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Here's their most recent codec shootout with 3ivx, Divx, ffvfw, Nero, Real, On2 and Xvid. Xvid wins.

Here's their most recent codec shootout with 3ivx, Divx, ffvfw, Nero, Real, On2 and Xvid. Xvid wins.

A useful site for all things high(ish) quality video encoding, aimed at dvd backups to cd, is Doom9 - see their last round of codec comparisons. (Frame based, so you'll need to click through from the beginning to get the menu frames etc.)

<are you sitting down?>

...much politer and less slimy than previous versions!

Well, OK, maybe not right out of the box. But at least you don't have to resort to modifying registry entries, deleting executable helper apps, or deciphering ambiguously-worded menu items to make it behave.

Even better, a senior RealNetworks engineer has taken the time to provide a step-by-step guide detailing how to turn of all the annoying RealOne features!

1. Go here to download a previous version of Real Player. I recommend Real Player 9, which is what this guide is written for. Don't bother with that Real One shit. Choose the most basic player that's available.

2. Choose the custom install option. Uncheck all the boxes for the desktop icons and file associations.

3. Start Real Player. Go to View->Preferences and disable anything else that you don't want. Do this for StartCenter, since it eats up memory.

4. Go to Program Files\Common Files\Real\Update_OB. Delete or rename realsched.exe, which will still run even if you've disabled everything else.

5. Run msconfig to take out realsched from win.ini, as well as any other program you don't want loading at startup.

Some of the info came from here. Use this info at your own risk!

Enjoy!

Some choice quotes:

"Previous RealPlayers and RealOne players have been impolite in certain areas (Message Center with ads, file types, icons everywhere, running in the traybar). It has been possible to make it well mannered, but it has included being forced to delete certain files to prevent the Message Center from popping up. However, regarding the "spyware" allegations, I have read that one old player did send back some usage information. That's long gone, but it's hard to be forgiven for that mistake."

Players in the past have been considered badly behaved enough, that to be frank, many computer users, from novices to experts, hate RealPlayer, and want to stay as far away as possible. Even the marketing people have started to understand this, and RP 10 is one good step in the right direction of behaving nicer, but it may not be enough, considering how bad the reputation is (yes, we do get the feedback, us developers more than the marketeers, since chances are higher we read the tech forums).

Yes, because we all know how effective region codes are, don't we? Surely even the movie industry must have realized by now there is no way of creating digital media such that it is both enjoyable and uncopyable by the end user.

Doom9 doesn't seem to think so.

I work for RealNetworks, and I am the first to admit RealPlayer is not my favorite media player. For video, Media Player Classic (MPC) is, and yes, I use MPC to play my RV9-EHQ aka RV10 content.

Previous RealPlayers have been pretty impolite to put it mildly, and along with so many other computer users, I have been ticked off by its behaviour in many ways. It has been possible to make it well mannered, but it has included being forced to delete certain files to prevent that annoying Message Center. However, it has not been spyware in a long time, even though one old player did send back some usage information. That's long gone, but it's hard to be forgiven for that mistake.

Considering how past players have created such a bad reputation, this post is probably futile, but anyway... Thanks to those few positive posts though, especially for the Linux and OS X players. It is nice to see someone taking the time to give it a another chance.

This RealPlayer 10 is better than before, it is fast, small, and does not run +10MB services in the background, like one well known example, name withheld. However, this post is not really about performance, even though a lot could be said about improvements in this area. More importantly in this discussion, it is also better in terms of its behaviour, albeit less better than me, many of my co-workers, and all of you, had hoped for.

Here's what you need to do when installing:

• Choose Custom Install
• Uncheck all the boxes you don't like for stuff on the desktop and quicklaunch bar. There is nothing hidden by a scroll bar, at least not with my computer screen size.
• Check only the media types you want it to play. This is the only time you will be asked this, it will never try to take back any media types. Now, is this really so bad compared to other software, in regards to media types? It's not as polite as MPC, but I have other media players which take over media types, and there is not even an option to customize this..
• Start RealPlayer, you may have to create an account. Everybody hates this, and wish it would go way. Agreed, but RealNetworks has to make money somehow, and the number of users is a needed measure to document. So use fake information if you like.
• Then go to Tools->Preferences->Automatic Services, Click Configure Message Center, then uncheck "Check for new messages". Click OK on the "warning" that comes up. Now you will never be bothered by the Message Center. In previous versions, you could not disable the Message Center completely, without deleting certain files. Minor improvement, it's still opt-out, but at least it's possible. Check or uncheck Auto-update in its sub-menu as well.
• Go to Tools->Preferences->General and set On startup display to "Player only". That way, no browser, and it starts much quicker.

