Expert: Robert Wilcox - 12/17/2005

Question
Hi, I am looking for a dvd copy and burn software for free is preferable.  I would like one that can compress down to around 700mb, like the ones on limewire other people have there.  Then I would like to be able to decode it and burn to one dvd 4.7 mb.  I would use 2 programs if I had to.  I am mostly asking for advice on one as there seems to be many out there and it is hard to know which is best.  

Answer
Kevin,
Here is part two of the article:
Here are some more odds and ends.

1. There's a licensing issue with the MPEG 2 codec which means you
have to pay to get a version of TMPGEnc that will create SVCD (Super
VCD) files after the trial period has expired.  You can still create
Regular VCD files.  They explain it on their website.

2. You may find it helpful to compress your AVI files or recode
them in DIVX format. Try AVIUTIL at http://ruriruri.zone.ne.jp/aviutl
The page is in Japanese, but don't worry: it's really simple.

3. Do you hate Real Video files?  You're not alone. TINRA (That Is
Not Real Anymore) at http://www.geocities.com/tinra04/ will convert
them to uncompressed AVI's.  Make sure you run them through AVIUTIL
or one of the other programs I've mentioned above to reduce their
size.  Note that in fine type at the start of that page they show a
Windows GUI for TINRA.  If you hate to type command line parameters
as much as I do, make sure you get it.  Just install everything in
the same directory and it should work fine.

4. Have you discovered that Windows Movie Maker is like a roach
motel?  Video clips check in, in all kinds of formats, but Windows
Movie Maker only saves WMV files, and you can't turn them into an
MPEG or AVI or anything useful?  Not so, little grasshopper. Simply
rename it from WMV to ASF, and TMPGEnc will turn it into an MPEG.

5. Are you sick and tired of having to endure the millions of ads
and the lousy bandwidth that some sites use to send video streams?
Would you like to save the video on your own computer and view it
at your leisure?  Help is at hand: Try ASFRECORDER at
http://sourceforge.net/projects/asfrecorder/

6. When you downloaded that video through ASFRECORDER, you may
have discovered it won't play.  The media weasels have exploited a
"feature" in Windows Media Player: when WMP finds an error in a file,
it complains and refuses to play it, but when it finds an error in a
stream, it does the best it can to play it anyway.  So the weasels
slip in a couple of  deliberate errors.  Solution: ASFTOOLS at
http://www.geocities.com/myasftools/ will repair the stream you
downloaded and the file should be playable.

7. If the menus and all the choices on TMPGEnc are too much, try
a simpler program called AVI2VCD at http://home.cogeco.ca/~avi2vcd/
You may find it's just what you need.

8. Remember how your parents would have guests and after dinner
they'd set up their slide projector, and the guests would groan?
Well, you can do the same thing on your TV!  Slide Show Movie Maker
at http://www.joern-thiemann.de/tools/ssmm/ takes images (Windows
Bitmaps or JPEGs), ties them together with some neato effects like
fades and wipes, and lets you add text and audio voice-overs.  It
generates uncompressed AVI files, but by now you know enough to
take it from there and turn it into a video CD.

9. TMPGEnc has some very useful filters on page 3 of their wizard.
Push the "Other settings" button and look on the Advanced tab.  Yes,
some of the settings will be in geek-speak and totally mysterious to
everybody but a video maven, but "Simple Color Correction" is really
easy.  Gamma correction is easy to work with and is the tool you'll
use most often on your problem video clips once you get used to it.

Now, I know, something named "gamma" is scary, and when you find out
it's an intensity transfer function and see the equation, your eyes
glaze over.  But trust me: it's pretty much just a combination
brightness and contrast control, and -- here's the cool part -- if you
don't like the result, it's completely reversible!  You may have seen
a gamma slider in your 2D graphics programs (IrfanView, Paint Shop
Pro, Photoshop) next to the brightness and contrast controls, and your
hand may have jumped away if your mouse accidentally strayed near it.
Same thing there.  Once you use it and get used to it, you'll never
touch brightness and contrast again, and you'll be mad that there
isn't a gamma control on your TV.

In fact, any Mac and Linux users who are still with us, that last
paragraph may be the most useful thing in this whole article.  Gamma
is the reason pictures that look good on a PC look bad on a Mac and
vice-versa, and it's the one-step control that can fix them.

