Hi everybody! I hope that you will be able to assist me over here! I have posted this message in another forum earlier, but have not yet received any response, this is why I am trying this one now: I have recently managed to get my DVD's backed up by using the following software and the instructions as per AfterDawn: SmartRipper, DVD2AVI, TMPGEnc, and Nero. It is a little frustrating 'cause you have to use all these different tools, but this is not the problem, at least I got the process to work. One or two hitches though: (1) My original DVD has great surround sound, the VCD Backup's not. I have tried two movies that I know has surround sound but I cannot get the surround sound over to the finalised product. The only place where I saw a setting about surround sound, was with DVD2AVI, where I have selected the settings as per the instructions (Audio, Dolby Digital, Decode and Dolby Surround Downmix). I have used all the settings as per the AfterDawn article with the instructions. I will really appreciate your help over here, as I do not want to backup my whole collection with inferiour quality sound. 2) Some movies does not end up in full screen , you get a kind of ''envelope' result at the end (black spaces top and bottom). Can you perhaps assist? My PC spec: Win XP, 2 G P4, 512 RAM, 60 G HDisk. Thanks for your assistance in urgent anticipation!
vcd...your stuck with stereo @ 224kps. as for changing to full screen, need to go to advanced tab then video arrange and select 'full screen no margins' (this may or may not work). If not, you need to crop the movie to 4:3...
Thanks for this information, dbecker! I will try the advanced settings over the week end to see if I can get rid of the margins. Pity that you cannot get surround sound with VCD though, but at least I know that this is one of the limitations.
there is many limitations to vcd. If your dvd player can play svcd, go to that format. It will come out near dvd quality because you can change many of the settings that enhance the quality.
I am not sure whether my player supports VCD (only got it a couple of days ago) - but I certainly will give it a try. Thanks once again for the good advice! Take care.