So to summarize, a few clicks are needed to opt-out, you have to "sign in" the first time. Yes, somewhat annoying, but that's about it. It could have been better, but compared to many other examples, it's not that terrible. Since it has been so very bad in the past though, it clearly should have changed more to make a shining example, but since it is RealNetworks' main vehicle for generating revenue, there is a lot of nervousness about changing things too quickly.

Download the free RealPlayer 10 Beta here, with no re-direction or sales tricks:

http://www.real.com/freeplayer/?rppr=slashdot

And you can find me the forum below with more information about all the gory technical details about what's new with the Real 10 Platform, including RV 10, and RA 10 (AAC!):

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid= 68245

Uh, Xvid has gotten a lot better than you give it credit for. See Doom9's latest codec comparison.

Someone's already mentioned VirtualDub, but I'd like to point out AviSynth too. Although VirtualDub provides a simple GUI and can be good for video filtering and for re-encoding, its capabilities are limited to linear editing.

AviSynth, on the other hand, is very powerful script-based non-linear editing system. AviSynth operates as a frame-server--other applications (such as VirtualDub) load AviSynth scripts, and when they request frame N, AviSynth generates that frame and feeds it to the calling application. Most applications don't even need to support AviSynth explicitly; as long as they use Windows' native AVI handlers, AviSynth should work with them just fine.

It doesn't provide a GUI, although there are a number of third-party graphical front-ends to ease the script-writing process. It's harder to learn for non-programmers, but as a script-based system, in many ways it's more powerful, flexible, and precise than traditional methods.

An AviSynth script often looks something like this:

# load foo.avi, and refer to it through the
# variable clip1
clip1 = AVISource("foo.avi")
clip2 = AVISource("bar.avi")

# output a new clip that has frames [0, 1000]
# of clip1, frames [500, 1500] of clip2, and then
# frames [2000, 3000] of clip1
#
# (the ++ operator concatenates, and the Trim function cuts)
editedClip = clip1.Trim(0, 1000) ++ clip2.Trim(500, 1500) ++ clip1.Trim(2000, 3000)

# AviSynth provides filtering support too
editedClip = editedClip.TemporalSoften(4, 4, 8, 15, 2)
editedClip = editedClip.Levels(0, 1.1, 255, 0, 255)

return editedClip

There are quite a number of third-party plug-ins. So far, though, AviSynth has been used primarily as a tool for processing TV captures and DVD rips, and the vast majority of its filters are different types of denoisers. There are few "effects"-based filters, but hopefully this will change as more and more people use it as an editing system. However, there is support for basic fades, pans, and wipes.

More information can be found at the avisynth.org site and on the doom9 AviSynth forums.

Having played a lot with video encoding in my spare time (which isn't hard to do when you've been unemployed for seven months), I will bestow on you some tips on the world of encoded video, so that you won't have to go through as much teeth gnashing, hair pulling, and head slapping that I have. :) (Note: I work primarily on a Win32 machine, so if you want to do this on another platform, just kindly ignore all the words below. :P)

The most likely problem you are facing is that you don't have the right codecs installed to play the files you want. As someone mentioned before, Nimo is your best friend in this case, as it's a file pack that contains a multitude of codecs and filters to play almost everything under the sun.

But say you install Nimo, and things still don't work. What then? Well, assuming you still don't have the right codec, then it's time to meet your other new best friend, AVIcodec. Don't let the name fool you. This little program will identify the codec you need for AVI's, MPEG's, WMV's, ASF's, and probably a few others I'm forgetting. I also hear good things about GSPot, but AVIcodec works too well for me to change. :)

Now, say you run into a file that uses MPEG2 for video or has an AC3 audio stream. Well, you won't find any codecs for those on the web, because the Motion Picture Experts Group likes to rake in those licensing fees. (Well, you MAY find a codec or two out there, but keep in mind if you download them and don't have to pay a fee, it's almost certainly illegal.) What you then need to do is to install a software DVD player like PowerDVD or WinDVD, and that'll straighten things out for you.

