open message about free pies :)

[DDogg]

I thought I would take a few minutes to put a few things into perspective, especially for the newer participants to this forum (and have a little fun doing it).

Let's go back to the early part of 2001. At that time only a few, very proficient people could backup a dvd to svcd. It was a mind-boggling concoction of different programs, many of which worked poorly. To be able to hand make a svcd backup was close to an art. It was extremely new, difficult, and more importantly, terribly time consuming. It was not unusual for a backup to take a week of evenings to finish.

Along comes DVD2SVCD the author. He did a fairly quick down and dirty hack to be able to automate some of the stuff we were doing manually so in the wee hours of the morning a process could be completed and another begun automatically. That was a terrific thing for those of us who could do all the steps and we were VERY appreciative of what he did.

Now comes the blessing or the curse depending on your perspective :)
Many more features were added and DVD2SVCD became a feature packed robust program a long way from its humble origin. Doing a backup became much easier and so began to attract less experienced users. These users not only had less computer experience, they also had much less "board" experience in an online community and some did not understand forum manners.

Why is that a curse to some? Well let me answer that question, with a question. If somebody stops by your house and brings a nice pie, do you say to that person, "You FOOL!!!, WHY did you bring me a cherry pie, I WANTED an APPLE PIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! [edited for language - 2001 was a different time than now regarding language on this board]

Btw, to the newer folks, note how irritating the caps and exclamation marks are (besides the content). (See this post about that) (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=51632) So, from the perspective of many of the older members of this group, DVD2SVCD was nice enough to bring us a great pie (without being asked). That was a neighborly thing to do, yes? Even if I didn't like cherry pie, I would not offend my neighbor by suggesting I just was not satisfied with what he brought me. If I did, I could count on getting no more free pie :) Everybody with me? LOL

Now here is the problem, the pie is good, free and in demand. The chef is getting stressed out trying to keep all his old and new friends in great tasting pie. In short, it is becoming a pain in the ass for the pie maker. Adding to that, most will not even do him the courtesy of buying a little flour and eggs by way of making a small donation. They just want the free pie AND THEY WANT TO BITCH ABOUT IT. Amazing!

The moral of this story is: if you like free pie, but not this weeks flavor, keep your pie hole shut about it, or you may not get the chance to try next weeks flavor. Or you can go bake your own, of course. If you do, I strongly suggest you don't start baking for all your neighbors. It is way too stressful. :)

DD

[mrbass]

I'm one of those newbie users...started 100% fresh (video encoding stuff) about 3 months ago. Some where in my religion it goes something like this:
Where much is given much is expected.
Basically means what has DVD2SVCD asked for from you? $500 like the new videopack from roxio? No, only for donations and it's entirely up to you the amount or whether you wish to donate or not.

So for those clamoring for new features. There's always the manual way (which I'm sure I'd fail miserably at myself) but at least you can fulfill your ultimate fantasies and that way has limitless flexibilities (is there really 4 i's? sp?).

Basically ddogg is burned out and rightfully so. DVD2SVCD is posting every now and then but it used to be way more often. The reason is simple. Way too many newbie questions which are answered elsewhere and if we questioned you if you've read and re-read doom9's DVD2SVCD guide? Did you read the Q&A a few times? I bet the answer would be a resounding NO.

I believe the best way to deal with these ridiculous questions is just to ignore them. Although it wastes time reading through them all the time. Anyway I agree ddog's analogy 100%. Now you know how us old time linux users feel too...hehe.

[DDogg]

Big difference with you and some others, mrbass.

First, you were always respectful of the fact that this is all a free volunteer effort. Second, as soon as you could, you started helping people, and spent a lot of time on the board doing that. In short, you and others like you (too numerous to mention), made a contribution to this community and continue doing so.

You all have been able to take a lot of load off of those of us that are getting burned out. That is supposed to be the way a board works. Newbies come in, lurk, learn, are respectful, start helping and before you know it, become the respected figures until they burn out and are replaced by a new crop, etc, ad infinitum.

