copied DVD quality

I downloaded "The Stepfather" from a torrents
site, basically because you can't get the DVD
in North America (the Brit one is PAL). And
I converted it to a DVD and burned it.
Problem is, it seems to have cut down on the
number of frames. There a jerkiness to it's
playback (On a Sony stand alone player).
The .avi file (divx encoded) was around 700meg
while the DVD ended up being about 3.2 Gig.
I figure this represented about half the
bandwidth that a true DVD would be.
I'm just curious as to other's experience with
this kind of thing.
-Rich

RichA

I haven't done any myself yet, but I have seen them at a friends house
(copied from rental discs) and I haven't been impressed. The quality
seems grainy to me and there are almost always compression errors.

I do intend on transferring some laser discs to DVD on my own though
and I hope they turn out better... but then I did buy a dual layer
burner so hopefully I can keep the standard high.

- Jordan

Jordan

On 13 Jan 2005 12:42:59 -0800, "Jordan" <> wrote:

>I haven't done any myself yet, but I have seen them at a friends house
>(copied from rental discs) and I haven't been impressed. The quality
>seems grainy to me and there are almost always compression errors.
>
>I do intend on transferring some laser discs to DVD on my own though
>and I hope they turn out better... but then I did buy a dual layer
>burner so hopefully I can keep the standard high.
>
>- Jordan

NERO gives information on DVDs if you put one in your drive.
Generally, they run between 3.2 and 7 gig in size each. With
"The Stepfather" based on it's length, it was apparently
shrunk from about 6 gig to 3 gig by the software. I just have to
figure out if the compression motion issues were in the original file
or they orginated in the DVD I made owing to compression.
I can playback the original file using something like Divx and
send the signal to my TV (ATI vid card has TV outs).
The dual layer DVD blanks are still expensive, but it's better than
not having anything. The file copied from the Brit DVD is
unfortunately P&S, I suspect the DVD was too.
-Rich

RichA

RichA wrote:
> I downloaded "The Stepfather" from a torrents
> site, basically because you can't get the DVD
> in North America (the Brit one is PAL). And
> I converted it to a DVD and burned it.
> Problem is, it seems to have cut down on the
> number of frames. There a jerkiness to it's
> playback (On a Sony stand alone player).
> The .avi file (divx encoded) was around 700meg
> while the DVD ended up being about 3.2 Gig.
> I figure this represented about half the
> bandwidth that a true DVD would be.

You can't simply go back and forth from Divx to MPEG2 (DVD) and expect
to get back any quality. Both are lossy codecs and so even though
numerically the bitrate may be half the original, the quality will be
far worse.

> I'm just curious as to other's experience with
> this kind of thing.
> -Rich

If I really wanted to see the movie, I would buy the UK version and play
it on a region free player that can convert PAL to NTSC. If I didn't
have such a player, I would copy the DVD, make it region free and NTSC,
and never even think about compressing it with Divx, Xvid, etc.

Nicholas Andrade

"Jordan" <> wrote in message
news: ups.com...
> I haven't done any myself yet, but I have seen them at a
friends house
> (copied from rental discs) and I haven't been impressed.
The quality
> seems grainy to me and there are almost always compression
errors.
>
> I do intend on transferring some laser discs to DVD on my
own though
> and I hope they turn out better... but then I did buy a
dual layer
> burner so hopefully I can keep the standard high.
>
> - Jordan
>

I have transferred my personal DVD collection to the hard
drive of my media center PC, because that allows me to
access my entire media collection on any TV and stereo in my
home.

I have found that if I create a DIVX that is 95% quality of
the DVD, the picture quality is indistinguishable on my Sony
LCD projection that is connected to my PC via component
cables. The file size is usually about 3.5 gig. On my
standard CRT TV's, a DIVX that is about 60% is more than
passable.

Look for AutoGK. It is very user friendly, and allows you
to customize your DIVX easily.