Now let's say you're SURE you have the right codecs installed, and the video STILL won't play. Well, that just blows, because your file is probably damaged, or in the case of an AVI, it's incomplete. If you've got an AVI, run over and grab AVIPreview, which is a nice program that'll let you preview incomplete AVI's (see? "AVIPreview"? :P). If it plays in there, and you don't feel like downloading a complete version of the file (which you sometimes can't find when you're using P2P services), AVIPreview will let you save the file with a complete container so most media players won't complain.

Now... (*takes a breath*), if it isn't an AVI, then the likelyhood you'll be able to fix the problem goes down considerably. Free ASF and WMV editing programs are few and far between (and we all know who owns those file formats), and almost all MPEG issues will continue to niggle you unless you do a full-blown re-encode of the file. You can definitely try downloading VCDGear and checking the "Fix MPEG Errors" checkbox, but this almost NEVER works (i.e., times it worked for me: none).

And keep in mind these are the EASY solutions. If you're actually interested in using video editing/encoding programs, then take a visit to Doom9 or DVDRhelp.com. The forums and guides on these sites are a boon to the video encoding enthusiast, and the forum regulars tend to be pretty friendly, too. :)

Best of luck and well wishes...

Doom9 has pretty much all the info you could ever want on codecs and video formats. The link to Gordian Knot should give you all the codecs you need (Win32 only, unfortunately).

The site that the MPAA does not want you to know about!

Does this REALLY matter anymore? Are they still harping on the original code that Jon released? Did anyone bother to check that there are dozens of freeware applications, and ones that are commercially sold that are able to decrypt, de-macrovision, and de-regionize DVD's in one click?

The original DeCSS code that this bullshit is about isn't even a factor anymore. A better mousetrap has been built. Why bother this kid anymore? All this points out is that the Norwegian court system is owned by corporate interests, and the fools running it follow their whims like sheep.

The quick-'n'-dirty answer is that, as long as you've got muxers and demuxers for the formats you're working with, converting from one container format to another is generally lossless, so you don't really need to worry about losing data to an obsolete format. In this layman's opinion (I'm not an A/V software programmer, but I play one on Slashdot), Matroska looks like a good choice here, since you can mux practically everything under the sun into a Matroska file. But be warned that practically-speaking not all of the existing Matroska filters recognize data like chapters; in contrast, formats like OGM may not support as much metadata, but the existing filters generally recognize all of it.

I've tried a good deal of the stuff listed. The following are the most intuitive, free, software products I have encountered. They increase productivity, and are stable.

Freeware List: If you can think of it, it's in here.
OpenCD: Precompiled CD with all open source software.
Doom9.org: Famed site for lots of media tools.
Trillian: AIM, ICQ, IRC, MSN, Yahoo! IM software all in one.
AVG Anti-Virus: Free AV
SpyBot (Spam Remover): Free Spam Remover/Search & Destroy
Firebird: Web browser w/ adblock & popup control.
FileZilla FTP: FTP Client
Smart FTP: Free Client, better looking, faster
Kerio: Personal Firewall, better than ZoneAlarm
Textpad: Text Editor.
PuTTY: SSH Client.
CygWin: Linux emulation.
FFDshow: DivX/XVid decoder.
TweakUI: Microsoft's famed Powertoy for Windows XP.
WinAce: Fast, high-compression (40% smaller, faster compression than ZIP).
WinAmp: MP3 player, with this skin.
dBpowerAMP: Music Converter (copies CDs to MP3)

One last thing, don't use Outlook. Find a better program: Eudora, Thunderbird, or PegasusMail (in that order) are safer/more powerful. Windows comes bundled with great software, just like Mandrake - but their internet package leaves much (security) to be desired.

Media Player Classic - Windows ol' mplayer2.exe on steorids. Reads DVD, too. Tons of options, thats a must.

Foobar2000 - Created by an ex Winamp developper, its main goal is to be minimalistic. Tired of all those players sucking your ressources just for loading/displaying the skin? Try this.