It is pretty cool when it works right. Now, perhaps because I have been way too easy about it, many (not all) newbies come in, don't lurk, don't learn, don't read the Q&A and other pieces of information and demand immediate answers to dumbass questions that have been answered SO many time before. It gets very tiring when it doesn't work the way it is supposed to, for sure.

Thanks again to you, and all the others that help out so much. Without you it certainly would be a bleaker place.

[Schultz]

That is one of the best examples of how things work that i have read in a long time. And like Mrbass i am fairly new to Video encoding also.. about 4-6 months now i have been doing it.. and Dvd2svcd has been a great program in teaching me also how to do it with all the programs he uses and how he steps through them.. If people care to learn it. Though i still wouldn't wish to attempt it on my own since i don't know all the settings and what they do to the extent of what you and Dvd2svcd know about them. I know one thing that i will always try to do. If i have a problem or first come read the FAQ's. If it is been a while and have a new problem.. I still go back to reading the FAQ's cause you never know they could of been updated since the last time you read them and your answer could be in there now.

[gldblade]

This is about TMPG vs CCE, isn't it? :) BTW, sorry I suggested something that DVD2SVCD is tired of hearing (using both TMPG and CCE). At least it seemed to be a reasonable observation to me and I certainly didn't bitch about it. And I missed that bit about TMPG in the "readme before..." thread.

Oh well. I need to learn how to bake myself a pie.

[ScooterMyth]

Unfortunately I have seen this scenario repeated countless times in all walks of life. When I was younger, I was constantly volunteering to help run things or become a club officer, etc. I remember my first "burnout" and it wasn't pretty. The disillusionment, hurt and feeling of betrayal were almost too much to bear.

Now that I am a "crusty old dude" I volunteeer much less, expect nothing in return and consider most people to be "users" until proven otherwise.

A sad commentary on life but it happens every day. The givers will give until they become "disillusioned dreamers" and the users will use as long as the givers give. The circle is broken when the users wear out the givers. In this forum we're almost at that stage.

Scooter

[DDogg]

Hey, gldblade, ya feeling guilty or something? :)

Nah, it is not about anything in particular. If it was, I would have said it as I am not one to hide my specific feelings in gastronomical metaphor. (Oh, I liked that one!) :cool:

Nothing wrong with new ideas or even pushing a point of view that one feels strongly about. That's what the group is for in many ways, to stimulate new thinking and to provide a common point of interchange to speak about a subject, sometimes a little on the stong side, er, I think that is called spirited discussion isn't it?

This missive, in general, was about a phenomenon happening on many boards as we speak. Specifically, because many commercial companies started used a forum like methodology for tech support, newbie forum members have failed to realize, or connect with the fact, that commercial support boards and a community forum are not the same thing in the slightest.

Many have started to think of community boards like it was paid tech support for a commercial product and as if they DESERVE something. :rolleyes: As soon as they realize they don't deserve DICK from any other member, nor are ENTITLED to anything, nada, nothing, zilch, then they start fitting in and become a good member of the community.

A community forum is just like a neighborhood. Neighbors help each other, support each other, but never DEMAND from each other. To do so is to make assured that one does not have any neighbors that can be counted on in the future.

DD

[gldblade]

>Hey, gldblade, ya feeling guilty or something?

Actually, not really. I only posted once about it.

>Nah, it is not about anything in particular as I am not one to hide my specific feelings in gastronomical metaphor. (Oh, I liked that one!)

:)

[TheWEF]

just wanted to say that i agree with ddogg 100% (as always)!
thanx for this post.
i think all the moderators should just take things more easy and not answer every question themselfs. in the forums the users should help each other, right? stop by once in a while and like everybody else jump in if you're interested...or sooner or later you'll feel like a slave.

:) wef.

