rent.
Why do i do this: because i feel feel that the movie company's are taking advantige of us and the prices for DVD's are insane. I don't know if this is the case everywere, but it sure is the case were i live.
Just follow me on this one: when you buy a movie, you buy the right to watch that movie. So why is it when a movie costs 12 euro on video tape, the same movie costs 35 Euro on DVD ??? I know for a fact that it is cheaper to manufacture a DVD than a video tape. I know that the authoring costs will be higher for a DVD, but they in NO WAY justify such a price difference ! The movie company's are just exploiting the DVD fans for as long as they can. I don't know about you guy's but i think it is insane to pay 35 Euro for a movie on DVD that you perhaps will view only a few times. In my experience i only watch most movies 3 or 4 times. Some exceptionaly good movies i watch more times (and i buy those).
So do i feel guilty about copying al those rental DVD's ?
HELL NO ! I feel that i'm not steeling anything: i payed to watch to movie, so it's not that the movie company's are not earning anything from me. I don't copy DVD's for others, just for my own private use.
If the studios would deceide to sell their DVD's for a reasonable price, i would probably stop copying and buy every DVD that i'm interested in. What is a reasonable price ? I think the price for movies on video tape (about 12 Euro) are reasonable. It would be no problem for the studios to sell their DVD's at this price, but intead they want to squize the last buck out of us. Well i've been buying DVD's for a long time now (i get dizzy when i calculate how much money i have spend on them already). Well, with DVD-R i have the opportunity to get out of the greedy clutches of the studio's and i'm really thankfull for that.
The studios are whining about profit loss because of copying ? I don't care: as soon as they set a fair price on their products I will start buying again and stop copying. Up untill then: long live IFO Edit and the Pioneer A04 !
I don't know how you guy's feel about this, but i think i'm not alone on this one

[Commander XJL]

I feel the same way about both the record companies and the DVD studios, there greed is nightmarish, then they whine when people get fed up with it and copy stuff. The record companies for over 20 years now force you to buy an entire over priced CD to get one song you want. They could have set up something like Napster a long time ago and charged 50 cents a song, but they would rather take advantage of you. The DVD studios do the same. 25 dollars for a movie is too much. 10 or 12 dollars seems about right. I also love it when you pay good money for a DVD (too much money) then they put previews for other movies before the main title, or in some cases actual commercials for products like Pillsbury cookies. Anyone who feels guilty for copying movies is the biggest whimp and goody toshoes on the planet. We deserve to fight back. Its because of people like us that prices drop. The people that say were wrong to copy stuff sure don't bitch when the prices drop do they.

[cwalker1960]

it's gotta be just for the fun ,,when i think of the hours i've sat in front of this computer reading ,,the hours i've spent re authoring ,,,the absolute unbelievable amount of times doing one movie over and over till everything is just the way i wanted it ,,if my time is worth say $5 an hour ,i coulda probably done bought a f**king studio LOL,,,oh well ,,,long live the hobby and many many thanks to all the people on here for help ,, for all the program writers and to doom for the guides

[atreides93]

Talk about digging up an old thread!! this thread hasnt' been posted in since august of last year.

[LB]

Who here actually *WATCHES* the movies after they burn them? ^.o I stopped buying and burning movies for the simple reason that I never watched any of them, so it seemed pointless to collect them. ;p

[brashquido]

Yeah, the collection of DVD's without actually watching them can be a real trap. The trap I got myself into was ripping DVD's without actually putting them to DVD-R. I'v now filled 10 40GB DDS-4 tapes, and my 300GB RAID-5 storage area on my server :rolleyes:

[DVDToolbox]

I just split the movie on 2 dvdr. The quality is 100% original !

And you can use the break for picking up a beer ! :)