Irfanview, image viewer, already mentionned

dbPowerAmp Music Converter - audio converter. supported: CDa/mp3/wav/ogg/wma, name em all. To convert, just right-click on the file in the file explorer.

PuTTY, of course

SmartFTP - not minimalistic, but quite complete FTP client

Also, I personally use Microsoft WTS Client to connect to my WindowsXP box. Shame on me. Should i switch to VNC? (I liked the sound feature in XP's :/)

Won't work, sorry.

2GB is an arbitrary limit built into the .avi format. May I suggest a better format?

You guys really need to read the instructions on Doom9's forums about removing the adware legally. Adaware won't work. Follow the instructions and you'll be fine.

Even if the story was true - here's the way:

Doom9's Forum - DivX5 Adware summary

well...ffdshow works fine for me and it can use upto 20% less CPU time for those who want to play divx on a slow system.

www.doom9.org has a link to it

Realplayer has certainly tried to beat them in the realm of streaming content, but due to such little things as shit for quality and lack of content, they didn't do so well.

For the longest time "shit for quality" made me hate RealPlayer...but have you seen the newest ones? Awesome quality...heck, it was even good enough to be included in a doom9 codec comparison. So "lack of content" might be because people won't use might be because they remember the "shit for quality" days or because of the competition from media player, I don't know, personally I think media player's codec (wmv) isn't all that big myself, but I guess popularity is increasing.

Quicktime...while it has done fairly well, never really got quite big

Hold on a second...what media content sites do you browse? Almost every online clip is in quicktime...movie trailers, fan movies...you get your eventual real video clips now and then (most of them old ones from the crap quality days) and if you visit a microsoft site, you get some wmv, but that's still the least common.

Microsoft hasn't been offering much competition in the codec department (although it's been pushing the new windows media 9 a lot, to the point where T2 Extreme Edition comes with the entire movie encoded in that format). Now...using the player...it's compatible with divx, mpeg, wmv, and a whole bunch of other formats except for quicktime and real video, and it comes installed with your OS, so people don't bother looking at the other players to play the formats media player can handle, and I guess that's the "unfair competition".

... why don't they use a better codec?
wmv9 is up there along with divx4/mpeg4. Take a look here

But I doubt that is the reason why they are using wmv, more probably it is due to its DRM capabilities more than anything and its ability to self destroy past its expiration date.

Still, it would be interesting to see if you can still convert it using TMPGEnc to any of your preferred DRM free formats.

Macrovision will not affect your ability to capture video on your computer clearly.

It will if your capture card has AGC that is freaked out by macrovision.

...or if your capture card detects it and the driver says, "No video capture for you!" (That misfeature is sometimes correctable with a driver patch...here's one that works with All-In-Wonders.)

Also, the Real codecs are really quite nice. RealVideo 9 is second only to Windows Media Video 9 in terms of compression efficiency, and performs better on lower end machines. The audio codecs are getting a little long in the tooth, but are still more than adequate for real-time streaming applications.

Check out doom9.org forums, specifically, the "new A/V format" forum. THE Senior Codec Engineer of RealNetworks posts daily there. He does it on his own free time and even lets the forum readers in on pre-release fuctions and code.

Specifically, EHQ encode mode, RealAudio 5.1 audio, and the Animation DropDupe Pre-filter are all new capabilites being discussed there. EHQ mode gives upto 30% improved compression efficiencey and the DropDupe pre-filter provides for variable frame rate encodeing of animation/cartoons, that plays back as if encoded at 24/30 fps, so since repeated frames are droped instead of being encoded, you save diskspace.

The cream of the crop, so to say, though would be the DirectShow filter for RealMedia.

Also a lot of discussion has gone on about the marketing department of RealNetworks being utterly retarded, which from as a result of the forum and internal pressure, has been made to relize a lot of their faults. Version 3 of the RealOne player we are told will be really nice (as in getting rid of ads and such).

Also, the Real codecs are really quite nice. RealVideo 9 is second only to Windows Media Video 9 in terms of compression efficiency, and performs better on lower end machines. The audio codecs are getting a little long in the tooth, but are still more than adequate for real-time streaming applications.

