Posts Tagged ‘DVD’

Welcome to a new series in Hello we’re calling “Stuff We Love.” I was originally going to call it “Tools We Use,” but after learning that Amber loves Visual Hub and is going to tell you all about it soon, I figured this would be a more appropriate name. In this series, we’ll tell you about the software and gadgets we use on a regular basis to develop Stratepedia, and suggest ways you might use these tools in your work as professional developers, researchers, or students.

To kick off, let me tell you about something that happened to me a few years ago. Long story short, I left about $200 worth of DVDs on an airplane, and I never saw them again. Oops. When I got back home, I started looking into ways to copy the contents of the disc to my hard drive.

Enter HandBrake, a free, cross-platform utility for copying the contents of a DVD into a video file you can play directly from your computer. HandBrake is not the most intuitive software you’ll ever use, but it’s not super-complicated once you’ve figured out a couple of things. First, HandBrake offers several preset video compression options. If you’re saving clips to embed in a PowerPoint file, the iPod-related settings should be adequate. If you’re just looking to load a movie or two to pass the time on your next flight, one of the higher resolution options might be to your liking. Experimentation is the key.

Second, you’re not limited to just converting the entire disc–if the disc is marked with chapters (say, a disc of episodes from a TV show) you can save each chapter as a separate video file. If you’ve seen the CLC-related video clips we’ve shared on a few sites, this is exactly how I extracted them from a DVD to share with you online.

One thing to know: This process can take awhile! Give your computer time to convert your clips. It really depends on the length of the clips you want and the speed and memory of your computer, but it can take at least an hour per hour of footage you’re copying. Plan ahead.

One more thing to know: Commercial DVDs, as you may know, are encrypted, and the copyright owners don’t like it when you duplicate their material. That said, HandBrake can copy encrypted, commercial DVDs–but I’m not telling you to do that. Let your conscience be your guide.

Get started: First, download a copy of HandBrake for your computer. Pop in a DVD and experiment with different settings. You won’t hurt the DVD in the process. Take a look at HandBrake’s documentation–it’s a little out-of-date in places, but should guide you through some common uses.

HandBrake’s being enhanced to convert more than just DVD video–an article on MacWorld today outlines some of the forthcoming changes. I haven’t tried the new version yet, but this could make HandBrake extremely useful for converting between various file types, for free.

Give it a try, and let you know what you think in the comments below.

I recently ran into the problem of having people not be able to play a DVD that I had burnt for them. They were using it on their computers and it seemed to be isolated to the PC users and I couldn’t figure out for the life of me what was causing the problems. However, I think I now have a solution!

PROBLEM:
It is my understanding that when a computer company installs a DVD player in their machine, they package a player and set of video encoders/drivers with that machine. This is why the DVD seems to play on some machines and not on others. Different manufacturers use different software to interact with their DVD player and it’s not consistent across the board. Mac computers seem to have this pretty well covered and are able to process a wide range of media with no problems. Also, since it’s one company, they have standard hardware/software installations. If you’re on a PC, it’s kind of hit and miss. The standard Windows Media Player requires that you have a plugin to handle certain burnt DVDs and I believe it costs a small sum to purchase. Or it could be just a problem with older versions of the software, I’m not sure.

So what can you do about this?

SOLUTION:
A very helpful IT person at my office recommended a free, open-source program called VLC Media Player. You can download it at: http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

This program is supposed to be very versatile at playing any number of video formats including DVDs which is great since video is becoming increasingly popular. Although I have not used it on a PC, the MAC version seems to work great and some internet searches reveal it to be a legitimate and popular solution. There are versions for all different types of operating systems, so all of you Linux users out there can enjoy this as well!

If you try this with (or without) any success, please leave a comment and let me know how it works!