Virtual CD/DVD drive emulator

Now know this type thread of thread has been posted before... but truth be known it wasnt answered correctly.

What i'm looking for is software that fully emulates a virtual cd/dvdrw drive on a windows (XP) platform - visable through explorer.

Thus it most be able to create a knew image file (ISO,BIN,CUE,NRG,etc) and then allow any program in windows such as nero, ezcd, cdrwin, cloneCD, etc to write to it as if it were a real cd/dvdrw drive connected to the computer

I've looked all over the web and can't find any thing - i dont know why the software hasn't been writen - because if it did the Developer would make fortune. _X_X_X_X_X_[small]The Next Step on path of technology advancement[/small]

 

Alcohol 120% Virtual stealth drive(s) does..
DAEMON Tools will as well and [bold] free [/bold]

Alcohol 120% Virtual stealth drive(s) support several file type extensions (CloneCD, BlindWrite, DiscJuggler, CDRWin, Nero, Iso, Bin&Cue) and others. I've backed up Iso, bin& cue format from a Alcohol 120% virtual stealth drive. DAEMON Tools is just as good and [bold] free [/bold]. I only use the virtual dvd\cd-rom emulator for what the program is designed to do and that is: Mount any image and play that image (with no media in drive). You would encounter problems playing [bold] backups [/bold] of SecuROM 4.8.3 on a virtual stealth dvd\cd-rom emulator as one needs to create an "modified" image, then burn to a cd-r(w), then mount that "modified" backup.

Shoey ___X_X_X_X_X_[small]Certified Computer Technician
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Thanks man... I have a look at that, but i'm not sure it exactly what i'm looking for.

I use daemon tools and it does allow me to view the images. but i want is something that does the same thing and can act a dvdrw drive. allowing any program to write to it as if it were a real burner

 

Yes people these are all very sweet CD/DVD rom emulators - but what we need is a emulator that supports writing.

eg a emulated CDRW/DVDRW drive so that any program on and including windows os can write to the drive.

All the programs, Daemon Tools, Virtual Drive, 120% Alcohol only support emulating a ready existing cd images

We need a emulated RW drive that will work on on windows and will be cross compatible with any software with a cd/dvd burning plugin

 

The Key Word is ROM i need RW

 

What would be the significent advantages writing from a virtual stealth drive vs. the drives (or roms) that you currently have on your pc?

Shoey

 

hi

ummm? in theory having a software program that in effect acts as a dvd-rw or cd-rw drive can write cd/dvd discs is kool so we dont have to pay for drives any more!

is this what you are asking?

thx...

EDIT:

Nar! that sucks as you need hardware laser to make discs for standalone players and cdroms to backup games bought from shops!

Rotary = IDIOT! doh!

 

Rotary,
(hehe), you know that won't happen m8
Any other advantages?

Shoey

 

hey shoey

any ideas on this?

http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/40274

Thx

 

Most stand alone home dvd players support jpeg format m8. I've yet to creat a "family photo album" for my home dvd player but I could by just tucking them all in 1 folder, burn as data at 8x (or slower) then view. You might try AutoPlay Media Studio 4.0 and create a slideslow to make your "album" really nice.

Shoey

 

Hey people okay now...
the main advantage of having a virtual cd/dvdrw drive is so that people like we can experiment and edit video in dvd format and export tests to image files so we can . it just would be an allsome tool and with running DVD/CDRW images from your harddrive it makes it [bold]alot[/bold] faster, and [bold]unlimits[/bold] space for RW's.

If Any one knows anything about cdrw/dvdrw image technology or is a programmer or wants the same thing please continue to reply. but dont write rubbish in

 

[bold]Another advantage is writing in ~~{DVD-9}~~ a standard among all PS2, XBOX games and standard DVD movies. which is currently impossible to copy onto normal DVD disc's. not to mention been a convenent way to store movies on your computer.

