Is that a DVD in your Pocket? DVD to Pocket PC Reviewed

[Anthony Caruana]

We've all heard about the wonderful multimedia capabilities of the Pocket PC. For a long time, we saw it as what separated the Pocket PC from the Palm. Listening to your music on a Pocket PC is pretty easy - just copy the MP3 or WMA to a storage card or your device and <i>voila </i>- your Pocket PC is a jukebox. But watching a movie has not been quite as easy. That's where <b>DVD to Pocket PC </b>steps in. This application rips and encodes a DVD to fit it onto a storage card for viewing on your Pocket PC.<br /><br /> <img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/caruana-jan04-dvd2ppc-0.jpg" /> <br /><!><i>DVD to Pocket PC sets out to do what can already be done by a number of other tools. What makes it special is that it does with one tool and a single button push what is usually done by a combination of other tools and lots of messing around. Instead of using an application, like <a href="http://www.sofotex.com/Super-DVD-ripper-download_L8731.html">Super DVD Ripper</a>, to extract the DVD movie and then something like <a href="http://www.virtualdub.org">Virtual Dub</a> to encode the movie, DVD to Pocket PC rolls all of those function and settings into a very clean interface with a single button. Is it perfect? I think it's pretty good but there are some little things I'd like to addressed.</i><br /><br /><span><b>Getting Started</b></span><br />Once you've downloaded DVD to Pocket PC you'll need to install it. You'll need a computer running Windows XP to do that. According to the <a href="http://www.makayama.com/dvdtopocketpc.html">Makayama Web site</a> other operating systems are not supported. The installation required just over 12MB for installation and requires that you have the Microsoft Windows Media Player Series 9 Encoder also installed. <br /><br /> <img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/caruana-jan04-dvd2ppc-1.jpg" /> <br /><br />If you don't have it, the DVD to Pocket PC installer will prompt you to download and install it.<br /><br /> <img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/caruana-jan04-dvd2ppc-2.jpg" /> <br /><br />Finally, your PC will need to have a DVD drive and Codec installed. I use <a href="http://www.gocyberlink.com target=">Cyberlink PowerDVD</a>. On the Pocket PC side of things you'll need a device running Windows Mobile 2003 to view movies.<br /><br /><span><b>How did I Test</b></span><br />Once installed, DVD to Pocket PC is very easy to use. Although there are a myriad of settings for you to tinker with, you can be up and running a few seconds after starting the software and putting a movie in your DVD drive. For the purposes of this review I used a Region 4 copy of <a href="http://www.startrek.com/startrek/view/series/MOV/008/index.html">Star Trek First Contact</a>. The movie has a run time of about 104 minutes. My PC is a Celeron 2.4 GHz running Windows XP Professional with 1 GB of RAM and about 25 GB of free disk space.<br /><br /><span><b>Let it Rip!</b></span><br />Once the DVD was in the drive, I started DVD to Pocket and hit the single <b>Open</b> button on the screen. <br /><br /> <img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/caruana-jan04-dvd2ppc-3.jpg" /> <br /><br />This brought up a selection window so that I could pick which track to rip from the DVD. On a DVD with a single movie this is usually the track with the longest run time. <br /><br /> <img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/caruana-jan04-dvd2ppc-4.jpg" /> <br /><br />You'll also notice that the DVD is playing in the application window within the image of the Pocket PC. Even the buttons on the Media Player work! Once you've finished messing around with that you can press the <b>Start</b> button on the screen and DVD to Pocket PC rips the movie from the disk and stores it on your hard drive. <br /><br /> <img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/caruana-jan04-dvd2ppc-5.jpg" /> <br /><br />The ripped file is then encoded to work on the Pocket PC. <br /><br /> <img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/caruana-jan04-dvd2ppc-6.jpg" /> <br /><br />The entire process took about five hours on my computer and, once started, did not require any intervention from me. During the entire ripping and encoding processes the CPU on my computer was running at close to 100%. Memory use was pretty low. This indicates that the more processing power you throw at this, the faster it will run. The developer recommends running it after a clean reboot, with no other applications running.<br /><br />The ripped DVD file, prior to encoding was stored to the root of my hard drive and was about 1 GB in size. The final file, converted to run on my Pocket PC from a 256 MB SD card was 208 MB in size. It was stored on the desktop of my PC and was called DVD.wmv. You can then copy the file to your Pocket PC either by using a card reader (recommended) or through Activesync (if you're patient).<br /><br />While ripping and converting my DVD I did experience one rather annoying piece of behaviour. On a couple of occassions, I just left the software to do its thing while I went out. When I returned a few hours later it had stopped after ripping the DVD and did not start the conversion to Pocket PC format. It seemed to me that DVD to Pocket PC was unable to invoke the Windows Media Player Encoder to do the second half of the process. Fortunately, if this happens, you don't have to start over as there is a menu option (Options | Special) to start from Step 2 of the process.