One warning, though.  Some graphics programs have buried way down deep
in the menus a "Set monitor gamma" control.  You do not want to touch
this control unless you're a professional graphics artist, and even
then, the color space controls will probably be more useful.  I was
the chairman of the Web3D Consortium's Color and Lighting Working
Group, which sounds a lot more impressive than it is, and my monitor
gamma is set to 1.0 and my color space to good old sRGB.  So don't
mess with monitor gamma. [Now that I think back on it, I think Maureen
Stone and Eric Haines were the chairs, and all I did was get that WG
organized. :oops: ]

But the regular gamma, the one next to the brightness and contrast
controls, will become your friend for life. Trust me.

In fact, you can apply the same lesson to the other gobbledegook you
see on the menus of these video programs -- play with stuff. You don't
need to know a pedestal from an aspect ratio.  All you need to know
is, if I do this, it does that.  And if some of the wonderful articles
on vcdhelp.com explain why it does that, it's just gravy.


Kevin,
Thank you for your question.  There are good number of quality  burning freeware tools.  

For CD burning I like CDBurnerXP Pro - http://www.cdburnerxp.se

For ripping DVDs, there is so much information that I am going to give you sites that will help you decide your best course of action:

http://doom9.net

http://www.mrbass.org (click on the button of your choice for more information)

A tools that I have read about but not used:
DVDStripper - http://www.softpedia.com/get/CD-DVD-Tools/CD-DVD-Images-Utils/DVDStripper.shtml

MenuEdit - http://menuedit.dimad.net/home.html

IfoEdit - http://www.ifoedit.com/

Article: http://howto.diveintomark.org/dvd-backup/


Your question is an article in the 12/15/05 edition of a  newsletter from http://www.tourbus.com  The webpage is a few days late updating (the page only lists 12/1) so I am sending you part one of an article:
If you've played around with video on your PC, then one of two things has happened: (a) you've played around with Windows Movie Maker, got frustrated because it's pretty much a toy, and gave up; or (b) you've found about

   http://www.videohelp.com

Nothing I could say here can possibly do justice to the wonderful step by step instructions you'll find on this site.  So all I'll do here is throw out a couple of pointers to things I've found especially useful: the cream of the crop.

The cream at the very top of the cream: Virtual Dub at

   http://www.virtualdub.org

This is the video editor, especially at the price (free, open source). It will let you capture, edit, clean up, and do virtually anything to video files.

Here's one thing they don't talk about as a feature.  If you've ever downloaded AVI files, you know that the morons who designed that file format put some critical information at the *end* of the file.  That means if you've got a partial AVI file, you can't play it. But Virtual Dub will do its best to accept partial AVI files, and in most cases
will make them playable up to the point where they're cut off.  I've heard of other tools that will play partial AVI's, but Virtual Dub has done the job so well, I've never bothered to download them.

Since Virtual Dub's native output format is uncompressed AVI, and since those files are humongous, the next thing you need to do is put them on a serious diet.  So let's run them through AVI2MPG2 at

   http://members.cox.net/beyeler/bbmpeg.html

Note the "2" at the end of that program name.  There's another program out there called AVI2MPG which isn't nearly as nice.  You can let Virtual Dub save the slices you want to keep in separate files and join them all together with AVI2MPG2.  That program will save your files in MPEG (Moving Picture Experts Group) format, which means that,
unlike AVI files which can only be played on Windows machines, you can play them anywhere.

Or you can use yet another tool, TMPGEnc, which converts your AVI Files to VCD (Video CD) or Super VCD format.

   http://www.tmpgenc.net

If your CD burner is Nero [http://www.nero.com/en/index.html ] you can burn your video CD directly from there (select "other CD format" in the wizard that comes up when you start, and check "video CD").  If you have Easy CD Creator [ http://www.roxio.com ] or the CD burner that comes with Windows XP, then you may have to upgrade to a higher
version or use some of the tools they recommend on vcdhelp.com to burn it onto a CD.

But take heart: you absolutely can take a movie, edit it, tweak it with special effects, burn it on a CD-ROM, and pop it in your DVD player and play it.  Apart from the cost of your CD burning software, you won't have to spend a nickel.

Next week with "Make Your Own Videos - Part 2"


I hope the above information helps.  I will try to send you part 2 of the article.  Please feel free to contact me, again, should you have any questions.

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Bob