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Burning Guide for the Beginners
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Lumbastio
Junior Member
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31. October 2005 @ 19:20 |
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I tried to make this simple yet complete guide for anyone who is just beginning to copy DVDs or has began copying, but does not know the intricate details. I went through a lot of trouble and trap doors when I first began copying DVDs about two months ago and my current goal is that after reading this guide, you will be able to burn DVDs as the experienced pros do here, instead of learning all the information from various forums through trials and errors. Even the slightest details are included, just in case.
Here is all you need to know to start burning like a pro:
1. Of course, first of all you need a computer. I?d say at least 256 MB RAM and 1.5 GHz processor. If you decide to use CCE encoder (discussed below) for quality burning, then you?ll need at least 512 MB RAM. A stick of 256MB costs about $30 on ebay and you can easily install two of them if your PC is upgradeable. Check with the manufacturer. All you have to do is to place the RAM sticks into the slots in your PC and you?re ready to go.
2. A quality DVD burner is very important. Many people recommend the German engineered NEC 3540A (the latest version.) You can get this for about $50 from newegg.com. Other recommended brands are Sony and Plextor. If you plan to burn dual layer (DL) DVDs (discussed below), make sure that the burner you buy supports them. NEC 3540A does support DL.
3. The media is also very crucial. DVD?s come in several types: DVD-RW, DVD+R, DVD-R, and DL. DVD-RW simply means that the DVD is rewriteable, just like CD-RW. DVD+R and DVD-R are DVDs that have been developed through different methods. Although there is some debate, it is generally accepted that DVD+R is superior to DVD-R because it provides more stable recording surface and lasts longer. All DVD players made after around 2002 support DVD+R. Older versions might only support DVD-R. So if you can, get DVD+R. DL stands for dual layer. This means that instead of 4.7GB, the DVD has over 8.0 GB of free space. If you get DL DVDs, the only software you will need to burn your DVDs will be Nero since every movie in the market can fit on DL DVDs and you won?t need any software to compress the movies. So then what is the point of DVD burning forums? Well, there is a catch; DL media is very, very expensive ? about $5 or more for ONE DL DVD compared to about $0.40 for TY DVD+R. Just like everyone in this forum, it is unlikely that you will buy any, or at least very few.
No matter which type you buy, if you decide to buy cheap DVD brands, you will end up having a lot of skipping, poor quality, and premature DVD degradation. The best media brand available is Taiyo-Yuden (TY), which is made in Japan. Often, companies like Sony and Verbatim buy the DVD?s from TY and brand them under their own brand. Some people are also happy with the quality of Verbatim and Ritek Ridata DVDs. For TY, here is something you must consider: you can buy TY only online and many sites sell fake TY media. No matter what anyone says in this forum, do not buy your TY media from meritline.com ? they sell fake TYs, as I found out recently. If you want genuine TYs, you should contact Taiyo-Yuden directly at 1-800-348-2496 and ask about authorized dealers near you. Your other alternative is to buy the TY DVDs from Rima.com. If you already bought TY DVDs, here is how the genuine product looks:
a.The edges of the DVD are rounded instead of being sharp, unlike any other brand.
b.On the inner rim, the number reads: TG001159 and 1420
c.On the innermost rim made of completely transparent plastic, there must be a 14 character inscription: AE520A505984PG.
d.When you insert the DVD in your drive, Nero should read some variation of Yuden_002
Sure, the numbers are not always going to be exactly the same, but you can look for the general length of the digits. For fraud, instead of assuming a listless position, you should call Tut Matsinasho at 1-847-925-0888 and report your product (he?s #2 in the directory menu.) If everyone did this, today we wouldn?t be having this discussion.
4. If you are going to burn brand new movies, then you need a software that will remove the copyright protection (CP.) The best program to remove the CP is AnyDVD by SlySoft http://www.afterdawn.com/software/video_software/dvd_rippers/anyd...
5. Now we arrive to the more or less complicated part of DVD burning ? the burning software. There are so many programs out there that you can easily get lost and a lot of beginners waste too much time and money trying to figure out which is the best program. Before buying any software, you must decide what quality are you looking for. For the highest quality, you should get an encoder. For lower quality, a transcoder will do. So, if you are not too picky about the quality, the best transcoders around are:
a. DVD Recode by Nero (German engineered) http://www.afterdawn.com/guides/archive/nero_recode_v2_preview.cfm
b. Clone DVD by SlySoft http://www.afterdawn.com/software/video_software/dvd_rippers/clon...
c. DVD Shrink http://www.afterdawn.com/software/video_software/dvd_rippers/dvd_...
There might be few other worthy transcoders, but this is all you need. Any one of these programs will do a great job. There is another transcoder that many believe has the best quality any transcoder can provide. It is InterVideo DVD Copy. Unfortunately, this program is notorious for its bugs. You might burn a DVD, and the product might be unplayable in your player. As of the latest version 4, the issue has not been resolved. If they ever fix it, definitely get it, but for now either don?t buy it or get the code for free from the net to unlock the trial version.
Concerning DVD Shrink: This is a free program, but sometimes it yields poor quality and pixilation. Other times it is said to perform even better than the best transcoder, such as during animated movies. By all means, if you don?t want to spend any money, you can certainly give it a try and see if it works for you. Generally, the larger your movie, e.g, more than 6.5GB, the more poor will the quality be. Additionally, with DVD Shrink you will need a regular DVD burning program like Nero. Shrink transcodes the movie and saves it on your hard drive. You will have to drag the files into Nero and burn them using DVD-Video mode.