<br /><PAGEBREAK> <br /><span><b>Support and Documentation</b></span><br />Even though the process for extracting and encoding the DVD is really simple, Makayama have an online guide <a href="http://www.makayama.com/dvdhow.html">here</a> to guide you through the process.<br /><br />Also, when I had questions, the developer answered my emails promptly and clearly.<br /><br /><span><b>Configuration</b></span><br />Like all audio and video encoders, DVD to Pocket PC supports a myriad of different options for manipulating the result of your DVD rip and encoding. Some of the options are pretty obvious such as output volume and subtitles. Others require a little more knowledge about encoding. I found that the default settings delivered a reasonable result.<br /><br /> <img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/caruana-jan04-dvd2ppc-7.jpg" /> <br /><br /><span><b>But is it Any Good?</b></span><br />Well, like they say, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. I watched First Contact on Spike, my iPAQ 2210, from a Sandisk 256 MB SD card. The sound quality was pretty good. Even though I only use a pair of <i>el cheapo</i> headphones I could clearly hear everything and it was, in my mind, good enough. The video quality was OK as well but, not suprisingly, there was some loss as a result of the encoding. In some scenes, especially when looking a solid areas with lots of shading, there was some pixelation. Also, in scenes where the camera slowly pans around or zooms in on a subject, there is some slight jerkiness. That said, the movie was certainly watchable. Given the limitations of the Pocket PC screen neither of these issues was enough to make the movie unwatchable.<br /><br />I also encoded the same movie for a 128 MB card. Interestingly, according to my operating system, the file was 132 MB in size, even though I specified the final file to fit on a 128 MB memory card. After raising this with the developer, I found out there is a limitation. Only movies up to 100 minutes in length can be encoded to fit on a 128 MB card. The limitation moves up to 150 minutes for a 256 MB card.<br /><br />I found that it was easier to think of the two modes "Normal" and "High" quality rather than 128 MB and 256 MB modes. If you want to fit a movie that is longer than 150 MB on a 256 MB card then use the "Normal" or 128 MB Card mode.<br /><br />As an indication, First Contact, with a 104 minute runtime, created a 208 MB file in "High Quality" or 256 MB mode and 138 MB in "Normal" or 128 MB mode. My guess is that you should get pretty close to fitting a three hour movie onto a 256 MB card if you use the "Normal" mode.<br /><br />So that you can get an idea of the difference between the modes, you can view a sample of each mode's output. Here's the <a href="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/128sample.wmv"> "Normal" quality output</a>, and here's the <a href="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/256sample.wmv"> "High" quality output</a>. Based on the rips I did, there isn't too much difference in the movie quality of the final products.<br /><br />As for playback quality, my eyes tell me that the "Normal" quality encoded movie was watchable but showed a little more pixelation and slightly more jerkiness that the "High" quality mode. Sound quality wasn't much different between the two with enough depth for me. Given the limitations of the Pocket PC screen I felt that encoding to the "Normal" quality level would be good enough for most people. <br /><br /><b><span>Gotchas</span></b><br />Overall, DVD to Pocket PC is a pretty nice application. However, there are some things I'd like to see addressed in future releases.<br /><br /><li>The application only supports Windows XP and Windows Mobile 2003 devices. While both of these operating systems are current, there are many PCs and Pocket PCs out there that are one generation behind. Support for Windows 2000 and Pocket PC 2002 would be nice.<br /><br /><li>When I first tried to use the software I received an error message that prompted me to reset all of the user options back to the defaults. I had never altered these settings but some things did change when I did this. The software then worked.<br /><br /><li>For legal reasons this software may not be used by citizens of the U.S. and Malaysia to convert copy-protected DVDs.<br /><br /><li>On a couple of occassions the ripped DVD was not encoded. You can use the Step 2 only mode if this happens but it's still annoying.<span><b>Where To Buy</b></span><br />The software can be <a href="http://www.handango.com/brainstore/PlatformProductDetail.jsp?siteId=311&productId=94375">purchased directly from Handango</a>. There is a trial version available that is fully featured but enly encodes the first few minutes of a DVD for viewing on a Pocket PC. The full version costs $24.99 USD. [Affiliate]<br /><br /><b><span>Conclusions</span></b><br />DVD to Pocket PC works effectively and fulfils its <i>raison d'etre</i>. It converts movies with little user intervention, delivering output of a reasonable quality. Is it worth $25? I'm not sure. Although you can achieve the same result using some free tools, they require you to set more options and provide manual input. As I'm not an expert at ripping and encoding DVDs I would prefer to use DVD to Pocket PC. It's easy and works. Check out the <a href="http://www.makayama.com/">Makayama Web site</a> for more information about this application.

