2-Step DVD-to-PC or iPod Video Conversion using Free Software

I’ve spent a lot of time over the past years figuring out how to get my DVD collection onto my PC so I can use my Home Theater PC (HTPC) to play my library on my TV. The following is the two step process I’ve come up with to do this; all other programs I’ve used either are not free, install spyware, or desync the audio.

Step 1:
Install and use DVDFab HD Decrypter.
The settings here are pretty straightforward. Select “Full Disk” and where you want to save the file. Click start, and about 40 minutes later you will have your DVD on your hard drive and ready to encode.

Step 2:
Install and Launch Handbrake.
Handbrake is a cross-platform (Win, Mac, Linux) program which is a collection of command line utilities that are used to convert DVD files to media files for use on your PC or iPod.
Handbrake really can’t make things too much simpler. First, open the directory where you just saved your DVD to. It will then analyze the DVD for you.

You can then select your options manually, or use some of the pre-built presets available on the right to automatically convert your DVD for several devices. Devices include iPod High Res, iPod Low Res, iPhone/iPod Touch, PSP, PS3 and more. Generally speaking, all of these profiles use H.264 to encode the video - this codec is arguably one of the best ones for quality/size tradeoff. Also, Xvid is available to encode your video. If you are converting video and you only wish to transfer to your iPod, select the iPod profile you need (I generally use iPod Low for the iPod Nano).

Finally, select the “Destination” and file name for your converted file.
Click “Encode Video” and up pops the command line window and you will be able to watch your encoding progress via this window.

If you want to encode your video for storage on your PC, you can tweak the settings to your liking. Feel free to experiment with these - I find that selecting AppleTV profile generally suits my needs - this saves the video in a high quality format which you can then convert later to lower quality ones if you need to.

Hit encode and your PC will start processing that video! In my experience it takes roughly 2 hours to do a full conversion in high quality - iPod video takes much shorter since it is lower quality.

Bonus:

If DivX is more your fancy (with more and more DivX compatible devices and connected appliances coming out) then there is alternative software to use. Dr. DivX 2.0 OSS is the open source version of Dr. DivX program.
There are some quirks with this program, and it could take some ‘massaging’ to get it working without crashing. A problem I ran across was that the version of AC3Filter I had installed was not compatible with it; I had to go back and install AC3Filter 1.11 to keep it from crashing when I imported the DVD files.

With Dr. DivX, you select all of the video files you want to convert to a DivX file. The best way to do this is to open the DVD’s VIDEO_TS Folder and look for the first VTS files which are over 1 Gig. Select all of them up until the file that is less than a gig, as seen in the screenshot below.
With these tools at your disposal, you should be able to get through your DVDs pretty quickly - converting them to a friendlier PC based format really makes it awesome for viewing on your TV without the hassle of searching your your disk and putting it into the DVD player.

Great BT Site Review

Found this on slashdot. http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/09/25/1211242&from=rss

Im gonna link this. Very good BT review http://comparebt.blogspot.com/

How to Use Azureus to download Legal Torrents

I have been asked recently to post some instructions on how to use Bittorrent. Bittorrent is a protocol and you need to have what is called a Bittorrent client. There are many out there but I prefer Azureus. To download Azureus go to http://azureus.sourceforge.net/. Download and install the program like any other program. I also suggest download Peer Guardian, it is a peer to peer firewall. It helps block people from unauthorized access to your pc via Bittorrent protocol. To download Peer Guardian go to http:\\phoenixlabs.org/pg2/ .

Finally the most important step is finding the files you need. I do not condone downloading of copyrighted material. Bittorrent is a very effective tool for downloading Linux distros. However you will find alot of material from your searches. My favorite webite is www.piratebay.org .
Go to the site do a search and download the torrent link to your desktop. If it doesn't open up with azureus automatically, right click the torrent link you downloaded and tell it to open it with azureus. Your done the file should now start downloading. It will give you a status as to the download speed and percentage.

Hope this helps. If you have any questions post it and Ill try to answer the best I can.

Bit Torrent Links

Here are some links to find bit torrent sites, and bittornado optimized bit torrent

bittornado

torrent sites

more sites

Step by Step Guide To Using DVD-Shrink

I have had alot of people ask me how to use dvd shrink. There is a site that contains step by step directions. Instead of me duplicating these efforts, please go here, and view the guide.

