[themacko]

I'm really not into the whole, dvd, divx, downloading movie thing. but I know a lot of people are, so I'm reading through my canon ZR10's instruction manual and it says you can input video via the S-Link port on the camera.

Theoretically you could hook a regular dvd player up to your dv camera this way and copy it, right? I'm sure there's some safeguard preventing this, but has anyone tried it?

[BigMark]

yes, there is. Should you try doing this, you'll find you are just copying a whole lot of black screen....(or something of that nature)

[mitchell_pgh]

My Sony actually shuts off when I start copying DVD's. A cool solution is to use a RCA "filter" (picked one up for 29.99 at Best Buy) It removes the copyright protection and you can copy all day long...

[elrond]

Actually, I'm able to record a DVD through my Sony camera.
The hookup is as follows:
Pioneer DV-414 DVD player --RCA-> Sony TRV730 --Firewire->Mac.
I'm using the signal convert function of the camera.
I then do the following:
1) I bring up iMovie
2) hit play on my DVD
3) Click Import in iMovie
4) After I'm done recording, I string all the clips together and do an export movie to 3ivx format (www.3ivx.com).

I just copied Star Wars: EP1 and I'm very happy with the results.
I haven't had any problems with synch, etc.

Question for other people:
Is this method inferior (picture quality wise) than going the other route of using DVDExtractor, MacMPEG2Decoder, and mAC3dec, etc.
to extract the DVD into QT and then into either VCD (Toast), DiVX, or 3ivx? I assume going this route keeps the picture information in the digital domain at all times (mpeg2 video-->qt-->divx/vcd/3ivx; mpeg2 audio-->aiif) vs. Digital-to-Analog (DVD Player) --> Digital (Sony/Mac).
Is this correct?

It's a moot point for me though since I tried going this route initially but ran into alot of problems of one kind or another x(). So, I was never able to complete try out this route.

[mitchell_pgh]

Nope, it may be because I have a Sony DVD player AND a Sony Digital8 recorder...

The quality will go down a bit because it's going through a Digital-->Analog-->Digital rout, but it's like comparing MP3 sound quality to CD sound quality... It's not all that different.

Tell me more about the video quality... How large was Star Wars I?

Help a brother out...

[elrond]

I managed to squeeze it down to 700MB so that I could burn it onto a 80min cd. I remember that when I used 100% quality setting that I ended up with a 1GIG file. I had to ratchet down the quality to get it to 700MB. I forget what settings I used to get it that small though. After reading about this new codec that uses MPEG4 v2/3?, I decided to give it a try.

I used the 3.5 test version of the divx codec which only supports CBR. But, it was free so what the heck! Now that I've seen the results I plan on buying the personal version which adds VBR, Advanced Artifact Reduction, and Data Rate Tracking (whatever that means). I imagine that I can get even better results with it. And it only costs $10!

Also, a few notes. I played the standard 4:3 letterbox version. I tried using the higher quality 16:9 anamorphic option by setting my Pioneer up to 16:9 mode. But, when I tried to import it into iMovie it still treated it as a 4:3 letterbox. I'm not sure if this is the camera's fault not being able to pass through 16:9 content or that iMovie isn't made to import 16:9 native content. I think that Final Cut Pro supports import of 16:9 content. If I can get my hands on it, I will give that a try. Lastly, my Pioneer is an older low-end player. I imagine if I had a nicer player that produces a better picture with less jaggies, etc., then my final result would improve as well.

As far as the video quality, I ran the QT file off the harddrive and the DVD off the DVD drive on my mac at the same time to do a direct comparison. Although the DVD had better quality, I would say that it was only by about 20% better. But, these things are really hard to quantify.
It DEFINITELY was watchable.

It wasn't a completely fair comparison since the DVD player was playing the disc in anamorphic mode 16:9 vs. 4:3 letterbox. My best suggestion is to see if you could borrow a friends player and see if it'll work for you.

By the way, I've done all of this on Mac OS X on a dual 450 G4 box.

mitchell_pgh: Good luck with your efforts. I have a question for you also. The reason I asked about the going to standard "rip" route that I mentioned was primarily related to how well MacMPEG2Decoder converted the mpeg2 video to Quicktime. I have'nt read anywhere as to how good the mpeg2 decoder is. The process may be Digital to Digital. But, if the quality of the decoding is worse than using a std. DVD player to decode the video into analog than into digital as I'm doing, then I'm better off sticking to what I'm doing now.

[mitchell_pgh]

For many reasons I simply go the Digital --> Analog --> Digital rout. Messing around with ripping a DVD is just crazy on the Mac. I'm just looking for the best way to get TV shows onto my computer as a library. 3ivx looks interesting, but I'm holding out...

It also pisses me off that you need a G4 to do most of this. I can play DivX movies on a PII 300MHz!!!

[elrond]

As far as holding out, from what I've read on the 3ivx site, version 4 of the codec will substancially (400%) improve performance of both encoding and playback. I have no idea when it'll be released. I ,like you, am going to be using this to archive shows like The Simpsons, Star Trek, etc. to CD rather than tape ($2 a tape (bulky) vs. 5 cents a CD(not bulky)). I have a large archive of tapes I'd like to transfer to cd before the tapes deteriorate. I'd also like to stop archiving to tape and start archive to CD. I played with VCD for a while but I wasn't happy with the quality. I haven't tried SVCD yet. But, there isn't an all Mac solution yet and the encoding into MPEG2 video is dog slow unless you have expensive/specialized hardward/software. So for me, it looks like 3ivx is the best option.

Using the SWEP1 DVD was primarily done as a test to see what the results would be using good source material.

[mitchell_pgh]

Once 3ivx 4.0 is released, we should start "sharing" some of our favorite shows. We could get a web site devoted to it or perhaps start up a FTP...

Shows I would like to have a full archive of:

The Simpsons
Star Trek Next Generation
Star Trek Original Series
Star Trek DS9
Star Trek Voyager
Star Trek Enterprise
Friends
Seinfeld
South Park

What do you think?

[Chuck_star]

elrond
The MacMpeg2Decoder works like a dream. However, as previously mentioned, ripping DVDs that route is a Pain in the Mac.

About 3ivx Ihave played with the free version and my comparison tests at its best setting shows me that Mpeg1s are better. Does anybody have the pro version of 3ivx? Or does anybody have proof for me that 3ivx is good? Your own comparison tests are fine. Here are the results of a test I did.

test file 52meg DV ntsc

3ivx----------------best-----------2.4 megs --------360x240-------fullscreen viewable--------7/10
VCD(mpeg1) --------QT ntsc------------2.4 megs --------320x340 ------Fullscreen decent------------ 8/10
VCD(mpeg1) ----------Cleaner best ------2.4megs --------320x240 ------fullscreen minor issues --- 7.5/10
Sorenson 2---------high ------------10.1meg ---------360x240 ------Fullscreen good -------------8.5/10

The Mpeg1 made in QT was the winner of my test.
Later a tested Sorenson 3(9.5/10) and it's almost perfect to view at full screen but is a little bloated even more so than sorenson 2.

[ 11-02-2001: Message edited by: Chuck_star ]

[ 11-02-2001: Message edited by: Chuck_star ]