[DobbyPower]

DDogg, how I enjoyed your pie story, much better than a rant.:D

Now I am one of those old time hand bakers of pies, that has recently started to use DVD2SVCD's Pie'O'Matic. I keep fairly quiet most of the time observing the mixing and cooking process' of other chefs learning not only by my own mistakes but theirs also. I may not be over imbued with flour and eggs that I can donate, but I have managed to help point out when a gooseberry or two has managed to sneak into our nice cherry pie.

I too have noticed many new 'Jamie Olivers' appearing as customers at our resteraunt. Many of them seem to be confused about what is on the menu. Perhaps we could create a small, terse menu about exactly which flavour pies are currently being served, which pies may be served in the future, and which pies will definately never be served as they taste inferior to the current pies ( the TMPEnc pie for example ).

I think as Maitre-d you are doing an exceptional job, this resteraunt is still a pleasure to be in compared to some soup kitchens I have frequented in the past. But maybe, and it's only a suggestion, we need a couple of bouncers added to the staff, that can help unruly customers behave in an acceptable manner, so they don't end up annoying you, and our hard working head chef.

[matzed]

I totally agree with DDogg, as always. I'm new at SVCD creation (2 or 3 months), and i was not able to have something acceptable before discovering DVD2SVCD and Doom9 site (thank you, Google ;)).

I first had problems with DVD2SVCD, CCE etc., and now i naturally want to find how i can get better results etc so i post new thread. Now i think i know some things, and i'm trying to answer to newbies, or tell about my experiments (and yes, it takes a lot of time : those who has never answered and only asked, try, and you will see by yourslef that it takes much time to answer than to ask...especially for non-english speaking people :))

I think we should ALL try to answer when we have the anwser. This will help moderators a lot. There are several categories of "problematic" questions :

- agressive questions : i will never answer, and we all should never answer, or an automatic answer like : "do it yourself"...
- questions that have been answered in the guide, the Q&A or the readme of DVD2SVCD : it is not acceptable, but sometimes it's possible to miss something, or to misunderstand something (for non english speaking people only ? ;))
- questions already answered in the forum : ok, it's not acceptable either, but until the search feature will be on (and yes, the answer to that is somewhere in the forum ;)), we should be cool with this.
- suggestions on DVD2SVCD : it's natural, that's the way we are, improvements often come from suggestions. We only need to be polite, and no "i want this, or i neeeeed that". And sometimes it can be sensitive questions (it seems that DVD2SVCD don't want to hear about tmpgenc...) but it is sometimes difficult to deal with such things.

I'm not sure i'm very clear, it's difficult for me to be clear in english, but i think you understand what i mean in this reply.

Thanks,

Matzed

[DDogg]

Thanks, DobbyPower and matzed,

Perhaps because I am older, and a southerner (Texan), I like to see our community hospitable to everybody. That comes from the old days where if you were inpolite somebody could shoot ya with impunity! (just kidding)

Seriously though, I really dislike rudeness. IMO, this is a "new" way of the new world that I don't care for at all. I don't care what culture, religion, age, ethnicity, etc., we should all do our best to remember that everybody is due proper respect until they demonstrate they are not due any (then ya shoot them :)). It is easy to say that, but damn hard to do when somebody asks "Is a cdr round or square" ;)

Anyway, to DobbyPower's bouncer comment, while I agree, I would rather limit that type of response to people that are rude and disrespectful of our community, rather than those that are just lazy and dumb. There is a fundemental difference between the two types and sometimes that is easy to forget.

We can still answer a dumbass question with a link to another thread since the search thing is not working and a polite but pointed, "In the future, please do some more research before asking questions in the forum".

Also, let's try to educate people about how superfluous questions drive good stuff off the first page of the board too quickly. This board has such a large amount of traffic that sometimes it reminds me of an alt.binaries group with messages being driven off in just a day. At least we don't actually lose any like they do.

