Ebay and all of the various auction sites have been running ads offering information on how to burn DVDs onto CD-roms and make your own VCDs. I suspect this is a scam, but was curious if anyone knew anything about this or knew how to go about it.

It's very possible. I have a video capture card on my computer. Just play a dvd on your dvd player, capture the video as an mpg through the capture card, then convert the mpg to vcd format and burn it on cd.

The problem is you lose the video quality and the surround sound. Not really much point in my opinion.

Well the most popular way to rip a DVD is to convert the DVD-VOB file into an MPEG4 file and burn that to CD. The quality is pretty good but I don't recall this type of CD working on a VCD Player. You would be stuck with using your Computer for viewing it.

The information is out there for free. You can turn a DVD into a VCD. Usually not worth the time and effort but I am sure you want to decide that for yourself. Go check out www.vcdhelper.com. For some reason their site is down quite often. But here is the quick skinny on the process. You have to first rip the dvd using a ripper program. Second convert the ripped files into mpeg1 format that is VCD compliant. Third burn the mpeg1 file onto cdr as VCD format. With the programs I use it takes about 16 hours to complete the entire process. I make vcds of children's dvds so they do not ruin the original dvds. If you need more information email me.

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In before the lock.

actually, the brand new top o' the line Macintosh comes with a CDRW/DVDR drive and new iDVD software.. lets you make your own DVDs that you can watch right on your DVD player

Dunno how it all works but I'm sure there'll be ways to duplicate DVDs or whatever soon too, but I dunno if it'll be legal, and if it ain't legal it'll stay being "geek" programs that are a pain to use and figure out

The new Mac iDVD system wont be able to "duplicate" DVD titles that have been copyright protected by the studios. There are two different types of DVD-R media. The first type is called General Use DVD-R, and it is made in a way that prevents copy protected content from being copied onto the disc. The second type is called Authoring Use DVD-R and is made in a way that allows DVD title developers to create DVD titles with copy protection enabled for testing purposes.

Now before you rush out and buy a bunch of the "Authoring" type media discs so you can use an iMac to copy DVD titles, you need to understand that blank authoring media will actually be more expensive than the price of a typical DVD-Video title. General use DVD-R media will sell for about $10 per disc, while authoring media will sell for $25 per disc.


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Ralph LaBarge
AlphaDVD
[email protected]



[This message has been edited by rlabarge (edited January 10, 2001).]

Check out Apple's new iDVD program. You can author and burn your own DVD's to playback on any DVD player!

http://www.apple.com/idvd/

All you need is a Computer w/DVD player and DeCSS and you can rip a DVD to a HD and then create a VCD.

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My DVD/LD List
My Home Theater Equipment

Apples DVD burner will initially only be available on TOL models, then eventually made available for lesser models.

Also, they are only charging $10 per blank, and burned dvds will work in any consumer DVD player, PC-based or home entertainment style.

hey...look for a prog called "clad DVD" it's great. It puts vob files on a hard drive and takes off copywriting i.e. macrovision. From there you can convert into mpeg vcd or svcd--both of which you can play on a vcd player or computer. yeah...mpeg 4 is on pc only

For clarification:

Macrovision is not a digital copy protection system, it does not prevent the digital ripping or duplication of data from a DVD. Macrovision is an analog system that embeds added signals in the analog output to prevent duplication of a DVD via traditional video outputs.


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