Before running any of these programs, make sure that you run AnyDVD in the background (just leave it open.) AnyDVD works with any burning program because it disables the CP independently, as long as it is running.
This is all you need to know to burn DVDs successfully. However, if you want to achieve the highest quality, then you need to delve a little deeper and read paragraph 6 below.
6. If you want to go to the next level of DVD burning, then you need to learn how to edit your DVDs. Here is what you need:
a. DVD Decrypter http://www.afterdawn.com/software/video_software/dvd_rippers/dvd_...
b. DVD Shrink http://www.afterdawn.com/software/video_software/dvd_rippers/dvd_...
c. DVD Rebuilder http://www.afterdawn.com/software/video_software/dvd_rippers/dvd-...
All of these great programs are free. DVD Decrypter is used to rip your DVD onto your hard drive to work on it. It has some built in CP removal abilities that will work on many protected DVDs, but for the newest ones, you?ll still need AnyDVD in the background before copying the DVD. If you don?t, you?ll simply get an error.
DVD Shrink has the ability to edit your movies. You have to go into the re-author tab and review all the sections that you want to be on your copy. The drawback of Shrink is that you can?t edit the menus: you can either keep everything in the menu, including the FBI warnings, or you can take everything out. Menus aren?t that important and you can often take them out, unless you are living two channels of audio. Make sure to uncheck all the unnecessary subtitles and remove the extra audio channels (such as DTS.) All you need is just one audio channel, either 5.1 or 2.0. After you are done editing, make sure to select ?Uncompressed? format and export your edited product to the hard drive.
Recently, there was some controversy whether Shrink alters and reduces the quality of the movie even in the uncompressed format. I believe that the quality is not reduced and an experienced member of this forum, Vurbal, published the evidence that the quality is indeed not reduced. The opponents were going to produce their own evidence, but so far there has been nothing. If you are concerned about this matter, then you can get a professional editing program: DVD Remake. It can cost anywhere from $40 to $70 depending on the version you get and it can edit the menus also.
DVD Rebuilder (RB) is the most important program in this group ? it is the encoding interface. I would recommend you to upgrade to the professional version for only about $10 or $32 because it supports interleaved DVD format. This program comes with a free encoding filter ? HC encoder. Although it takes a little longer than the commercial encoder to encode a movie, many believe that the quality it yields is almost the same as the commercial one. If you want the commercial filter, it is called the Cinema Craft Encoder (CCE) http://www.afterdawn.com/software/video_software/video_encoders/c... You have to buy it and configure your RB to locate the file. CCE won?t work by itself ? you have to have RB to use it as a filter. CCE has two versions: one costs about $90 and the other $2,000 (CCE SP.) Again, many believe that there isn?t much difference between these two packages. Just get the cheaper one, unless you are eager to spend 2K. After you install CCE, open RB, go to Options Set up and browse to your CCE file so that RB can use it. Note that to choose a filter you must go to the Mode tab and choose either CCE or HC mode. If you don?t have CCE yet, you must select HC for encoding.
If you use CCE, there is something referred to as ?VBR passes.? The higher number of passes increases the quality of the copy, but 4 is the maximum you should choose because beyond that there is no perceptible difference in quality. To change the passes, open RB, go to Options tab CCE OptionAdvanced Options. Choose VBR from 1 to 4. If you increase passes, the encoding time will increase as well.
Note that encoding consumes a lot of resources and your computer should not be used while you are encoding. It can take 6 hours or more to encode a single DVD, depending on your system. For CCE you must at least have 512 MB RAM. If you can?t upgrade, then your best bet is the safe mode.
This is all you need to know. Sure, you can get into endless details, but the information in this guide is enough to let you burn DVDs with the best possible quality. As for strategy, here is a rule of thumb: if your DVD is small, let?s say around 5-5.5 GB, you don?t really have to spend 6 hours encoding using RB. Since it is small, any transcoder will yield similar qualities and you?ll end up spending about 10 minutes instead of several hours. If your original DVD is smaller than 4.7 GB, then you can burn it using Nero only.
Also, Clone DVD has the option of splitting DVDs. This means that you can split all your movies into two and burn them onto two DVD disks. If you like this option, you can read more about it in this forum since it is beyond this guide?s scope. Just know that it is possible.
That?s it! Although it looks like too much information, it is not so bad, especially when you consider that you don?t have to go through trials and errors, like I did. If something is not clear, feel free to ask. I might not have enough time to answer your questions, but there are many experienced users who will. If anyone has any comments about the guide, let me know. I intend to edit it in case of constructive suggestions.
Some moderators might wonder why I published this guide in this section. Since it discusses transcoders, it can qualify for this section. Additionally, when I first came to this forum, I was brought in straight to this section by Google. I believe that this is where the desperate end up and the advanced discussions in this section will help the beginners learn a lot. If you must, you can move this thread of course.
Thanks to everyone who helped me get started. This is my payback to the community.
Excelsius
XP SP2
512MB RAM
Pentium IV CPU 1.80GHz
NEC 3540A
BEST QUALITY DVD BURNING (in order of function):
1) AnyDVD 5.4
2) DVD Decrypter
3) DVD Rebuilder 1.00RC60Pro
4) CCE SP
5) Nero 6.6 Ultra
[InterVideo DVD Copy 4]
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