I have the Original Trilogy DVDs

Post by **Dalton** » 2003-09-15 05:46pm

CorSec wrote:My roommate recently bought a DVD-R and I have yet to figure out how I can record my Star Wars onto a DVD RAM disk. I keep getting the "Cannot record this media" alert. But I will have the non-SE trilogy on DVD if it's the last thing I do.

If you want to record it as DVD video the format has to be MPEG-2. IIRC.

Post by **Dalton** » 2003-09-15 05:47pm

Laird wrote:
darthdavid wrote:What exactly is a laser disc? Pics please. I've been wondering for a while now...
Think a cd/dvd about what? a foot across? That is a laserdisc...a cd/dvd the size of a record.(If you don't know what a record is...god help us all.)

Yeah, giant CD-ROM basically. Not a DVD at all.

Durandal · Post by **Durandal** » 2003-09-15 06:33pm

Darth Wong wrote:
Durandal wrote:Generally, a rip is an encode of a DVD that can fit on a CD, be it DivX (ick), XviD or 3ivx (my preference). Needless to say, that is a much finer art, especially since I include chapter tracks and full metadata in my backups.
Ah, I see. Well, that's a technique that is soon to be going by the wayside. With DVD-R writer prices dropping into the basement, there is no need for that kind of work anymore.

Yes, but it's still fun to do. And I wouldn't discount it just yet; DVD players with MPEG-4 playback capabilities are starting to enter the market, but for some reason they only play back AVI's with DivX 3.11 or an MPEG-4 simple-profile compliant video stream (XviD, DivX 4 and 5, maybe 3ivx) and an MP3 audio track. I have to wonder if these people even know what MPEG-4 is.

CorSec · Post by **CorSec** » 2003-09-15 07:42pm

Dalton wrote:If you want to record it as DVD video the format has to be MPEG-2. IIRC.

I should clarify: He bought a Panasonic DVD player/recorder, not a computer drive. I've only tried two or three configurations to record from the VCR to the DVD, but I'm positive there's a way to defeat it.

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2003-09-15 07:43pm

MPEG4 Simple Profile is highly standardized, though. The more advanced Xvid and 3vix Advanced Simple Profile aren't actually conforming to MPEG4 standard, IIRC.

Of course, there's the ultra-complex profile for MPEG4 but no-one wants to spend that long encoding

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2003-09-15 07:45pm

CorSec wrote:My roommate recently bought a DVD-R and I have yet to figure out how I can record my Star Wars onto a DVD RAM disk. I keep getting the "Cannot record this media" alert. But I will have the non-SE trilogy on DVD if it's the last thing I do.

You cannot use a DVD-R to record a DVD-RAM disc. The latter format is wholly incompetible with DVD-R or DVD+R.

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2003-09-15 07:46pm

Durandal wrote:
Kynes wrote:Haha, no. Just bragging about my superior backup media.
Been using iDVD?

Bah! iDVD's MPEG2 encoder is crap. DVDSP is where it's at

Durandal · Post by **Durandal** » 2003-09-15 07:51pm

phongn wrote:MPEG4 Simple Profile is highly standardized, though. The more advanced Xvid and 3vix Advanced Simple Profile aren't actually conforming to MPEG4 standard, IIRC.

Advanced Simple Profile is standardized, just not supported by all MPEG-4 decoders, even though it should be. It adds in a lot of features that can work wonders on video quality. 3ivx and XviD both produce fully compliant bitstreams, ASP or SP. 3ivx has to emulate DivX's bugs to get it to decode correctly.

By the way, iDVD and DVDSP use the same MPEG-2 encoder.

Arthur_Tuxedo · Post by **Arthur_Tuxedo** » 2003-09-16 02:43pm

Oh, just a word of advice for anyone considering it: Do not sell copies of these DVDs on the Internet. The guy who sold mine to me went to jail shortly after (I shit you not). You can imagine me laughing like a hyena when I found out I got the last copy.

CmdrWilkens · Post by **CmdrWilkens** » 2003-09-16 04:32pm

Arthur_Tuxedo wrote:Oh, just a word of advice for anyone considering it: Do not sell copies of these DVDs on the Internet. The guy who sold mine to me went to jail shortly after (I shit you not). You can imagine me laughing like a hyena when I found out I got the last copy.

Well once again Canada's laws on the matter are quite a bit more permissive. In other words if Mike did it then it would most likely be fully legal.

Publius · Post by **Publius** » 2003-09-16 08:42pm

Hypothetically speaking, would it be possible for one lacking computer and editing abilitities to obtain a copy without violating United States copyright laws? An so, how might it be arranged?

Publius

Grand Admiral Thrawn · Post by **Grand Admiral Thrawn** » 2003-09-16 09:40pm

Publius wrote:Hypothetically speaking, would it be possible for one lacking computer and editing abilitities to obtain a copy without violating United States copyright laws? An so, how might it be arranged?