The best feature about this is today screw using dvd players just grab a new tv plug it into your computer and watch any format you like with out all the encoding decoding trancoding crap it takes the days to get something working on a f*cking DVD player.[/bold]_

 

[bold]Not to mention add a couple of emulators to play all games that come on DVD/CD rom. PSX PS2 XBOX etc[/bold]

 

Well many people I know who own dvd burners have used this guide and thier backups work flawlessly m8.
[bold]Backing up DVD-9, Double Layer or Type 2 DVD's where Movie + Audio is under 4.37gig [/bold]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1. Run your DVD player (WinDVD or PowerDVD) to play the movie for a few seconds. This Un-locks the drive to help DVDDecrypter actually rip the files to HD.
2. Run DVDDecrypter and hit I. This selects IFO mode. You can also use SmartRipper if you prefer, its similar but option/settings are in different places.
3. Select for Source the DVDROM unit that holds the DVD. It will automatically detect the Movie files and suggest a Destination folder name where the ripped files will go. Change if necessary.
4. In Tools / Settings / IFO Mode, set the File Splitting to None and tick "Chapter Information - DVDMaestro". Leave all others alone, then click OK.
5. Now click on the Stream Processing Tab and tick the box for Enable Stream Processing. Untick ALL except the first track 0xE0 Video -...... and at least 1 Audio track. Normally the 0x80 Audio AC3 /6ch/English is directly under the Video track.
6. Highlight the Video track and click the Demux check box. Highlight the Audio track and click the Demux check box.
7. Now click the large O |> HD button and ripping begins. Soon, you will end up with a large (approx. 4 gig) *.M2V video file and a *.AC3 audio file on your HD. There will also be a Chapters *.CHP file. Any other files are not needed and can be deleted if necessary.
8. You can also use ChapterXtractor to get the *.CHP file. See Note 1: below.
9. If you need Subtitles, you need to extract these with SubRip from the DVD also. See Note 2: below.
10. Check with Explorer that the Video + Audio file(s) is below 4.27 gig in size as Authoring will add approx. 0.1 gig.
11. Authoring with DVDMaestro. Else, move to Step 4 and you will have to re-encode it a slightly smaller size to fit.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
[bold] Backing up DVD-9 Double Layer or Type 3 DVD's that require re-encoding. [/bold]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1. Run your DVD player (WinDVD or PowerDVD) to play the movie (not in full screen mode) for a short time and see if it is Full Screen (no black bars top and bottom of picture0 or widescreen (with black bars top & bottom of pic). This Un-locks the drive. Then exit the player.
2. Run DVDDecrypter and hit I. This selects IFO mode. You can also use SmartRipper if you prefer, its similar but option/settings are in different places, I'm sure you can work that one out.
3. Select for Source the DVDROM unit that holds the DVD. It will automatically detect the Movie files and suggest a Destination folder name where the ripped files will go. Change if necessary.
4. In Tools / Settings / IFO Mode, set the File Splitting to 1 GB and tick "Chapter Information - DVDMaestro". Make sure under Options, all 4 boxes are ticked. Leave all others alone, then click OK.
5. Now click the large O |> HD button and ripping begins. Soon, you will end up on your HD an *.IFO file, a *.CHP file and a heap of *.VOB files. The size of the VOB files may be slightly different from those on the DVD, don't worry !
6. We are now ready to re-encode these files to fit onto a so-called 4.7gb DVDR.
7. Run DVD2SVCD. It may complain it cannot find CCE, so click the Encoder tab and then browse your HD for CCE (cctsp.exe) depending on where you installed it. This will happen 1st time it is run only. CCE should be version 2.50 ONLY for all this to work.
8. Click the Misc. tab, then select the Input File Type to be DVD and Output File type to be MPEG-2. Then click Default Output folder to select the Output folder where all the files will go, this will require 10-15gb free HD space! Leave Don't Delete any Files ticked. Change DVD2SVD Level to Advanced.
9. Click the Conversion tab, and load in the IFO file you just ripped to your HD. It will indicate its length and select an Aspect ratio mode and mark the Audio track. I do NOT recommend ticking NTSC to PAL box unless you like jerky movies. Select for Aspect Ratio 4:3 (No borders, encoded as 4:3) if the movie is full screen or Anamorphic (no borders added, encoded as 16:9) if it is a widescreen movie. Click Auto Shutdown if you wish the PC to shutdown when encoding is finished.