Check out doom9.org forums, specifically, the "new A/V format" forum. THE Senior Codec Engineer of RealNetworks posts daily there. He does it on his own free time and even lets the forum readers in on pre-release fuctions and code.

Specifically, EHQ encode mode, RealAudio 5.1 audio, and the Animation DropDupe Pre-filter are all new capabilites being discussed there. EHQ mode gives upto 30% improved compression efficiencey and the DropDupe pre-filter provides for variable frame rate encodeing of animation/cartoons, that plays back as if encoded at 24/30 fps, so since repeated frames are droped instead of being encoded, you save diskspace.

The cream of the crop, so to say, though would be the DirectShow filter for RealMedia.

Also a lot of discussion has gone on about the marketing department of RealNetworks being utterly retarded, which from as a result of the forum and internal pressure, has been made to relize a lot of their faults. Version 3 of the RealOne player we are told will be really nice (as in getting rid of ads and such).

Also, the Real codecs are really quite nice. RealVideo 9 is second only to Windows Media Video 9 in terms of compression efficiency, and performs better on lower end machines. The audio codecs are getting a little long in the tooth, but are still more than adequate for real-time streaming applications.

Check out doom9.org forums, specifically, the "new A/V format" forum. THE Senior Codec Engineer of RealNetworks posts daily there. He does it on his own free time and even lets the forum readers in on pre-release fuctions and code.

Specifically, EHQ encode mode, RealAudio 5.1 audio, and the Animation DropDupe Pre-filter are all new capabilites being discussed there. EHQ mode gives upto 30% improved compression efficiencey and the DropDupe pre-filter provides for variable frame rate encodeing of animation/cartoons, that plays back as if encoded at 24/30 fps, so since repeated frames are droped instead of being encoded, you save diskspace.

The cream of the crop, so to say, though would be the DirectShow filter for RealMedia.

Also a lot of discussion has gone on about the marketing department of RealNetworks being utterly retarded, which from as a result of the forum and internal pressure, has been made to relize a lot of their faults. Version 3 of the RealOne player we are told will be really nice (as in getting rid of ads and such).

Also, the Real codecs are really quite nice. RealVideo 9 is second only to Windows Media Video 9 in terms of compression efficiency, and performs better on lower end machines. The audio codecs are getting a little long in the tooth, but are still more than adequate for real-time streaming applications.

Check out doom9.org forums, specifically, the "new A/V format" forum. THE Senior Codec Engineer of RealNetworks posts daily there. He does it on his own free time and even lets the forum readers in on pre-release fuctions and code.

Specifically, EHQ encode mode, RealAudio 5.1 audio, and the Animation DropDupe Pre-filter are all new capabilites being discussed there. EHQ mode gives upto 30% improved compression efficiencey and the DropDupe pre-filter provides for variable frame rate encodeing of animation/cartoons, that plays back as if encoded at 24/30 fps, so since repeated frames are droped instead of being encoded, you save diskspace.

The cream of the crop, so to say, though would be the DirectShow filter for RealMedia.

Also a lot of discussion has gone on about the marketing department of RealNetworks being utterly retarded, which from as a result of the forum and internal pressure, has been made to relize a lot of their faults. Version 3 of the RealOne player we are told will be really nice (as in getting rid of ads and such).

Also, the Real codecs are really quite nice. RealVideo 9 is second only to Windows Media Video 9 in terms of compression efficiency, and performs better on lower end machines. The audio codecs are getting a little long in the tooth, but are still more than adequate for real-time streaming applications.

Check out doom9.org forums, specifically, the "new A/V format" forum. THE Senior Codec Engineer of RealNetworks posts daily there. He does it on his own free time and even lets the forum readers in on pre-release fuctions and code.

Specifically, EHQ encode mode, RealAudio 5.1 audio, and the Animation DropDupe Pre-filter are all new capabilites being discussed there. EHQ mode gives upto 30% improved compression efficiencey and the DropDupe pre-filter provides for variable frame rate encodeing of animation/cartoons, that plays back as if encoded at 24/30 fps, so since repeated frames are droped instead of being encoded, you save diskspace.

The cream of the crop, so to say, though would be the DirectShow filter for RealMedia.

Also a lot of discussion has gone on about the marketing department of RealNetworks being utterly retarded, which from as a result of the forum and internal pressure, has been made to relize a lot of their faults. Version 3 of the RealOne player we are told will be really nice (as in getting rid of ads and such).

