DVDs

Apr 27 2009

Access A Variety Of Media Formats

Brought to you by: James Huff

VLC Access A Variety Of Media Formats


This week’s PUM is short and simple. It can be summed up in a single sentence. Download VLC Media Player! If you’re frustrated with QuickTime’s narrow file format support, or Windows Media Player’s inability to work correctly, you’ll want VLC Media Player. VLC is a free player that supports a variety of formats including DivX, DVD, VCD, MPEG (1, 2, and 4), WMV (1 and 2), mp3, ogg, and many more. Unfortunately, Windows Media Series 9 files are not supported at this time.



If you’re still in 10.2 or 10.1 and don’t have the luxury or Apple’s most recent DVD player, then VLC is your key to hearing your DVDs in 5.1 digital surround (Apple’s DVD Player pre-10.3 only supports 2 channels).



VLC also makes it easy to take screen shots of your DVDs. The DVD screen shot in the previous PUM was taken while playing the DVD through VLC.



VLC is in constant competition with MPlayer and typically the most recent version of VLC will support more formats than the current version of MPlayer and visa versa. However, in my opinion, VLC’s controller has more features than MPayer’s and is easier to use/understand. VLC also has the nice feature of letting you know why it can’t play a file, rather than either crashing or simply not playing the file (as in MPlayer’s case).



VLC Media Player is a great player to have sitting around on your hard drive. Give it a try, you won’t be disappointed.



Update: Intel Indeo Video 3.2 (IV32) was very widely used as video compression and still is today. Unfortunately, for those of us in OS X, there is no way for us to view these files. Thankfully, if you still have a full OS 9 system, there’s a work-around. You’ll have to download and install Intel Indeo Video 3.2 in Macintosh HD/System Folder/Extensions and restart. Then you can view the file in OS 9′s QuickTime Player. If you have QuickTime Pro in OS 9, you can export the file at the highest possible settings (Uncompressed audio and video will provide you with the highest quality) and make sure to double check the fps with the movie file and what you’re setting the compressor to use (you don’t want to have 1.5 minutes of audio with 30 seconds of video). From there, you can play the file and do all your final compressing in OS X. Good luck!

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Apr 27 2009

iDVD/DVD Burning FAQs

Brought to you by: James



((Update: Updated to reflect changes introduced by iDVD v5 and v6. This FAQ is now obsolete and will not be updated beyond this point.))



Ken Tidwell has a very informative Unofficial/ad-hoc iDVD FAQ & Troubleshooting Guide.



DVD-R(RW)s and DVD+R(RW)s only have one layer. Many commercial DVDs have dual-layer technology which allows twice the amount of data on one disk. (Burnable dual-layer DVDs can now be purchased from your favorite blank media retailer.)



DVD+R(RW)s have a longer shelf-life while DVD-R(RW)s are more compatible with house-hold DVD players.



iDVD versions prior to v5 are only capable of burning to internal Apple Superdrives.



iDVD requires its movie files to be any QuickTime-supported media file.



iDVD (v1-v3) can only burn 60 minutes to a DVD-R, or 90 minutes if you’re willing to sacrifice quality. (iDVD will ask to sacrifice quality for a 90 minute DVD when you choose to burn a project that is 60-90 minutes in length.) iDVD v4 (iLife ’04) can burn up to 2 hours on a single-layer DVD-R (sacrificing quality).



Toast 6 will burn to any DVD-R(RW) or DVD+R(RW) drive with any QuickTime-supported media file, and can burn “over 60 minutes” to a disk with optimal quality at 60 minutes or less (quality slowly decreases over 60 minutes). See Create a Quick and Simple DVD for details.



Apple’s DVD Studio Pro is a full, professional DVD authoring suite. Among several, more powerful features, DVD Studio Pro supports burning to several DVD-R(RW) and DVD+R(RW) burners and allows you to change compression settings, which enables you to choose the correct balance between video/audio quality and the amount of video on the disk.

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Apr 27 2009

mini Home Theater – on the Cheap

If you had a dollar for every Mac mini home theater tutorial, you’d be able to pay for several of mine. Of the many good configurations out there, you can count on me to find the least expensive. What can I say, I’m cheap. And if you just paid $500 for your Mac, you probably are too.

So, today we’ll set up an econo-home entertainment center: mini cinema.

minicinema mini Home Theater on the Cheap

With the help of free software and a great deal on hardware from Amazon, we’re going to use your existing television and speakers to create a much improved sound experience. Even better, we’ll load your DVD collection on your mini for hassle free movie marathons.

The hardware

First up, the deal. This Philips USB 5.1 surround sound external audio solution has been spotted as low as $29 in the past. Right now Amazon is selling it for 60% off, at $39. Of course I can’t guarantee that it will be available for long.

What this thing gives you are optical and RCA outputs for front and rear speakers, an amplifier and a minijack headphones out and microphone input (something missing on the mini). There is conflicting documentation on Mac support. As of the time of publication, I have not been able to test the unit but it has seemed to work for others (see Amazon reviews).

Note: special thanks to a reader for the following info (from Philips support) on the Aurilium’s Mac OS Support:

The specifications for the PSC805 indicate limited functionality with a Mac OS, namely stereo sound only because the software is Windows compatible only. The device should be plug and play with the Mac as far as stereo is concerned, however.

If your’s works, drop me a line (brian AT macmerc DOT com). This isn’t the only solution to get high quality sound out of your Mac, though it is about $60 cheaper than other solutions with the Amazon discount.

Now, if you haven’t already, you’ll need to pipe your video into your TV. If you have a newer TV you might have a digital input allowing you to directly plug your mini in to your TV. If you’re not in that happy place, you’ll need this adapter to connect your mini via analog to your TV.

The Software

Okay, now for the fun. First, you’ll want to rip the best of your DVD collection to your Mac. Let’s hope you opted for the 80 GB hard drive. If not, you may want to invest in an external Firewire solution. The ripper of choice for the Mac is the free Mac the Ripper.

mactheripper mini Home Theater on the Cheap

This excellent free utility lets you selectively rip components of your DVDs (even protected ones) to your hard drive for backup and quick-access convenience*. Expect anywhere from 4 to 12 GB per DVD.

So, what do you do with your new collection of ripped DVDs? Play them in Matinee. This media player allows you to play ripped DVDs through Apple’s DVD Player.

matinee mini Home Theater on the Cheap

Enjoy the candy-smooth interface that includes library management tools for easy navigation between DVDs.

Now, wrapping it all up – we have video coming out your TV, an audio adapter granting you surround sound and some slick freeware running your cinema box. Thanks to careful planning and use of existing stuff, you can do this for as little as $39, and for hundreds less than most setups.

I can already smell popcorn.

* STEALING IS BAD. You should only rip DVDs you own.

Brian

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