I am going to check in with Doom9 soon and see what the traffic is like. If it is heavy enough perhaps I could request of him a DVD2SVCD newbie forum like he did for NanDub. Then some of us could alternate telling folks cdrs are the little round frisbee looking things :)

DD

[DDogg]

markrb,

Your point is well taken. I do share some of your concerns. I think the answer, IF we do it, is to have a couple of good, fresh mods. That is the only way it would work. It is still in the "thinking stage".

[Labersack]

I also think it wouldn't be a good idea to split the board. It is sometimes very hard to read dumb questions and answer them polite, but I want to keep the whole cumumity together, because as Mark said, newbies also have good ideas and how should anewbie decide if a question is a newbie question or a difficult one...

[mrbass]

let the mods decide...if they're really not sure let the post go into Advanced forum and leave it up to the discretion of the Gods (I mean Mods) to move it or not.

[dvd2svcd]

I think we should try the Newbie forum for a trial period. If it doesn't work out as it should we can always revert back to the original. Besides how many forums have you seen where there is this kind of massive support for a piece of freeware.

[matzed]

You could ask to the moderators of Nandub could tell us if the Nandub newbies is succesfully used as it is supposed to be. I'm sure it will be instersting to answer to newbies, cause sometimes it obliged you to search a little bit, and that way you learn too.

If a thread is going less "newbie", we should refer to a moderator to move it to "DVD2SVCD more experienced".

Besides, it could be interesting to move/copy some common threads from here to this newbie forum, mark them as sticky (eventually rename the thread so it will be more explicit). We all know that sometimes newbies don't want to search (until search is disabled). Some sticky threads for common subjects, maybe 10, is a solution (suggestion to go to spain, cce freezes, checksum errors, OGT first time over in i-author...), plus of course Q&A and links to guides.

Matzed

[Mozart]

A newbie forum with a fresh moderator is a very good idea. Would be good a warning in the "dvd2svcd advanced forum":Put your question here ONLY if you are sure that it isn't a newbie question or something like that.

The moderator of the newbie forum can judge if the question is a newbie question or isn't and, if it is not, he can remove the question for the advanced forum.

[kxy]

Now thinking about it, we did come a long way in such a short time.

Remeber Doom9's list of movies and the list of unflaskable movies? :p

And Remember the very first time we tried to figure out batch, DDog? That was early this summer right? Wow that was stone ages ago.

Many thanks to all the programers/hackers/volunteers out there, for teaching me so many things. And I barely have to ask any questions, because I am a very patient man, eventually, someday, someone got to answer my question(Just look at my post :rolleyes:). Hopefully the newcomers gets this msg.

[gldblade]

I think a copy of this thread belongs in the newbies board. In fact, I think at least the first part made by DDogg belongs there. That was one nice post...

[DDogg]

I did a link in the "*** readme now Q&A...***" sticky with a link to here and the Q&A. Thanks for the nice words, gldblade.

[barbas]

Gentelmen,

I do not know if this is a newbie comment but I'll risk posting it here.

I love pies (specially this one).
I do not mind to try new flavors but I do think that dvd2svcd is very tasty.

I think that this community can give more to this pie, not only in the form of donations or bug reports and testing, but also in the form of flour, apples, berries, baking temperature settings, ovens, etc.

Before you ban me from this forum let me ask a question...

Has dvd2svcd author considered to get "our" help with the code, bug fixing, enhancements, manuals, translations, etc?

Would he like some help?

Regards

Barbas

[eazye]

I love this pie. I don't know how I survived without it. I am new to this ... only about 2 months, Everything, and I mean everything is on this board. When I started out, I had encode rates of 1.1. Now I have with the help of the board raised this to 1.5 (and I am sure I can squeeze a little more out of my system). And the quality ... improving. I have only made two posts - b4 this one. I really appreciate the efforts of all the moderators and the Pie-Maestro.