As for ripping off rentals, I hope that the parent poster was just making an ass of himself and not being serious.

With software programs like:

DVD Decrypter - DVD Decrypter is a CSS decryption tool that has most, if not all, of the features of current ripper/ripper GUIs like CladDVD, Smart-Ripper or VOBDec GUI, including CSS authentication/detection, multi-angle processing, Macrovision and Region removal. Also includes option to use either VOBDec or DeCSS Plus to decrypt the DVD.
NanDUB DiVX 3.11 ;-) encoder.
VirtualDubMod - VirtualDubMod is based on the famous video editing software VirtualDub by Avery Lee. Used for DiVX 5.x and XViD encoding
DVD2AVI - Takes a DVD and turns it into an AVI or AVI FrameServer for other programs like NanDub and VirtualDuB to encode with.
BeSweet - an audio transcoding tool. it lets you convert audio files from one format to another. supported formats : MP3,AC3,WAV,MP2,AVI,Aiff,VOB,Ogg Vorbis.
TMpegEnc - video encoding software. mainly used for the creation of MPEG's encoded for either VCD or SVCD
DVD2SVCD - Software Suite for converting a DVD into an SVCD (MPEG-2 encoded Video CD).
Gordian Knot - Gordian Knot started out as a simple bitrate calculator for DivX encoding but has evolved to become an integrated package or tool for the entire process of DivX encoding. It now has the ability to calculate the bitrates for XViD

And sites like

Doom9 - The definitive resource for DVD backup
DVDR Help - This site will help you to make your own VideoCDs, SVCDs or DVDs that can be played on your standalone DVD Player from video sources like DVD, Video, TV, Cam or downloaded movie clips like DivX, MOV, RM, WMV and ASF
DiVX Digest - a DiVX news and reviews site.

And many more like the ones above make it easy for encryption and DRM schemes to be broken or bypassed, but the process is far from trivial. These programs aren't exactly user friendly. The formats that come out of these programs while not very noticable do make a degredated (?sp) copy that is compressed more than the original. The files may look rather nice, but they are definantelly not as perfect as a standard DVD player.

People want to be able to plug their DVD's into their DVD players. I don't really know how many people rely on their computer solely for DVD playback, but I'm assuming not many.

Here's the kicker I know that I use my computer to watch videos that I own, but if I'm going to be traveling I will rip that DVD into a one disc XViD. So if I break it, who cares I'll just burn another one. And well someone isn't as apt to steal a blank CD-Rom as they would be for say, a DVD with a case and title on the disc.

It's plain to see just from visiting the links I posted above though that you are correct in saying that there will always be a time that someone comes around and completely bypasses or disables DRM. I know for a fact that my APEX DVD player has MacroVision and other BS taken off of it and it is also RCE (regionless) which means I can put any DVD I like into the player and it will play.

It's these sorts of things that make me wonder why all the effort for DRM is made, someone will truly crack it eventually. I still remember when DVD's were said to be uncrackable, and had some s

With software programs like:

DVD Decrypter - DVD Decrypter is a CSS decryption tool that has most, if not all, of the features of current ripper/ripper GUIs like CladDVD, Smart-Ripper or VOBDec GUI, including CSS authentication/detection, multi-angle processing, Macrovision and Region removal. Also includes option to use either VOBDec or DeCSS Plus to decrypt the DVD.
NanDUB DiVX 3.11 ;-) encoder.
VirtualDubMod - VirtualDubMod is based on the famous video editing software VirtualDub by Avery Lee. Used for DiVX 5.x and XViD encoding
DVD2AVI - Takes a DVD and turns it into an AVI or AVI FrameServer for other programs like NanDub and VirtualDuB to encode with.
BeSweet - an audio transcoding tool. it lets you convert audio files from one format to another. supported formats : MP3,AC3,WAV,MP2,AVI,Aiff,VOB,Ogg Vorbis.
TMpegEnc - video encoding software. mainly used for the creation of MPEG's encoded for either VCD or SVCD
DVD2SVCD - Software Suite for converting a DVD into an SVCD (MPEG-2 encoded Video CD).
Gordian Knot - Gordian Knot started out as a simple bitrate calculator for DivX encoding but has evolved to become an integrated package or tool for the entire process of DivX encoding. It now has the ability to calculate the bitrates for XViD

And sites like

Doom9 - The definitive resource for DVD backup
DVDR Help - This site will help you to make your own VideoCDs, SVCDs or DVDs that can be played on your standalone DVD Player from video sources like DVD, Video, TV, Cam or downloaded movie clips like DivX, MOV, RM, WMV and ASF
DiVX Digest - a DiVX news and reviews site.