[OSUKid7]

Interesting idea, but I'm still not sure if I'd want to spend five hours ripping a DVD just to watch it on a four inch screen.

[rugerx]

Anthony, what speed Computer were you using ? 5hrs seems reaaallly slow.

[Pat Logsdon]

Anthony, what speed Computer were you using ? 5hrs seems reaaallly slow.
My PC is a Celeron 2.4 GHz running Windows XP Professional with 1 GB of RAM and about 25 GB of free disk space.
:wink:

[mgd]

I love this software. I've already converted the first two seasons of Star Trek:DS9 and it was a no-brainer. I just leave it running at night, and in the morning I have a new episonde to watch. I then leave it running while I'm at work. I've converted using multiple programs, but after using this one, I'm never going back.

[Jonathon Watkins]

Hmmm, I'd be interested in seeing what kinds of time an Athlon 3200+ or a 3Ghz PIV would give. Definately an interesting area to watch (boom, boom! :wink: ).

[sponge]

Yet another completly legitimate use outlawed due to the corporate greed.

[surur]

Interesting idea, but I'm still not sure if I'd want to spend five hours ripping a DVD just to watch it on a four inch screen.

If you are like me and leave your computers on 24/7, you can always leave it overnight or while you are at work. Interesting software, and I feel tempted to buy it before it gets banned here in the UK, and while (ironically) the dollar is so weak, making it cheaper.

Surur

[OSUKid7]

Interesting idea, but I'm still not sure if I'd want to spend five hours ripping a DVD just to watch it on a four inch screen.

If you are like me and leave your computers on 24/7, you can always leave it overnight or while you are at work. Interesting software, and I feel tempted to buy it before it gets banned here in the UK, and while (ironically) the dollar is so weak, making it cheaper.

Surur
Yeah, I guess...I do leave my pc on 24/7, so I could do this. But then again, I'm a heavy anti-piracy advocate, and this boarders on piracy which is why it may be banned. On top of that, I don't own any DVDs lol...just rent the movie when I want to watch it.

[Perry Reed]

Excellent review! I have a question, though... What do you mean when you say it won't work on Pocket PC 2002? I played your sample file with no problem on my old Jornada 568 running PPC2002. It ran quite well, in fact.

As for the piracy issue, why should the media companies care if I rip my own DVD for my personal use on my Pocket PC? Now if I shared the files, that'd certainly be a different story. But for my own use, I thought all of that was ok.