Publius

Couldn't a "friend" give you their Laserdisk DVD "Backup"? Or does is that against the law?

Utsanomiko · Post by **Utsanomiko** » 2003-09-16 10:09pm

CmdrWilkens wrote:
Arthur_Tuxedo wrote:Oh, just a word of advice for anyone considering it: Do not sell copies of these DVDs on the Internet. The guy who sold mine to me went to jail shortly after (I shit you not). You can imagine me laughing like a hyena when I found out I got the last copy.
Well once again Canada's laws on the matter are quite a bit more permissive. In other words if Mike did it then it would most likely be fully legal.

I know Canada's private copying laws are different, but how does that cover the commercial sale of copied movies? I was under the impression that actually selling copies was far worse then just distributing them, and they'll go after you for that sort of dealing even if it's legal to noncomercially give them out.

I certainly would take a shot at profitable piracy unless I knew my ass and my cash would be covered by the law.

CmdrWilkens · Post by **CmdrWilkens** » 2003-09-16 11:07pm

Darth Utsanomiko wrote:
CmdrWilkens wrote:Well once again Canada's laws on the matter are quite a bit more permissive. In other words if Mike did it then it would most likely be fully legal.
I know Canada's private copying laws are different, but how does that cover the commercial sale of copied movies? I was under the impression that actually selling copies was far worse then just distributing them, and they'll go after you for that sort of dealing even if it's legal to noncomercially give them out.

I certainly would take a shot at profitable piracy unless I knew my ass and my cash would be covered by the law.

Selling is a bit different. In the case here I am assuming there would be an elaborate (and legally tricky) bit of manuevering wherein one party would overpay for one item (say a piece of paper). Then the other party would designate the DVD copy as a "gift" to the other person. In a technical sense you would be paying for something that was not illegal (just suspiciously overpriced) while not paying for the copyrighted material.

Sharp-kun · Post by **Sharp-kun** » 2003-09-17 09:11am

I've got DVD rips from the bootlegs on my PC, that I output to TV.

I refuse to buy bootlegs, I own enough copies of the trilogy that I think I'm entitled to my rips though, as long as I haven't paid for them.

Andras · Post by **Andras** » 2003-09-17 12:11pm

Arthur_Tuxedo wrote:Oh, just a word of advice for anyone considering it: Do not sell copies of these DVDs on the Internet. The guy who sold mine to me went to jail shortly after (I shit you not). You can imagine me laughing like a hyena when I found out I got the last copy.

Some friends were at a Con about 10-12 years ago, and about 5 minutes after they bought some anime vids, the dealer was busted by the FBI.

Slartibartfast · Post by **Slartibartfast** » 2003-09-18 10:42am

Darth Wong wrote:
Durandal wrote:My standards for a rip are much higher than your average DVD ripping kiddies'. I'd rather do it myself.
A "rip" is a copy of an existing DVD, which is not available in this case. Besides, what's there to do with it, besides using a decent variable-bitrate MPEG2 encoder to make sure the picture quality is good?

A rip is an incomplete or lossy copy of anything. A DVD-rip usually means using extreme compression algorithms like DivX, or shittier ones like VCD, and compressing sound to mp3, so it fits in a regular CD. A music CD-rip usually means compressing the tracks to mp3 so they fit in less discs. A game CD-rip normally involves removing most of the "non-essential" (though this is not the case in many instances) material like Video Clips and Sound Tracks, and even compressing the hell out of sound files so they decompress at install time back to their original size/format. And so on.

Slartibartfast · Post by **Slartibartfast** » 2003-09-18 10:43am

Laird wrote:
darthdavid wrote:What exactly is a laser disc? Pics please. I've been wondering for a while now...
Think a cd/dvd about what? a foot across? That is a laserdisc...a cd/dvd the size of a record.(If you don't know what a record is...god help us all.)

We already had a thread on vinyl records

more than half the board didn't know what they were

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2003-09-20 02:01am

Slartibartfast wrote:A rip is an incomplete or lossy copy of anything.

Not neccessarily. CD rips are increasingly using lossless compression (APE, FLAC, SHN, etc.) nowadays. Hell, I've seen DVD rips using the original MPEG2, no less!

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2003-09-20 02:03am

Durandal wrote:By the way, iDVD and DVDSP use the same MPEG-2 encoder.

Ahh, thinks must have changed, because iDVD used to only have a CBR codec bundled with it.

Slartibartfast · Post by **Slartibartfast** » 2003-09-20 02:07am

phongn wrote:
Slartibartfast wrote:A rip is an incomplete or lossy copy of anything.
Not neccessarily. CD rips are increasingly using lossless compression (APE, FLAC, SHN, etc.) nowadays. Hell, I've seen DVD rips using the original MPEG2, no less!

Nevertheless, it should mean that somehow you managed to shrink the file. Otherwise it's just a regular copy... of course the process known as "ripping" can mean just the first step that's just getting the data from the source "as is". But in general, yeah.