And many more like the ones above make it easy for encryption and DRM schemes to be broken or bypassed, but the process is far from trivial. These programs aren't exactly user friendly. The formats that come out of these programs while not very noticable do make a degredated (?sp) copy that is compressed more than the original. The files may look rather nice, but they are definantelly not as perfect as a standard DVD player.

People want to be able to plug their DVD's into their DVD players. I don't really know how many people rely on their computer solely for DVD playback, but I'm assuming not many.

Here's the kicker I know that I use my computer to watch videos that I own, but if I'm going to be traveling I will rip that DVD into a one disc XViD. So if I break it, who cares I'll just burn another one. And well someone isn't as apt to steal a blank CD-Rom as they would be for say, a DVD with a case and title on the disc.

It's plain to see just from visiting the links I posted above though that you are correct in saying that there will always be a time that someone comes around and completely bypasses or disables DRM. I know for a fact that my APEX DVD player has MacroVision and other BS taken off of it and it is also RCE (regionless) which means I can put any DVD I like into the player and it will play.

It's these sorts of things that make me wonder why all the effort for DRM is made, someone will truly crack it eventually. I still remember when DVD's were said to be uncrackable, and had some s

1) Install Real's free player.
2) Set it up to not launch it's systray app.
3) Get Media Player Classic from www.doom9.org
4) Listen to/View Real content without using Real's crappy player.
5) ???
6) Profit!

If you're using Linux on x86 just go get mplayer and quityerbitchin.

And it's awesome! DVDshrink allows you to set the compression levels on every single extra/menu/video stream individually.

It's fast like DVD2ONE...

Guide to DVDshrink

I'd love to see a write up on video encoding on linux, maybe I'll do one myself.

I forgot to mention, that if you do take this on, Doom9's Linux forum is probaly the single best source of information out there to start with.

I think there's a real need for a site centered on video editing, capturing and encoding under Linux. It was probaly the single biggest challenge for me moving to Linux, simply because all the information out there is so scattered. Compiling some information is something I keep meaning to do, but never seem to be able to find the time and energy for.

Ffdshow is an easy replacement, as it's based on a Linux project, ffmpeg.

The extent of my encoding comes from recording TV or VHS tapes and throwing a few filters at them for cleanup and encoding. So I've never had a chance to become familiar with what features avisynth has. Some people over at Doom9's Linux forum have mentioned getting Avisynth running in wine.

Tmpgenc should be a pretty easy replacement. Transcode seems to be a favorite for mpeg2 encoding. There was a problem when I first started using Linux, which slowed mpeg encoding to a snails pace for a while, and I've never found a chance to get back to see how it works when fully functional. A lot of peoplel swear by it though, and it's feature list is pretty impressive. Avidemux, as well as quite a few other programs also provide mpeg1 encoding, I think through ffmpeg.

Everything in VirtualDub/VirtualDubMod except video capture should work fine under wine and that's what I used for quite a while before Avidemux appeared. The design and functionality are very similar to virtualdub, and it also includes encoding to mpeg1.

One of the two best media players for Linux, Mplayer, should be noted to have better support for matroska, in cvs, than is available for the format under windows. And these tools can be used for creation and editing of matroska files.

For capture from a tv card, I use nuppelvideo, and then use avidemux to edit and convert to a smaller format.

VCDs are 352x240 (non-interlaced), so you are not getting the same quality as your input VHS tape (this post has more details). DVD is a better choice.

Xesdeeni

God, you're dumb (and a coward). I just said Google result #9 had the answer.

Since you're so dumb: a link

I got started by reading the excellent guides at doom9.org. They mostly describe how to rip DVDs, but you can also learn a lot about video conversion in the process.