[thanos255]

FYI for some people. I don't believe this is illegal otherwise it would not be sold right? :)

I am not starting a debate......just thought I would share some info. It is up to the moderators to keep the link up.

http://www.slysoft.com/en/anydvd.html


Thanks
Thanos

[Jonathon Watkins]

.... this boarders on piracy which is why it may be banned. On top of that, I don't own any DVDs lol...just rent the movie when I want to watch it.

Fair point. I guess that many people will get this, rent/borrow a DVD and rip for their personal use. But - what are the implications of renting a DVD, not watching it, ripping it, watching it one and then deleting it? Probably ethically OK, but legally not. :idea:

I regularly borrow DVDs from friends who have bought them. So, I am not paying the industry any money to watch them. I can see how this software could end up getting banned though. :?

[brianchris]

But then again, I'm a heavy anti-piracy advocate, and this boarders on piracy which is why it may be banned.

Read the Gotchas....it already is banned if you live in the U.S. (and I believe you're in Ohio, right?).

Also, this thread could quickly turn into a piracy discussion, BUT I'm fairly anti-piracy too. This product, however, is not piracy if the legitimate owner of the DVD is using it on their PocketPC. As one user already mentioned, if someone started selling (or even sharing for free) the converted movies, that IS piracy. Also, I'd agree that if the Movie Studios offered these films for sale to view on the PocketPC (which they don't currently do), then this program becomes much more involved with piracy, but as it is now, if the owner of the DVD is the only user of this program, that is not piracy.

-Brian

[tuf]

The program comes with a disclaimer that it will rip about 90% of the DVDs out there. The first thing I did with it was try to rip Two Towers, which it would not do.

Does the author have any experience with this? Any word on what sort of DVDs will work and which wont?

Joe

[Ekkie Tepsupornchai]

Yeah, I guess...I do leave my pc on 24/7, so I could do this. But then again, I'm a heavy anti-piracy advocate, and this boarders on piracy which is why it may be banned. On top of that, I don't own any DVDs lol...just rent the movie when I want to watch it.
I don't consider it piracy if you're making copies of your own DVDs for your own viewing purposes. So I wouldn't consider this software or any of the freeware ripping tools to be "bordering on piracy" as they are only tools. It's the action that one chooses to take that would separate piracy from personal uses.

[thanos255]

Tuf,

read my post above...

Thanos

[whydidnt]

FYI for some people. I don't believe this is illegal otherwise it would not be sold right? :)

Thanos

Actually this is not for sale in the US, according to the review. According to the DMCA it is illegal to circumvent copy protection, EVEN if you will only be taking advantage of your "fair use" rights. One more reason consumers interested in protecting their rights should be writing their congressmen to get this ridiculous law overturned.

There are some software developers that have decided to release software that allows circumventing the copy protection in the US, attempting to fight the legal battle even as they release the software. However, I can understand why developers such as those for DVD to PocketPC have elected not try and fight that battle - the market for this type of software is too small to warrant the potential legal expenses. If it's ever available in the US I am a definite customer.

whydidnt

[Icebaron]

Everything this software does can be done by free applications which are not very difficult to use. If I'm reading the review correctly, this software even uses microsoft's encoder and the dvd decoding software that came with your dvd drive. I'd pay five dollars for the convenience to do it all in one step, but 25? Yeah, right.

Also, even if the idiotic DMCA didn't block consumers' fair use rights in the US, I could see this thing running into legal battles in the states. I'm sure HP loves the fact that they used a picture of the 2215 to represent ppc in their software.

[cruiserdiva]

I am not for piracy however I do believe that if I pay for a DVD that I should be able to view it as I see fit and make a backup copy. I have kids and they have trashed lots of expensive dvd's. If I was to rent a dvd, convert it so that I can view it on my PPC, then return the movie, what harm has this done? What difference could it possible make if I view it on my home tv or on my "pocket tv"? I don't want to start anything here...just wanted to get my thoughts out.

[cruiserdiva]

I forgot to add that I live in the US and have the software. I purchased it from Handango with no problems.