[DDogg]

I am going to restick this dated thread again as it seems to have become on topic again :-(

[Boulder]

<sarcasm>
People should be taught how to use the search (or Sam Earch, as I call my trusty friend;) before they even are granted membership. Usually, but not every time, someone has asked the same or similar question and a good answer has been given. Most people just don't seem to want to do anything themselves - I myself actually enjoy going through some older messages as you'll often run into very interesting topics etc.
</sarcasm>

[DDogg]

Boulder, sad but true. Actually your point about finding all kind of good stuff when you use search is really on target.

[gam188]

I am very new here but i must say if you can read at all you can find all the info you need here. A newbie forum might help sure but i thought that was what the what the dvd2svcd basic forum was for ?
anyways I love this pie lol, all flavors, thanx folks

[ajmoss]

A closer analogy is that the ingrate helps himself to the pie, then starts complaining that he burnt his mouth because the filling is too hot, and now his fingers are all sticky.

A utility designed for ripping DVDs isn't necessarily ideal for transcoding a file captured with a TV capture card. That's the apple pie and cherry pie analogy.

[RadicalEd]

yah, everybody play nice please, I cringe at the thought of seeing more blood and strikes.
And while I'm plaguing this thread with my presence, D2S, you sure make a good piece o pie ^^

[someguy_1999]

To D2S, DD, and all "Contributors" to this site.

Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!!!!!!

As you may see this is my third post. The first was a question, the second apologising for posting because I found it elsewhere.

I've been using DVD2SVCD for several months now, and visiting the site, off and on, for some time prior to that. I was able to find the answers to all of my questions through patient and methodical searching of this site!

I may sound a bit nieve, but this is EXCITING!!!!! There is so much information here for those who wish to taste it! I find it difficult to fathom how anyone could take this for granted, or even abuse those that provide this without expectation of compensation. Heck, I just opened a checking account, in part, so that I may contribute. (I wasn't patient enough to figure out how to donate using a savings acct/cash...:)

I apologize in advance if this is repetitious, however it occurred to me that there may well be many others out there that don't post (because they don't have to:) ) who equilly appreciate the great service/product(s) being offered here.

If I may, I'd like to thank you on behalf of all of those users who don't "bug you", and encourage them to contribute "to the cause": One of the last bastions of fair use.

Thank you once again!
Someguy_1999

[jledhead]

damn good readin' here.


I will never understand why people insist on bitching about free pies???? it puzzles the mind, I mean....its free. there is nothing better then free. but then when its something of good use, well made, FREE,...... why bitch?? if you don't like it, then don't use it.

I tell anyone interested in the subject to come here. the manual just sucks :scared:

[Phatty2x4]

Damn good readin' going on here

1st I'd like to say - I don't care for pie. Could I get some cookies instead?

2nd I completely understand DDogg's plight (spell?). I help a buddy run a gaming site and run into the same issues. No matter what you do - free wise that is - some one is always unhappy and quick to point out faults/errors/problems. Yeah you get nubee questions - you get dumb questions - you get the dolts and dunderheads choking' up the board. Unfortunately that's the nature of the beast. Just do as we do - for the nubee, if it's a reasonable question, answer gently and point them on their way. More than likely they will figure it out with a small jump start in the right direction. For dumb questions - point out that they are kinda being dumb and that they should do research to figure out their issues. For the dolts - strike them down with furious anger and righteous vengeance

3rd I have played around with a lot of different dvd2svcd dvd2vcd type programs - and while dvd2svcd can be intimidating (cause of all the shinny candy like check boxes!) to first time users and sometime aggravating to newer users (because we sometimes do dumbass thing like not look at what we are checking and waste a whole night of encoding incorrectly) - it is hands down the best thing going!

Keep up the good fight for this great program!!

[titvs]

Hi there ppl.