Additional Peer to Peer software.

Morpheus has been working well for me, but sometimes it can be slow. I have been using bit torrent more and more. Bit torrent is a decentralized P2P. To download bit torrrent.

Once you have bit torrent installed you need a bit torrent client. Azureus is my favorite. Download Azureus.

In order to find the bit torrent images go to ISOHUNT and do a search. Once you have found your program, click on the link and Azureus will automatically start downloading the file

UPDATE Burning DVD's

I have had alot of requests on how to burn DVD's. The get started you need to download DVD Shrink and NERO Burning Rom . DVD shrink is free, where as Nero has a trial version.

After you have installed both programs, launch DVD Shrink. DVD shrink allows you to take your dvd, compress it to fit on a standard DVD+R/-R. Follow these steps to copy the DVD. Please be aware this is only to be used to copy dvd's you have created and not commercial dvd's. This is prohibited by law.

1. Click on the open disc tab: this will tell the program which drive the dvd is in:
2. Next click the analysis tab. This scans your dvd. It takes a few minutes depending on the speed of yor dvd drive and your pc.
3. After this is done, you are ready to copy the movie to your hard drive. Click the backup button, the progam will ask you where you want ta save the movie. Make sure you no where the movie is being saved. You will need this location to burn the dvd.
4. The convesion process can take some time depending on your pc hardware. Once the movie has been ripped to your hard drive, close DVD Shrink.

Now that you have the movie on your hard drive, open NERO burning rom.

1. Select DVD, and then select dvd video. Nero will now open the program to burn your movie.
2. You will see a selection that says audio and video. you should also have the same folders on your ripped movie on your hard drive. Drag the dvd video folder on your hard drive to the dvd video folder in nero.
3. Insert your dvd
4.click the burn button


your done, I will be adding screen shots soon.

Free DVD copying software

There are many instances were you would want to make a backup copy of a DVD in your movie collection. Many people who have kids, have told me that they are the worst, and they destroy everything. So making a backup of their favorite DVD and storing the original makes perfect sense. My vehicle has a rear seat DVD system, and everyone knows cars tend to get broken into by thieves. Why keep the original DVD's in my car, when I can make a copy.

The best software out there is DVD shrink. Not only is DVD shrink free, but its powerful and robust, it will also shrink your DVD movie to fit on one DVD. That way you get the movie and all the special features. There is a slight learning curve to this software. After about 15minutes of playing around with it you should be able to figure it out. To get DVD shrink

I do not condone unauthorized reproduction of dvd's!!!!

How to Secure Your PC with free software - Updated

These days there are a lot of people paying for software they can get for free. I have included a list of products, I have used, and do the job the same or better than products that can cost hundreds of dollars.

If you have any suggestions or products you think are better feel free to post them !!

For a antivirus program, I think AVG antivirus is your best solution. Not only is it free for personnel home use, but it works better the Nortons and doesn't use a lot of system resources. AVG Antivirus.

Everyday you here of new vulnerabilities with Microsoft Internet Explorer. I don't know about you, but I am sick of patching IE. Also IE is terrible with pop-ups. Even with XINXP SP2, you still get popups. What to do?? Get a new Internet Browser. I have tried multiple browsers including Netscape and Opera, but I think Mozilla Firefox is the best, and its a pretty small download. It features many plugins and skins. If you need your browser to do it, most likely Firefox will do it. You can download firefox.

If you still need to use IE, some sites only work with it, then you need a good popup blocker. Google offers a excellent popup blocker, that also lets you do a google search from your IE menu bar. To download the Google toolbar

Thunderbird 1.0 is Mozilla’s next generation e-mail client. Thunderbird makes emailing safer, faster, and easier than ever before with the industry’s best implementations of features such as intelligent spam filters, saved search folders, builtin RSS support, privacy protection and much more.

Even the best and most cautious PC user gets spyware,adware, and malware. The best solution to trying to prevent this is to install a software firewall and a spyware scanner. I have had the best luck with the following 2 products.

Firewall : Zone Alarm

Spyware scanner: Ad-Aware