[Jason Dunn]

Anthony, what speed Computer were you using ? 5hrs seems reaaallly slow.

Actually, not really - compressing video is perhaps the most demanding thing you can ask your computer to do.

[OSUKid7]

I guess I started quite a discussion :lol:. Does anyone know where I can find the exact copyright laws/guidelines for music and movies online? I'm guessing these are somewhere on fcc.gov, but I've never found them.

[invaders]

I asked the developer about the legal status of DVD-to-Pocket PC in the US and got this answer:

"In 145 countries in the world, our software as the same legal status as any other software program that converts digital content into another format. For example iTunes from Apple, which allows Audio-CD to be converted into AAC or numerous MP3-conversion programs. As long as people use it to convert CDs they legally own, for their personal use it is perfectly legal, and it's internationally accepted copyrigt law to do so. What you can NOT do as an end-user, is distribute the converted file or give it to others. That's why peer-to-peer systems face legal problems.

The only countries that have additional copyright laws regarding DVD are the USA and Malayia. As you know, the Digital Copyright Millenium Act prevents unlocking the content scrambling system (css) and Macrovision protection on DVD-disks. So US customers can not use our software to copy their protected DVDs. We state that very clearly on our website, on the website of the distributor (Handango) and in the License Agreement to which customers agree when installing the software. However, our software also has an option to turn CSS and Macrovision OFF. It can therefore be used to convert unprotected DVDs, such as DVDs with home movies or other content. It's the personal and legal responsability of every customer in the US to abide to the rules set in laws and the License Agreement.

We also mentioned Norway as an exception on our website, but the outcome of the recent highcourt judgement on DeCSS has now taken away all limitations for Norwegian customers to use our software.

In general, Makayama Software supports Fair Use and thinks the DCMA is
preventing US customers to make lawful use of content they payed for.
But we don't want to be frontrunners in legal and political battles,
because we are a two-men company and can't afford expensive lawyers."

Sounds convincing enough to me.

[dean_shan]

Looks like it saves you a lot of time. Much easier then encoding yourself with free encoders/rippers.

[Brad Adrian]

Interesting idea, but I'm still not sure if I'd want to spend five hours ripping a DVD just to watch it on a four inch screen.
Sure, it's not optimal to watch a movie on a Pocket PC, but when I take trips without my Notebook or when I don't want to bother getting it out and running, I like to do this.

[surur]

Of note, there is no such thing as "fair use" in the UK, so even making MP3's (from your own CD) are illegal.

Surur

[Anthony Caruana]

Excellent review! I have a question, though... What do you mean when you say it won't work on Pocket PC 2002? I played your sample file with no problem on my old Jornada 568 running PPC2002. It ran quite well, in fact.


The stated specifications on the developer's web site specifically say Pocket PC 2003. As I don't have a PPC2000 or PPC2002 I was not able to test that claim.

As for the fair-use and piracy discussion. Next time the tooth fairy, the Easter Bunny or Santa visit you please wish for some sane laws that are internationally consistent that give consumers the right to listen to or watch the music and movies they buy anywhere and anytime but somehow stop the illegal sharing of digital media. I think that will make everyone happy.

[Perry Reed]

The stated specifications on the developer's web site specifically say Pocket PC 2003. As I don't have a PPC2000 or PPC2002 I was not able to test that claim.

Well, for the record, it does seem to work on PPC2002.


As for the fair-use and piracy discussion. Next time the tooth fairy, the Easter Bunny or Santa visit you please wish for some sane laws that are internationally consistent that give consumers the right to listen to or watch the music and movies they buy anywhere and anytime but somehow stop the illegal sharing of digital media. I think that will make everyone happy.

All unwaranted sarcasm aside, I believe someone else responded with the pertinant (and useful) information. It's not the copying, but rather the removal of the CSS and Macrovision copy protection that's the issue.

However, I do not believe that simply creating "sane laws" will solve the issue of piracy vs. fair-use copying. What is needed is "sane policies" of the media companies with regards to recognizing that the current ways of distributing content (CDs and DVDs) are woefully outdated and in need of replacement. They are starting to come around with the arrival of various music services, but a lot more work remains.