10. Click on Finalize Tab, there is nothing in here to change.
11. Click the CDImage Tab and just click Don't Make Images, as we use Maestro to do all the Authoring.
12. Click the bbMPEG Tab, there is nothing to change here as we don't actually use this part of the program.
13. Click the Pulldown Tab, there is nothing to change or setup in here. This will run automatically if a 23.976fps NTSC framerate is found in the DVD and will convert it to a 29.97fps NTSC movie.
14. Click the Audio Tab. Untick Audio 1 downsample 48 -> 44.1 as a DVD must have 48khz audio to playback on DVD Players. For Audio Bitrate, select 384 if the Audio was 5/6ch AC3, 224 if 2ch AC3.
15. Click the Frameserver Tab and select Resize Method to be Bicubic Resize. Make sure Resize is set to DVD ('cause thats what we are making folks!). At the end of the MPEG2Dec line, click the small [...] button and from the ..\DVD2SVCD\MPEG2Dec folder, select MPEG2DEC2.dll I find it faster (only needs to done the first time you run DVD2SVCD). "Add Resample Audio" needs to be ticked if you have an AMD CPU, else CCE will crash.
16. Click the Bitrate Tab and set Max to 9000, Min to 300 and Max Avg to 6000. Unselect Min Avg if its ticked. Change all the 6 boxes of CD size to read 4400 and the 6 boxes of Use to 1. (This tells DVD2SVCD to calculate the best bitrate to just fit the movie onto 1 disk of 4400 kb size) DVD2SVCD calculates the bitrate automatically for you to use the highest data rate to fit onto your DVDR. Untick the Warn if the total bitrate is too high.... Decrease the 4400 to 4350 if you will be adding Subtitles during authoring.
17. Click the EncoderTab and make sure Cinema Craft Encoder is selected (and not TMPGEnc). Multipass VBR should be set at 1 (or 2) for best results (I've found any higher doesn't improve the conversion any better). I set Image Qual. Priority to 22 & Bias to 20. Set the Time Code to 00:00:00:00. Click on the Advanced Settings button and select ALL 4 of the MPEG2 Video Settings. Set the N/M to 4 and tick "Close all GOP's".
18. All is now setup and we are ready to begin the encoding. If you intend to be doing a few movies, all the setup above needs to be done once and will remain set to the same settings next time you run DVD2SVCD. (Or go to Misc tab and click Save Settings, so you can always load in the settings later on if needed.) Next time you will only need to load the IFO in, set the default folder to save to, maybe Audio data rate, then GO.
19. Click the Conversion Tab again and if all is ready, click the GO button. Click Start Conversion then confirm with OK.
20. Go to sleep, work or school as this process may take a long time. On a P550 it can take about 18hrs with a 2pass VBR encode! On an Athlon 1800, most movies convert 1pass VBR (actually 2 passes) in 4-5 hours.
21. When finished you will have in the default folder you selected, about 20-30+ files. We need only 2 of these files, the Video file Encoded_Video_CCE_PAL.mpv or Encoded_Video_CCE_NTSC.mpv or Pulldown_Encoded_Video_NTSC.mpv (use this if it exists) and the Audio file Extracted_Audio_1.ac3 (and an Extracted_Audio_2.ac3 file if you extracted 2 audio tracks.) There should also be a large *.MPG file. You can play this with WMP, WinDVD or other player to check that the conversion went okay. Then delete this MPG file if you need the HD space.
22. We are now ready to Author the Video and Audio files to DVD format with DVDMaestro.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
[bold] Authoring with DVDMaestro [/bold]
1. Run DVD Maestro. Click on File / Preferences / Display and tick "Workspace Windows are Maximized on Opening" and then OK. Then Tick on View and select Work Book mode (all others should be ticked also). Now right click on the "Untitled1 Project" in the top left window and select Properties. In here set to PAL or NTSC and if you want subtitles to always be on, set it here also. In Disk Image, it should be set to DVD-Video Only and in Replication, regions 1 to 6 should be ticked to make it region free.
2. In the empty bottom right hand corner window, right click and select "Import Media Asset" (or just double click somewhere in the window) then browse to and select your *.MPV and *.AC3 files, then click OK. If it is an NTSC DVD your backing up, then there is probably a Pulldown_Encoded_Video_NTSC.mpv, then load this one only. It will now check your files for DVD compliance, this can take a few minutes.
