Questions from a complete ignoramus and Luddite so far as TV/DVD/Video things are concerned

I have acquired a DVD from friends in Latin America - it is a 3 hour stage show by a guy best described as a sort of Spanish-speaking Mr Bean. The language is so fast there is no way i can follow it, but like Mr Bean you can appreciate a lot without the language

The DVD runs for 3 hours and the files equate to 8 gig

Question 1 - how the heck do they put 8 gig of files on a DVD? Of course, that may be fairly normal - just me being an ignoramus would not know that. However, all the DVDs I use on the computer are 4 and a bit gig

Question 2 - I would like to make a back up copy (honest!!) just in case the original gets damaged and because it would be so difficult to get a replacement. Obviously the disk is protected but I suspect these days such things are only a minor inconvenience, indeed even I have managed to use DVD43 and Nero to (I think) transfer an 8 gig file to the hard disk, and it seems to play under Windows Media Player - BUT I do not have a clue how to put it onto a "real" disk

Snod

8gb dvds are available £1 ? each from pc shops
Suggest you download dvddecrypter to copy the film

See, I told you I was an ignoramus

A visit to a PC shop seems to be next on the list
I presume my DVD writer will cope with 8 gig?

Thanks, Snod

I just KNEW there would be a snag

The shop offered me dual layer DVDs @ 8.something gig
Fine but according to the web pundits I need a different writer to be able to write to this sort of disk - and of course I do not have such a facility.

Quote"These discs are only writable on one side of the disc, but contain two layers on that single side for writing data to. They can hold up to 8.5GB on the two layers. A DVD Burner must include support for either DVD-R DL ,DVD+R DL, or both to be able to write to the Dual-Layer discs."


And plan B was . . . .

Snod

Snodvan i think these antique things are only 20 quid now anyway, jeeese gettin as bad as vhs, just buy hard drives to back your stuff up!

VHS ? I remember Betamax

Technically it was good but unsupportable. I believe that in a very smart move Sony "sold" the system to a South American country. For sure when I was there in '89 Betamax was the normal video system

However, we digress.

I feel sure a dual layer drive for my lappy will be more than £20 - and anyway there would be all the traumas of ensuring compatibility, fit etc. Suppose I could fit one in the desk machine but it hardly seems worth it given that the machine will be "retired" in the very near future ie when I have reloaded Win XP on the lappy and am happy it works

Snod

Yeah, dual layer recorders have come down in price a lot now.

You can pick up external USB ones for between £30 and £45 though if you wish to use it on your lappy.

Would these suffice;

Double sided DVD

Maybe, maybe

I am checking the specs of the drives on other machines to which I have access (eternal optimist) just in case one will cope with dual layer. The one I know will work . . . is in Manchester

Given that this is a one-off job I do not really want to invest in additional hardware

Snod

I used Nero to "investigate" the DVD drives on other machines - and it tells me that the drive in my little lappy will support dual layer write + or -

The handbook specs for the machine do not mention anything like that - 3 pages of "how to switch it on" and 5 on how to tune & use the PCMCIA TV tuner that came with it (crap it is - even with an electronic signal booster) but nothing useful.

We will see - I will get some dual layer disks today

Snod

i use DVD shrink it's a free package on the net and can shrink most things down to fit on a dvd. it compresses it u chose the ratio say less quality intro screen for better quality movie.. normaly shrink hings by about 60% and picture quality is fine.. hope this helps

Well, I bought the blank dual layer disks even though the guy in the shop said "you will never get them to work". A real salesman!

I decrypted the original disk into 71 individual files in a folder on the external hard drive.

I am now using Nero to burn those onto one of the dual layer disks. Initially Nero gave some messages like "this may not work do you want to continue?" I kept saying yes and then the burn process started

Interestingly and early message was "burning Layer 1" - so at least it recognises there are two layers. Just now it has started to burn layer 2

I live in hope - but at 2.3 KB/sec burn rate it will take a while to finish an 8 gig disk

Snod

How did you get on Snod?

It worked fine - sort of

(Sounds like a politician answering a question)

When the disk burn was complete I checked it first by playing it in the computer. Played PERFECT. Brilliant

Wonderful sense of self-achievement when an ignoramus can get something like that to work OK. Probably the average 16 year old nerdy-geek does this sort of rip off job several times a week, but I am a l-o-n-g way from being a 16 year old

Then I tried playing it on the DVD player attached to the TV - rejected. HOWEVER, that is not unusual for our DVD player. It is a smart-**** ie expensive (£175) Samsung player bought originally by my parents for our son. Son now lives mostly at Uni in the USA so we sort of inherited his DVD player. It is a real fussy machine. Plays dead straight "original" DVDs but usually laughs off anything made on the computer. There may be a way around this because sometimes, just sometimes, copies have been known to work.

In contrast my parents have a cheapo ASDA £16.99 DVD player and it seems to cope with absolutely anything without batting an eyelid. It even seems to be non-regional, although I have tested that only once or twice.

When I am a bit better (*) I will go to my parents house and test the disk on their DVD player

(*) Flu-like symptoms ie joint aches, headache, skin sensitivity, muscular weakness, temperature sometimes up and sometimes down - and especially feeling COLD/ shivery. Had it now since last Friday morning and today is the first day I have felt a bit better. Have not seen any Mexicans, kissed any pigs, indeed because I have been decorating in preparation for our son coming back from the USA on Saturday for summer college vacation I have hardly been out of the house for a week - so from where did I get the bug (yes I know it is a virus not a bacterium but 'bug' covers both)?

Snod

Thats great news

Theres a website which gives you a code to unlock your dvd player to play all regions, that may help you, i cannot remember the name of it but we have Toshiba dvd players and we just typed the model number and unlock in google and got the code to type in on the remote.

Give it a try, we unlocked ours due to buying american dvds as the films have more footage and extra features

It's not uncommon for the more expensive DVD players to refuse to play copied discs. And when they will, many don't seem to like playing DVD+ (but will play DVD- discs just fine).

DVDhacks.co.uk? Videohelp.com?