[adamz]

Interesting idea, but I'm still not sure if I'd want to spend five hours ripping a DVD just to watch it on a four inch screen.

It's cool to have a couple movies on your Pocket PC on long road trips with a number of people. I've been on trips where we'd watch two movies with the Pocket PC plugged into the car stereo so everyone could hear. Obviously the driver couldn't look at the screen too often though.

[The Yaz]

My friend from Canada got this program as soon as it was announced on this web site. He has shown me successful rips of both Lord of the Rings movies (each was encoded on the 128mg quality and totaled 220megs each).

They were okay to view, and other than the battle scenes the sound was acceptable. He has a 512meg CF card and is enjoying showing off this technology during lunches.

I know I was feeling bitter but my remark was "Nice program-hope it works when the higher vga pocketpc's come out."

Steve 8)

[ikesler]

I have had this app since the day it came out....... and have ripped about 20 films....... and watched about 10 on planes going back east from Los Angeles. Works extremely well for me, I am very happy. It's great to have a one app tool for this rather than doing all the work involved with the free techniques. On my 4155, with the extended battery and a 512 card.........I can watch 2 full movies: CaddyShack and Something about Mary the other night......... and still have quite a bit of battery left over. The sound is great with a good set of phones, and the picture gets comments everywhere I am when I am watching......... flight attendents can't get over how small it is and how good it looks.
The newest version is better and the developer said he is working on the next release now........... so it might even get better! By the way I live in the US......... and I ONLY burn dvd's that I OWN!

[zynaps]

http://www.pocketreview.net/default.asp?section=article&id=9

[jngold_me]

I just want to add that the app still doesn't play well with the OS. Even the latest version leaves duplicate instances of the application processes running even though the app was closed. The best advice is to run this app upon startup or go to task manager and make sure all the instances are shut down.

[sponge]

RE: Pricing: This is definitely aimed at the novice user, even with those options, there's still so much power you can get by using your own programs, including different formats, etc. Looks like it's pretty good for the price though.

[Ekkie Tepsupornchai]

RE: Pricing: This is definitely aimed at the novice user, even with those options, there's still so much power you can get by using your own programs, including different formats, etc.
That's one of the reasons I don't pay too much attention to one-button solutions... there are so many configuration tweaks that I enjoy making with my video, which I think show in the results... I've gotten my process to a point where I can rip most movies with only about 10-20 minutes of dedicated computer (allowing my computer to run unattended for the remaining 4-5 hours).

[jeffmd]

As someone who knows very well about videos and getting them on pocket pc's, this certainly isnt the best solution, but its definetly the FIRST to offer one touch, pc to pocket pc movie conversions, no questions asked, wham, bam, thank you mam, and it actually WORKS! (ok I havnt tried it, but I run win2k, not xp).

Sure divx gives you great quality, but you have to get the video into an avi with as little loss as possible (that usualy means I convert it to huffyUV format, which is kind of like zip for avi, compressed lossless video. This means the avi files can be huge, a dvd is generally out of the question, as the resulting avi would be like 20+ gigs) and then setting up vdub to do 2-6 passes.

Lets hope this leads the way to bigger and better things. Maybe if the pocket pc player would be upgraded (2002 and 2003) to preform well, wmv9 is not a bad format. How ever I think its more cpu intensive then divx.

[Tom W.M.]

Anthony, what speed Computer were you using ? 5hrs seems reaaallly slow.
Actually, not really - compressing video is perhaps the most demanding thing you can ask your computer to do.
Seems slow to me. It usually only takes me slightly longer than the duration of the video to transcode it to a similar DivX file suitable for PocketMVP—and I'm using a 900 Mhz. Duron with 256 MB RAM. Even if we add a generous amount of time for the DVD ripping (since I'm transcoding from my hard disk), and allow for WMV being more processor intensive than DivX (as Jeffmd said), it still seems like an excessive amount of time for encoding a video of that length.

Reaaallly slow.