I'm a long time user of DVD2SVCD (since ver. 1.0.2) and i have to say it is by far, the best DVD backup utility. Before DVD2SVCD i used DVD2MPEG Squeezer (do you remeber it? a nice prog) and you know how VCD quality looks like :p When i first encoded a DVD with DVD2SVCD and played in my stand-alone DVD player i was completly blown away. I thanked the gods for finding such a prog.
And i must express my infinite gratitude to the DVD2SVCD author for him to put up with me and my subtitles "problems" :p He's been tireless solving all of them.
As you can see, i have little posts and many of them are answers to others questions. I never felt the need to even register because the prog worked just fine. I registered in July this year because i had an advanced issue i had to ask but then again i didnt need to because the answer was already in the forum. :)
You can't imagine the amount of information there is here. I learned more in this last months reading the forum than in those years that have past of self experiencing. I even have found a method of converting stereo sound to dolby digital 5.1 :p I have to try this out someday. :)
Everyone should spend some time reading the forum, FAQ, Q&A but you know, there are always those kind of persons who want things ready for yesterday and dont want to spend time or effort. We have to keep our calm and if you dont want to answer i'm sure someone will.

Well, to finish, i send all my thanks and gratitude to everyone in the forum, specially the senior ones ;), who have wasted so much time answering and helping. For you all, my deepest thanks.

Titvs

[Winterwolf]

I guess I am a newbie...and a quiet one at that.
I just like to read all the posts and tutorials, and I find that most of my query's are answered in them.....

But I am grateful as hell when this "Pie" came along, after trying to do all the steps with the individual components was killing me.
I am now starting to truly appreciate how much work and effort went into this....And it is even more oustanding that it is a free projuect with only donations to support him.

Keep it up my friend.... :)

[ammck55]

D2S:

You bake awesome pie.... I don't even know where to begin.

The first pie I brought home was in a box that I couldn't open. DDogg/Mozart showed me the way to Daemon. A few days later, I encountered another piece of pie that was locked up. Chainsaw>authentication was my savior here. Lightning U.K.>decryption got me another bite. Gerti's linear logic blows me away at times. jggimi gave me an example of how to create a clean, concise, logical post. mrbass, Mark, all the software creators in here. Heck, let me give many thanks to all the moderators and all the old hands, it would take me all day to thank everyone personally that I have gotten help from. ( I just wish I could have found all this good help in the same amount of time it has taken me to compose this, but...)

Two years ago I bought my mother a computer, six months ago I bought myself one so she could e-mail her "baby" everyday. I signed up for an Infosystems class in August at the local community college, and yesterday I finished building my first pc so that little pieces of D2S's pie could come out of it undisturbed. It bakes night and day. dvd2svcd is the neatest thing I've found since I discovered girls! And all I have to do, ultimately, is plug in a disc and watch the numbers run. It almost sound corny to tell of how much enjoyment and satisfaction I get out of using this powerful tool that you have created and nurtured. The first thing I do every day when I walk in the door is check on my rip and then log on to doom9.

I have decided to take a class in programming next semester to better understand how this kind of magic occurs, and my discovery of D2S has been a major factor in that decision. You possess a big heart, my man!

ammck55

[sk2003]

Well, I'll certainly be willing to volunteer for the newest newbie award, if that helps to redistribute the load a bit. BRIEF BACKGROUND: I saw a bunch of DVD's on sale at Best Buy 2 weeks ago for $6. At that price how could I not buy some? So when I was in line I asked the pony-tailed check out guy: "BTW - is it a big deal to rip these DVD's to my hard drive"? (For the purpose of making personal back up copies only, of course.) He looked at me in a quick, nervous "speakeasy" kind of way (you know, that hushed, rushed: "Hey, ya gotta let me in; Joe sent me" kind of way, before the door opens, and a hand reaches out and grabs you quicker than you can say RIAA bot, and yanks you inside and slams the door back shut all in one seamless motion), and said: "Well, you didn't hear it from me, but try doing a Google for: capital D small e capital C capital S capital S. It's an outlawed program, but it might help you out. And remember...you didn't hear it from me." OK, Bob, clerk number 34671, at Best Buy store 11568. No problem. (I thanked him, and sped home to check out capital D small e capital C capital S capital S as fast as I could. I'm not making this up; that's actually exactly how he said it.)