3. Double click the "Movie1" in the top left window and a new window will open. There are now provisions to drop in Video tracks, Audio tracks, Subtitles and Chapters. I will call this the Timeline window. The Top line is the movies timeline. The next gray window below is where we add Chapters. The next below Larger empty line is where the Video file is moved to, The next group down is for the Audio tracks (top one is for Track 1) and the bottom group is for Subtitles.
4. Drag your video *.MPV file from the Asset window (lower right) to the video line in the Timeline window. Then drag the audio *.AC3 to Track 1 (the top one). If you had 2 audio tracks, drag the second one to Track 2. If this is not an English track, click the "en" next to that line and select the appropriate language.
5. On the bottom line of the Timeline window, change the aspect ratio of the movie to "16:9 Letterbox" (for 90% of DVD's) or "4:3" (Maestros default) depending on what your movie is. Don't select the 16:9 Pan Scan or 16:9 LB/PS option, only one of the two I mentioned.
6. To add these Chapters, right click the Chapter line in the Timeline window and select "Import Chapter List". Then browse to your *.CHP file produced by DVDDecrypter or ChapterXtractor and load it. A message box will pop up saying the number of chapters that were imported, this will be 1 less than in the *.chp file as 00:00:00:00 is already there.
7. If your adding Subtitles, right click the top Subtitles line in the Timeline window and select "Import Subtitles File". Browse to you *.SON file and load it. It will then report the number imported.
8. So now all the movie components have been added, we now need to tidy it up for proper playback. Highlight the Menu1 in top left hand window, right click and Delete it (Since we have Movie only, there is no need for a Menu but see Note 3: below on how to set up a Menu). Highlight the word "Movies" and click on the "Connection" tab at the bottom of the Timeline window. In the long box next to First Play, right click and select Movie1: Chapter 00:00:00:00. This will auto start the movie in your DVD Player. We are now ready to compile our movie to DVD structure.
9. Select Tools and click Compile (or Alt+C or click the small Barcode Icon at top). It will ask for a folder to compile to (needs 5gb of HD space). It will then request you save the Project, so do so as we may need it later anyway. It then starts compiling and createing the AUDIO_TS and VIDEO_TS folders, this can take 10-15min or so.
10. Progress of the compiling is seen in the bottom left window. When compiling finishes it should not report any errors. Click Ok and close DVDMaestro.
11. Using Explorer, go to the folder where you compiled the DVD to. There will be two new folders, VIDEO_TS and AUDIO_TS. The AUDIO_TS folder will be empty. In the VIDEO_TS folder, delete the *.LAY file as this can cause problems with Nero and some DVD Players.
12. Double click on either of the IFO files and the Movie should start playing with WinDVD or your installed player. Check it out for lip sync at start and near end. If this is out slightly, load the project file (the one you saved) back into Maestro, right click on Audio track and select "Create Audio Sync Track", highlight the Video track and click Assign Audio Track. Browse to the audio track and click OK. When asked to replace the current track, click OK. Re-compile the DVD as from point 9 above and re-check the sync. Also check that the Subtitles are in sync. If all is well, we are now ready to burn the DVD.
13. Run Nero 5.5.9.x (version 5.5.10.0 does not work!) and close the Wizard. Select DVD option of DVD-ROM (UDF/ISO) for best playback compatability. Multisession should be on No Multisession. In ISO tab, all should be un-ticked except "ISO Level 2 (Max of 31 characters)" and ISO 9660. UDF should be set to 1.02 For Label, enter a volume name, such at THE_GLADIATOR. Click on NEW button, and drag the AUDIO_TS and VIDEO_TS folders from right window (your HD) to the left window (your DVD). Put a blank DVDR into your burner, then hit the small red Burn Icon at top. Select Write and your burn speed (Nero autodetects the max burn of the DVDR you have inserted) then hit Write button. It takes approx. 56min to write out at 1x a full 4.3gig to a DVDR so find something else to do for a while. 2x is 1/2 that time and 4x is 1/4 of that.
14. When its finished burning, mark the DVD with a felt pen its title and rush to your DVD Player to check it out. Sit back and relax enjoying your backup copy of your DVD. Easy wasn't it?