[Ketsugi]

Firstly, while the software does seem to make the DVD->PPC conversion process very simple, it also seems to be very lacking in features. Given the description of the "High" and "Normal" modes, it would appear that the software uses a constant bitrate compression scheme. I don't know much about the WM9 video codec, but it seems rather silly to me that a software designed to encode video to fit into a specific filesize doesn't use a variable bitrate video codec. I've personally used VirtualDub to encode video for my Pocket PC, and encoding into DivX3 3.11 or XviD with their VBR capabilities seems like a much more viable and useful option to me.

As for encoding time, it generally takes me about 15 minutes to encode a 25 minute video. Extrapolating from this it would take approximately an hour to encode a 100-minute video. The quoted time taken of 5 hours does seem excessively long. Perhaps long encoding times are inherent to the Windows Media video codecs; all I know is that I won't be using this software to encode any movies for myself, although less informed consumers will find it a welcome and useful tool.

[Ketsugi]

wrt jeffmd: you don't /have/ to encode the vob into a huffy file. If you follow the guides at doom9.org, you can use DVD2AVI, TMPGenc and VFAPI to create a wrapper file that VirtualDub can use to access the vob directly. It's several steps and can sometimes be complex, but you don't really need so much hard disk space.

And 2-6 passes? I've never heard of anyone doing more than 2.

[Music Attorney]

OSUKid7 asks: Does anyone know where I can find the exact copyright laws/guidelines for music and movies online?

Not sure such a place exists and, frankly, I’m glad it doesn’t because it might put me out of business ;-) Seriously, copyright law is an incredibly complex web of statutes, case law, etc. However, the good news is that you don’t need to know about copyright law to answer the question of why the makers of the software entitled "DVD to Pocket PC" are concerned about selling their product in the U.S. As was pointed out previously, the issue concerns anti-circumvention and not copyright. What I’m about to write is not a comment on what the law should be. It’s just an attempt to let you know what it is.

BACKGROUND

Congress enacted the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (“DMCA”) in 1998, to bring the U.S. in line with the World Intellectual Property Organization Copyright Treaty (“Treaty”). The Treaty requires signatories to, among other things, “provide adequate legal protection and effective legal remedies against the circumvention of effective technological measures that are used by authors in connection with the exercise of their rights… and that restrict acts, in respect of their works, which are not authorized by the authors concerned or permitted by law.” While considering the DMCA, Congress was faced with attempting to comply with the Treaty, combat piracy, preserve fair use rights, and all of it had to be done in accordance with the Constitution. Ultimately, the DMCA contained an anti-circumvention provision that prohibits the use of circumvention technology.

THE LAW

Section 1201(a)(1)(A) of the DMCA says “No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a" copyrighted work.

Section 1201(b)(1) says “No person shall… offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in any technology… that is… produced for the purpose of circumventing protection afforded by a technological measure that… protects a right of a copyright owner….”

So you ask, what does “circumventing protection afforded by a technological measure” mean? Funny you should ask because the statute just happens to answer that question. It means “avoiding, bypassing, removing, deactivating, or otherwise impairing a technological measure” which I think is sufficiently broad language to cover most things. Certainly, ripping a commercial DVD that has content protection on it would qualify.

CONCLUSION

Thus, some software vendors are hesitant to “offer to the public” a “technology…that is… produced for the purpose of circumventing protection afforded by a technological measure that… protects a right of a copyright owner….”


But wait! What about Fair Use?

FAIR USE

The first legal challenge that squarely pitted the notion of fair use against the anti-circumvention provision of the DMCA came in Universal City Studios, Inc. v. Reimerdes. The pertinent facts were as follows (i) All major movie studios encrypt DVD movies with “Content Control System” (CSS) so that the movies cannot be copied to a computer hard drive or other discs; (ii) A Norwegian teenager reversed engineered CSS and created a computer program called "DeCSS"; (iii) DeCSS allowed users to circumvent CSS technology and freely copy and manipulate DVD movies; and (iv) the movie studios filed suit to stop the dissemination of DeCSS.

