DVD Conversion WHY?

[drohner]

Dumb Newbie Questions:

1. I do not understand the whole concept VCD especially considering the time and effort. Why do I say this because DVDr drives/discs costs are dropping to the point where all the efforts of doing all this xSVCD, DIVx, etc. conversion soon will no longer be worth the pain and time. So please give me a reason to do this to myself?
2. However I do see a reason to play DVD or DVDr's on a P.C. considering that the licensed stand alone players essentially puts out a analog (inferior signal) in interlaced or progressive scan. Therefore to acquire all that the DVD disc is capable of requires a computer that gets around this analog conversion issue. This means that my computer must obtain the entire DVD digital feed and outputted through a pc board that will put out the true digital signal to my HDTV or a PC driven monitor/projection system. Is my thinking correct for a home entertainment system?

What as a newbie am I missing?
Thanks
Don

[Ookami]

Strange question (why register when you're not interested in this area?)... :)

> 1. I do not understand the whole concept VCD especially considering the time and effort. Why do I say this because DVDr drives/discs costs are dropping to the point where all the efforts of doing all this xSVCD, DIVx, etc. conversion soon will no longer be worth the pain and time. So please give me a reason to do this to myself?

Here I'll quote one of our member here (Gabriel_Bouvigne) : "For me, the most interesting point is that lame and xvid allow me to learn about encoding. So yes, sometimes they really are educationnal tools."

No need to say, that many (if not most) of the people here, agree with him. So I said it anyway =:-D .

> Is my thinking correct for a home entertainment system?

Well, I'm not interested in technology so much, but, AFAIK, DVD's are made for watching on a TV set, and not for watching on a PC monitor. So you are loosing quality when watching on a PC monitor too... But, since most TV's that the people are using are so bad ("DVD?! I don't see that it's much better than VHS/TV" - "That's because you used your 20 years old TV for your ~500 EUR DVD standalone :D ") it all depends.

I should make my sig "It depends" ... Hihi...

Cheers,

Mijo.

[trbarry]

drohner -

Yes it is true that some of the best DVD playback quality needs a PC to do properly (or else some very expensive equipment).

For your interests you might get better info in the Home Theater Computer forum over at the AV Science Forums (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/). There is a sticky faq at the top of the section.

- Tom

[drohner]

Thanks Ookami




"Strange question (why register when you're not interested in this area?)..."

You don't understand, I'm very interest in a lot of things but to put my heart and soul into something will take some convincing considering all the things that are out there to us up my time. My question is the most basic question; and I could not see that it was being addressed. You all want to go out and buy a field and plant crops and have others join without telling them why they should go through all this? Everyone who has any interest in DVD eventually ends up at vcdhelp or doom9 but where is the quick read or continuously updated read(considering how fast technology is changing)that shows the need? The need was obvious when DVD was expensive and there was no recording capablity for DVD but what is the need in todays reality that drives someone to take on this time consuming challenge.

I do thank you for your answer. Are there anymore reasons?

[theReal]

1. There has been a time where there were no DVDR's, you know?
2. I and many others don't own a DVDR yet and I'm going to wait some more until I buy one.
3. mp3 is a very popular format, even everyone can easily copy Audio CDs with no compression - how about having 4 movies on one DVDR instead of only one (IF you get one whole movie onto 4.7GB at all!)
4. It's like any computer-hobby: when you look at it closely, it's totally useless and a waste of time. But hey, it's fun!

[drohner]

Thanks TheReal
Yes I understand you can put multiple movies on one DVD! But I'm looking down the line a bit to the future. I see in 5 years everyone having widescreen HDTV with 5 speaker surround sound downloading pay-per-view from the net. So with reduced quality and only two channel stereo will I be happy I went through all this work when I could of just copied (within the next 6 months) my rental movie onto a $5 or less DVDr disk and have it forever.
Thanks
Don

[theReal]

You're right, in a few years, who knows what technology will be up-to-date then. Certainly much better technology than now!

when I could of just copied (within the next 6 months) my rental movie onto a $5 or less DVDr disk and have it forever
"Just" copied... have you read the DVD copy guides? You know that all newer DVDs are bigger than 4.7GB and DVDRs only hold 4.7GB? You know that, if you want to get a bigger movie on 4.7GB you need to re-encode it? You know that if you want to split a DVD on two DVDRs you have to have serious knowledge about DVD authoring?

We're far from a "plug it in - press a button - ready" solution...

