AS far as being close as possible in quality in both the audio visual and printing to professional. .. and having usable menus and extras. Also am i right in my assessment that using stand alone recorders like the liteon lvw-5005 and the color correctors like the sima scc-2, as good as they are, still result in you only being able to copy the movies. They copy what your watching. You get no usable menus or extras. But using shrink or encryptor or something else pc based, as i am now , gets you the whole disk.
>>>>AS far as being close as possible in quality in both the audio visual and printing to professional. .. and having usable menus and extras.<<<< What is the "Holy Grail" in terms of audio quality and video quality? The answer to this, is easy. Purchase Verbatim DVD+R dual layer blank media. You mentioned printing (not certain what you meant, here... but if you meant printing an image onto the actual disc itself, you can choose to buy these same discs in a printable version). Use DVDDecrypter in "ISO READ R" mode, and rip the complete original to your hard drive. This will create a disc image, with no loss of compression, and no loss of functionality. All menus are intact, and so are all extras. Every audio track is still there, and it is equal in quality to the original. Every video segment is stil there, and it is and it is equal in quality to the original. The only real "change" that has occurred is a removal of copy protection. If this "ripping" step causes a problem due to the newer copy protections introduced in the last year, one can use AnyDVD running in the background to resolve that issue. Next, burn the ISO disk image from the hard drive onto one of those Verbatim blank discs. You should use either DVDDecrypter for this (in "ISO MODE WRITE W," or you could also use the newer program called "IMGBurn" -- this was written by the same author as the former program. Burn slowly, at 2.4X. Do not multitask. Final result: You will end up with a blank disc that has no loss due to compression, and no loss of functionality. All menus are intact, and so are all extras. The only real "change" that has occurred is a removal of copy protection. Video quality and sound will be 100% equal to the original. The disc will play in MOST players. However, there are still some players out there that cannot play a dual layer burned disc, or that cannot handle any type of "+" disc. There are other methods of getting very close to this same quality, and functionality. I often use VOBBlanker and PGCEdit to split these original discs out to two blank single layer discs. This allows me to achieve the same result, with a breaking point at a chapter stop during the main movie. In a few cases, it results in the entire main movie on disc one, and all extras on disc two. The paragraph above still results in no compression, and no loss of functionality. Video quality and sound will be 100% equal to the original. The use of VOBBlanker and PGCEdit is merely one software combination that can achieve that type of result. There are others. >>>> Also am i right in my assessment that using stand alone recorders like the liteon lvw-5005 and the color correctors like the sima scc-2, as good as they are, still result in you only being able to copy the movies. They copy what your watching. You get no usable menus or extras. But using shrink or encryptor or something else pc based, as i am now , gets you the whole disk.<<< You are MOSTLY correct. You do end up with a main menu, using a standalone DVD Recorder. The problem is they are usually very generic. VERY, in most cases. The background often appears to have been deliberately designed to be as ugly as possible. Typically, the menu will have the same "look" and "feel" on every disc. And, most of the standalone DVD recorders out there can put in some chapter stops, but it is usually at pre-set intervals, like "every five minutes." That's about it... And, using a standalone DVD Recorder, you almost always end up with some pretty serious loss of quality... video is often compressed, at least somewhat; audio is often reduced to a 2 channel Dolby Digital stereo, at best. I am still uncertain what you meant with the use of the term "printing" in your original post above, so I cannot really deal with that. Printing what? Printing covers for the discs? Printing onto the discs themselves? Or, do you mean the process of actually "writing" data onto the discs? Hmmm... Hope this answers your questions, -Bruce
My apologies for taking so long to reply. I lost it twice already, This is the third time I'm doing this so i'm condensing it. I'm giving up on the standalone dvd recorders, the sima and the tv set. because of the reasons you wrote about. I definately want a complete dvd, including the artwork on the cd itself. So I'm going to get a capture card of some type, unknown so far , to transfer my vhs to the pc. In the end I want to record tv shows, backup my tapes and dvds, and was hoping it was like the old days with vcr's and analog cable, and Simas and buy your own cable boxes. It was all equipment, easy to use and the backup tapes were as good as the original, If you PRINTED stickers and put them on the tapes.. Everyone was very very happy. But now its dvd's , single, double, pal, ntsc, writable or not, protected a lot. I guess now I see it's not equipment ,or software , but both. I printed off your instructions, and I hope I can put a system together thats as easy to use as the old vcrs were , but I doubt it. Thanks Vern
What has been said so far may be correct for films either small enough to fit onto a single layer disk, or for those you may wish to split over disks. The latter is totally out of the question for most people, as they do not wish to convert a disk into 2 disks. There are no high quality DVD double layer disks that I know of that allow full face printing to the spindle, which is what is required to give a truly professional finish to a disk. Personally I can't argue with Decrypter and AnyDVD, as they are both fantastic bits of software, and I use them all the time. If you are looking for the best quality all in one disk, for anything over 4.7GB, then I would get DVD Rebuilder and CCE to run with it. You then take the files extracted from the disk with Decrypter and compress the parts of the disk required, including menus and extras if required, and compress to fit on a single layer full face printable DVD. I have Rebuilder set to batch process at night, and run a 5 pass over most films, even when played on my 50” LCD Sony TV the pictures are quite amazing, and you could not tell it was a copy. I also agree that Verbatim are among the best quality disks, but the general consensus of opinion is that Taiyo Yuden are better disks, I pay the extra and believe it is worth the money. After finishing the disk, print on a suitable printer such as Epson R220, and either scan original or download cover from www.covers.to , next apply lacquer to finish it off.
I just tried the trial of Anydvd with a 2hr, 20 min difficult dvd .Didn't set anything. Just ran it to see what would happen. Very impressive. Its a helluva good program. I got a lot from your post, and had no idea about rebuilder. Got a feeling I,m going that way. and really wanted to know about the lacquor too.I got pissed of as I lost my big post about this stuff. I was looking at the Epson 340 at best buy, or the canon, you have to buy the tray for and reactivate the cd printing function, but if your using the 220 and its really good. I have a lot of painting experience, and grasp the lacquor idea just fine. I wasan't sure if it would affect the dvd players so I can rethink that, now. Well, thanks for the dynamite info. Vern
I am using the R200, but I don't think that is available any more. It came with the tray, and print cd software was on the disk that came with the printer, I just loaded it and off I went, there was no activation to do, even after reloading countless times. I am sure any Epson printer with the CD print function will be fine, I stick with Epson, as there are always alternative ink cartridges available, and the print quality on both disks and photos are amazing. I use Ghant satin lacquer, as the finish is great, if you spray nice and lightly, there are never any playback problems. Another tip I got from here, was to place the disk in an empty cd tray to hold it whilst spraying, this avoids lacquer getting onto the under side of the disk. If you do go for TY disks, then just make sure they are from a reputable dealer, as a lot on ebay etc... are forgeries. Good Luck with it!
BigDK, I am soooooo envious of your build. My expectation shortly is to build a X2 4400+, and go from there. Nice, Rich
Cheers, I certainly don't have any complaints about it, I'm still planning on changing the motherboard, cpu and memory soon though, I'm waiting for the new AMD M2 processor to become available.