There are also some good tutorials and forum information at the Digital Archive Project and Luke's Video Guide.

what do we use to capture the video and convert it to divx

The WEF's Gordian Knot of course!

Actually, that's for M$ too, but it's got the best stuff for converting anything to DivX.

And you should really look at Ogg Vorbis a little more...the file size will be the same with Ogg Vorbis as an MP3 with the same bit rate, but the Ogg Vorbis file will be higher quality.

This means you can have smaller files that sound just as good...to hear how good Ogg Vorbis files can be, try encoding a file with -q0 and you'll see what I mean (a 3-4 minute file should be ~1-1.5M)...

It uses advanced acoustic modeling to do quality based encoding...something not built into MP3 (Lame tries to approximate this)...

If you want to talk raw bit rate, Vorbis can do higher bit rates as well (640max I think...current encoders can only do a max of 320 but the format allows for it), but the real reason to use Vorbis is better sounding, smaller sized files...I mean, isn't that the ultimate goal of lossy compression???

As a matter of fact, Ogg Media (Generally VP3...sometimes XviD + Vorbis) is becoming the preferred format for some Anime Fan-Subbers...for a good look at how to do OGM, look here and here...

What's even better about Ogg Vorbis is the format allows for tuning of algorithms even now (after the format is frozen)...

You should also check out the Dare To Compare page on Xiph's own site...

DivX 4.12 comes rather close to being MPEG-4 compliant, but I'd personally recommend XviD which is a GPL'ed implementation of MPEG-4. As such, there are some licensing issues, but it is probably the best MPEG-4 codec there is. DivX 3.11 is really good, but there are serious legal issues as well as future compatibility problems. There might be made a program that can convert DivX 3.11 AVI files to ISO MPEG-4 though. Read about that here. Here are a few quick URLs:

Doom9. The site about MPEG-4 encoding (and SVCDs and DVD-ripping).
Koepi's XviD site. Has binaries. Be gentle on the server folks... we don't want it slashdotted.

Doom9 also has a quick tutorial to make XviD do as you want. It's probably not optimal, but it ought to guarantee that you don't end up with a piece of crap.

DivX 4.12 comes rather close to being MPEG-4 compliant, but I'd personally recommend XviD which is a GPL'ed implementation of MPEG-4. As such, there are some licensing issues, but it is probably the best MPEG-4 codec there is. DivX 3.11 is really good, but there are serious legal issues as well as future compatibility problems. There might be made a program that can convert DivX 3.11 AVI files to ISO MPEG-4 though. Read about that here. Here are a few quick URLs:

Doom9. The site about MPEG-4 encoding (and SVCDs and DVD-ripping).
Koepi's XviD site. Has binaries. Be gentle on the server folks... we don't want it slashdotted.

Doom9 also has a quick tutorial to make XviD do as you want. It's probably not optimal, but it ought to guarantee that you don't end up with a piece of crap.

here

http://doom9.org

Thus, there is no real standard for "generic" 2x discs; those that claim to be are either re-labeled (and expensive) or (speculation) have "fake" identifiers -- the quality and compatability varies greatly, but suffice to say, most are quite poor.

Though, I did say that consumer DVD-R is here: Princo ($0.66) and Ritek ($1.00) both make fine (and cheap) 1x discs which can be burned at 2x using a "hacked" firmware. My experience suggests that Princo 1x media are good for 2x, although set-top compatability seems to suffer. Many have reported good luck with Riteks, although I've had poor luck with discs over 4.00 GB (full capacity is 4.38 GB).

Thus, there is no real standard for "generic" 2x discs; those that claim to be are either re-labeled (and expensive) or (speculation) have "fake" identifiers -- the quality and compatability varies greatly, but suffice to say, most are quite poor.

Though, I did say that consumer DVD-R is here: Princo ($0.66) and Ritek ($1.00) both make fine (and cheap) 1x discs which can be burned at 2x using a "hacked" firmware. My experience suggests that Princo 1x media are good for 2x, although set-top compatability seems to suffer. Many have reported good luck with Riteks, although I've had poor luck with discs over 4.00 GB (full capacity is 4.38 GB).

Although the main XviD site was taken down for 3 months, the community has still been going strong, testing and debugging the codec. You might want to check them out at their forum