What I found from the search was very confusing indeed - especially in retrospect - because from the looks of those initial sites everything seemed pretty bleak. (i.e. Don't come to THIS site expecting to find capital D small e capital C capital S capital S!!) Looking back, I certainly wish he had uttered: capital d capital v capital d numeral 2 capital s capital v capital c capital d instead. (Which brings me more or less to my main point; eventually; and I assure you, I do have one.) But alas, he didn't. So instead I read up on DVD copy protection and law suits and counter law suits and global zones (I finally understand now why W2K asked about my "zone" when I first installed my OS. At the time, I was like: "WTF is it YOUR business where the hell I live. Just load your bloatware and be done with it! Now I understand a whole lot more about zones and "summer movies" in this part of the globe and other parts of the globe and how/why it's possible for there to be copies of releases that haven't even been released (at least not in this country) and why some downloaded movies have barely discernible dialogue that jumps out of nowhere from time to time that's not a part of the movie itself as well as silhouettes that suddenly pop up in the front row like in that Seinfeld episode with Kramer, etc. "HEY...Down in front, ok. I'd like to see how Harry Potter gets out of this jam, OK?!!!" And generally, understanding is a good thing.)

So I think it is rather self-evident that I truly am a 'newbie's newbie' when it comes to DVD ripping. And as if that weren't bad enough, to compound matters, I'm also pretty much a classic "ugly American". (Not so much the reflection in the mirror type of ugly; more along the lines of the "impatient, want it all yesterday without really having to exert too much effort or shell out too much cash in the process" kind of ugly.) And taken together, that only served to magnify my surprise/chagrin/amazement/confusion when I discovered the plethora of programs and guides available at dvdrhelp, afterdawn, and, of course, Doom9. Heck...there were so many places to go and check out I ended up with a whole new favorites folder just to keep em all together in one place.

I was amazed that from those humble beginnings of only two weeks ago, (my Google for DeCSS), I'd downloaded over 20 programs/codecs/encoders/decoders/recoders/etc, and managed to burn my first working SVCDs (of my own legal copy of "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" that I got at Best Buy for 6 bucks). Not only that, but I had to try so many different programs and make so many non-working CD-RW's, that I pretty much now know the whole movie by heart. Pretty amazing stuff considering that it involved a process that was described by the originator of this thread as a virtual art form as few as 8 short months ago.

And whipping all of this into laser-like focus here...

without a doubt, the two programs that I found to be the most helpful of all were....

(drum roll please...)

Ta-DAH!

1. dvd2svcd (obviously, or why the hell else would I be posting here?) and

2. EazyVCD.

Unfortunately, VCDEasy, which I think is often confused with EazyVCD hurt my head, no matter how many times I read the guides. That's not to imply it's not a top notch program; just that I couldn't get it to work for me.) But the first two, along with cladDVD, worked very well. Each obviously has its own following and its own plusses and minuses. And that, my friends, brings me to my most salient point of all.

SALIENT POINT: (not to be confused with copius notes)

After reading through this thread, I decided it was high time to head over to the donation counter at dvd2svcd and belly up some genuine thanks to its author. It's one thing to rush headlong like a bull in a china shop to grab the latest and greatest software wizardry; it's another to be a total ingrate and not give credit where credit is due. Extending the original metaphor of the starter of this thread, it's sort of like putting a little ice cream on top of the apple pie; if you will. And maybe that's truly the other side of the "ugly American"; the side that genuinely roots for the underdog; cheers for David vs. Goliath; openly supports the rebels; the freedom fighters; etc; the unsung cyberguys. And in that vein, I certainly encourage anyone and everyone who has benefited from/by dvd2svcd to follow suit.

Finally, thanks to the originator of this thread. It was fun making this second post of mine here at Doom9.

sk