[Ookami]

> You all want to go out and buy a field and plant crops and have others join without telling them why they should go through all this.

Excuse me?! I personally liked more the time at '99 when I started in this "scene". There were almost no lazy newbies (I do not mean you, just to clarify!) and people who think that someone OWES them an explanation... There were certainly no politics, bashing between programmers, closing down of forums because of bandwith issues etc. So, I would not care if tommorow there would only be 100 members here, I do this for myself, not that "someone" joins my pursuit... I mean, Doom9 does not pays us for every new member we recruit :D .

>Everyone who has any interest in DVD eventually ends up at vcdhelp or doom9 but where is the quick read or continuously updated read(considering how fast technology is changing)that shows the need.

What need? Need to pirate? Need to make backups?

>The need was obvious when DVD was expensive and there was no recording capablity for DVD but what is the need in todays reality that drives someone to take on this time consuming challenge.

Expensive? Are the DVD's so much cheaper? Maybe were you live, I haven't noticed a noticable fall in the prices.

> I do thank you for your answer. Are there anymore reasons?

Ok, as you are being sincere and polite and are obviously not trying to start a flamewar or similar, here is the long winded story (Oh no! You killed Kenny! You Mijo!):

I've started in the DVD backup scene, because it was a fascinating thought to encode my DVD's to a different media... And then I had this dozens of programs and every week or so Robshot, Powerkiller etc. came with a new article etc. Then after a while there were many freeware programs available and found and I became interested in those (I've started to work on my freeware list). So, basicly every week or so there is something new to test/try. After a short time making a backup has falled into the second plan, and learning new encoding methods, little tweaks, finding a new freeware program that only a few persons know of etc. came to the first plan.

I lost the motivation to learn more about DVD backup a long time ago as I could make backups, that have a good enough quality, for my needs already.

But, then I bought a capture card and the whole thing started from the beginning... :)

BTW, I find it always funny when people who want to pirate (or pirate; again I do not mean you,Don) come to these boards as they can make a very good backup with 1-2-3 tools like FairUse or GordianKnot (Divx ;-) etc.) or DVD2SVCD or DVDx ((S)VCD). My opinion is that 99% of the members, who are longer than a year in the scene, are only here because of the "learning" thing...

BTW, I disagree with the technology thing. If you look how slow the average consumer is buying the new stuff then you'll have to change your numbers. And those people at the AVS or HA are certainly not average consumer. And not to mention poor blokes like me...

And last but not least, I can only second theReal's thoughts.

All the best,

Mijo.

[-h]

I figure I'll add something to this.

I personally have no interest, whatsoever, in DVDs. I have never "backed up" a DVD to MPEG4, MPEG1, MPEG2, or any other format, because I actually don't watch that many movies. My interest is *purely* technical - data compression has fascinated me for years, and video compression just happens to be a still-emerging medium which I am capable of contributing to.

I could personally not care less about set-top boxes (I certainly don't own one), but I do care about why MPEG4 motion vectors require fewer bits to store than MPEG1, for example.

And where else could I so easily meet people interested in similar areas?

People do things because they enjoy it, and it satisfies them to some extent. End of story.

-h

[drohner]

Thank You All for Answering all my questions. They are great answers, and no it or not, you have all contributed to finally explaining the Why? Not just for me but for those that want logical reasons to join your quest.
And No I Didn't join the American Garden Society! Just hate picking my nose with dirt on my pinkies:)

[dragoman]

Hi,

These reasons are all good. Yes it's good to learn about technology, good to be able to do technical things like this.

But you know why I keep up on it? Yes, all of the above reasons, but my main reason is:

DivX compression is cool! It's cool to be able to copy dvd's (which 95% of the people I talk to are 1-unable to do it although they have heard about it and 2-people who have no clue it is possible to copy a dvd) and show them that a cd can hold a dvd movie in great quality!

People look at you like you're a magician! "Wow, that's awesome!"

Plus it's cool to be involved with something new. Very few new technologies incorporate consumer feedback like DivX does (yes, you may critizize DvN, but at least they read their forums) and it's fun to be able to contribute to something that someday may be a great new technology.

Personally I remember the mp3 scene before every cell-phone, pager, and personal massager had a mp3 player attached to it, when we were waiting for a mp3 player period! It was fun to help test the new encoders and evaluate the quality of music! That's going on right now with Ogg!

So, in a way it's fun to be part of something new. That's the main reason for me.

dragoman