[bold]NOTE 1: Chapters using ChapterXtractor [/bold]

1. Run ChapterXtractor and click the Open IFO button. Browse to the IFO file that you ripped to the HD with DVDDecrypter. You can also load in the IFO off the original DVD if you wish.
2. Click on the Format tab then for Presets, select DVDMaestro. The list should be similar to:

$Spruce_IFrame_List

00:00:00:00
00:03:14:37
00:12:18:53
.
.
01:10:37:45
01:19:01:15

3. Click the Save Data button, change Type to Maestro *.chp, give a name and save. Exit the program.



[bold]NOTE 2: Subtitle extraction with SubRip [/bold]

1. Run SubRip and click File / Open VOB's (or click the small blue VOB icon). Then click Open IFO and browes to the IFO file you ripped to HD.
2. Select the Language Stream you wish to extract and select "Only Show Sub pictures" This allows us to preview them first before stripping them out. Click on Start.
3. The first Substitle found will pop up and a small selection box, change the Preset to Maestro and hit OK.
4. If you have the right Subs track, hit the Pause botton and then the blue VOB button to get to the start. Hit the Reset button to set the time back to start 0:0:0:0, then change selection to "Save SubPictures as BMP". It now ask for a folder to stor these BMP files in. There could be 1000 or more so always a good idea to create a SUB folder somewhere and save to there. Make sure Preset is on Maestro again and hit OK. You will now see the progress in the bottom window as all the subs are saved.
5. When it finishes, click on the Red & Yellow Floppy Disk icon (Save As) in the bottom window, give a name, set Save as Type to DVDMaestro if it is not already, and save to the same folder you ripped the Subs BMP files to.
6. All done, exit SubRip ignoring any warnings it may give.


Shoey

 

Thanks shoey for post up this infomation it is very useful for backing up DVD-9, i'm interested to see if it works on consol games

although this only is suplimentary for one of the advantages listed above. we still need this technology for building iso using a virtual CD/DVDRW drive. we are looking for a programmer who is interested in making the technology. it not that hard they just need to have basic knowledge of a lanuage preferable c++ or vbasic, that can just grab the source code off daemon tools and do a bit of cut and pasting.

I would do it myself if i had the time to look over c++ but time is a thing not many of us have..._X_X_X_X_X_[small]The Next Step on the path of technology advancement[/small]

 

It won't happen m8 because there would be no "roms" to purchase. Many companies would go out of business and this would hurt the world economy big time.

Shoey

 

hey shoey man i'm not exactly sure u know what i mean, could you just review over the concept i've constructed over the issue of cd/dvdrw emulation. so i could see what you think coz i'm not sure people are understanding me properly... it help to get this idea accross better.

 

I understand your post m8 and we have the technology to produce such a program but I don't see it happening.

Shoey