Robin

On Thu, 13 Jan 2005 23:50:39 GMT, "Robin" <>
wrote:

>
>"Jordan" <> wrote in message
>news: oups.com...
>> I haven't done any myself yet, but I have seen them at a
>friends house
>> (copied from rental discs) and I haven't been impressed.
>The quality
>> seems grainy to me and there are almost always compression
>errors.
>>
>> I do intend on transferring some laser discs to DVD on my
>own though
>> and I hope they turn out better... but then I did buy a
>dual layer
>> burner so hopefully I can keep the standard high.
>>
>> - Jordan
>>
>
>I have transferred my personal DVD collection to the hard
>drive of my media center PC, because that allows me to
>access my entire media collection on any TV and stereo in my
>home.
>
>I have found that if I create a DIVX that is 95% quality of
>the DVD, the picture quality is indistinguishable on my Sony
>LCD projection that is connected to my PC via component
>cables. The file size is usually about 3.5 gig. On my
>standard CRT TV's, a DIVX that is about 60% is more than
>passable.
>
>Look for AutoGK. It is very user friendly, and allows you
>to customize your DIVX easily.
>

Thanks very much. Picture quality is generally ok until
the compression gets serious. What I also find is that
the motions on the DVD (people walking, whatever) become
jerky and the colour (like a video CD) gets compressed
in tonality.
-Rich

RichA

Robin wrote:
> "Jordan" <> wrote in message
> news: ups.com...
>
>>I haven't done any myself yet, but I have seen them at a
>
> friends house
>
>>(copied from rental discs) and I haven't been impressed.
>
> The quality
>
>>seems grainy to me and there are almost always compression
>
> errors.
>
>>I do intend on transferring some laser discs to DVD on my
>
> own though
>
>>and I hope they turn out better... but then I did buy a
>
> dual layer
>
>>burner so hopefully I can keep the standard high.
>>
>>- Jordan
>>
>
>
> I have transferred my personal DVD collection to the hard
> drive of my media center PC, because that allows me to
> access my entire media collection on any TV and stereo in my
> home.
>
> I have found that if I create a DIVX that is 95% quality of
> the DVD, the picture quality is indistinguishable on my Sony
> LCD projection that is connected to my PC via component
> cables. The file size is usually about 3.5 gig. On my
> standard CRT TV's, a DIVX that is about 60% is more than
> passable.
>
> Look for AutoGK. It is very user friendly, and allows you
> to customize your DIVX easily.
>
>
I generally encode at 1200Mbps for video using Xvid and allow the AC3
audio to be passed through. This leads to roughly 250MB for a 22min TV
show and it looks great on a TV connected to an XBox. I use DVD::RIP
under Linux (an excellent frontend for transcode), and the only hard
part is compiling transcode the first time.

Nicholas Andrade

Jordan wrote:
> I haven't done any myself yet, but I have seen them at a friends house
> (copied from rental discs) and I haven't been impressed. The quality
> seems grainy to me and there are almost always compression errors.
>
> I do intend on transferring some laser discs to DVD on my own though
> and I hope they turn out better... but then I did buy a dual layer
> burner so hopefully I can keep the standard high.
>
> - Jordan
>

using nero and dvd shrink you shoudnt notice any diff in quality.
and if yer downloading a real dvd, the file you download will be about
4gb in size

Comfortably Numb

On 13 Jan 2005 12:42:59 -0800, "Jordan" <> wrote:

>I haven't done any myself yet, but I have seen them at a friends house
>(copied from rental discs) and I haven't been impressed. The quality
>seems grainy to me and there are almost always compression errors.
>
>I do intend on transferring some laser discs to DVD on my own though
>and I hope they turn out better... but then I did buy a dual layer
>burner so hopefully I can keep the standard high.
>
>- Jordan

I have a duel layer burner, but I haven't used it in that mode yet,
primarily because of the cost of the media. Future shop has them at
$39.95 for three blanks; you might as well buy the DVD.

E. Barry Bruyea

On Fri, 14 Jan 2005 05:44:53 GMT, Comfortably Numb <>
wrote:

>Jordan wrote:
>> I haven't done any myself yet, but I have seen them at a friends house
>> (copied from rental discs) and I haven't been impressed. The quality
>> seems grainy to me and there are almost always compression errors.
>>
>> I do intend on transferring some laser discs to DVD on my own though
>> and I hope they turn out better... but then I did buy a dual layer
>> burner so hopefully I can keep the standard high.
>>
>> - Jordan
>>
>
>using nero and dvd shrink you shoudnt notice any diff in quality.
>and if yer downloading a real dvd, the file you download will be about
>4gb in size

I've seen some that size. Most of them seem to be crushed down
to around 700mb in order to fit a CD-R.
-Rich

RichA