Specifically on point for purposes of this thread, the defendants claimed that DeCSS allowed users to make fair use of copyrighted works under the traditional meaning of the term, and could not be banned by the DMCA. You can read for yourself below, but the appeals court agreed with the trial court and concluded that fair use is not a defense to violations of the DMCA. In essence, the court said that fair use was a defense to "copyright infringement" only, while the defendants in this case were guilty of circumventing technologies that protect copyrights, not of infringing copyrights themselves.

If you read Universal City Studios, Inc. v. Reimerdes, you may conclude, as did I, the following:

1. “effectively control” does not mean “successfully control” as that would make the statute worthless.

2. The purpose for which the anti-circumvention device was invented is irrelevant because there is no intent requirement under the DMCA. 1201(a)(1)(A) simply says don’t do it.

3. the court agreed that while some technological measures do prevent some fair use, Congress did not put a fair use section in the DMCA as it relates to CIRCUMVENTION.

Lest there still be any doubt regarding the applicability of Fair Use to the DMCA, I will leave you with this quote from the case:

“The policy concerns raised by defendants were considered by Congress. Having considered them, Congress crafted a statute that, so far as the applicability of the fair use defense to Section 1201(a) claims is concerned, is crystal clear. In such circumstances, courts may not undo what Congress so plainly has done by construing the words of a statute to accomplish a result that Congress rejected. The fact that Congress elected to
leave technologically unsophisticated persons who wish to make fair use of encrypted copyrighted works without the technical means of doing so is a matter for Congress unless Congress’ decision contravenes the Constitution, a matter to which the Court turns below. Defendant’s statutory fair use argument therefore is entirely without merit.”

[Bill Gunn]

The program comes with a disclaimer that it will rip about 90% of the DVDs out there. The first thing I did with it was try to rip Two Towers, which it would not do.

Does the author have any experience with this? Any word on what sort of DVDs will work and which wont?

Joe

Using DVD Shrink, I have found that many DVD's will not rip from a DVD writer but will rip when read from a plain old DVD ROM drive. I ripped Two Towers with DVD Shrink then encoded it with Media Encoder 9. The whole process took less than two hours on a Athlon 2800+.

[scottdw]

This software is great but one problem I have ran into is the ability to easily change where it looks for the dvd. I first ran it from a dvd I had ripped to my hard drive and it worked fine but then I wanted to try it with an actual dvd but had a hard time telling it to look at the dvd drive.
What I had to do was rename the directory on the hard drive that had the ripped DVD and then the program asked me where I wanted to get the dvd from.
This should be a little easier or am I missing something.

[jeffmd]

Ketsugi, your processes seem a bit dated.. divx 3.11? doom9 has ruled 3.11 defunct, both 5.x and xvid outperform 3.11 completely. Xvid has really taken off in the last 2 months, taking honers with doom9's latest test. I think this mainly has to do with divx 5.x's extremely slow encoding. How ever I like divx 5.x best because on radeon cards, it uses the GPU to do full post processing during playback. ^^

anyways.. as for the dvd2avi tools to create a wrapper, yes thats far to complex then with what I would care to mess with. I don't usually mess with dvd -> avi conversions anyways, if I want a movie for avi purposes, i'll download one of the good quality rips from the newsgroups.

and lastly, never heard of anyone doing more then 2 passes? well first it doesn't sound like you use divx 5.x much, second when working with a tiny 250kbit video stream (my usual for pocket mvp) you want to use as many methods as possible to minimize loss of visual quality. Full pre processing and multiple pass are 2 of the 3 best ways (3rd being use a higher data rate ;) ). Many peeps say after 6 passes you barley notice a difference, but I usually have my videos (I usually encode anime episodes.. 24 minute pieces) setup to encode over night, so it doesn't matter if I use more passes then I really need.

[PetiteFlower]

Music Attorney, you rock! Thanks for all that info!

Here is what I think: I understand why the court ruled the way it did against the software developer. However I think in a case of someone being sued for ACTUALLY copying discs that he owned under fair use, the court would rule differently and could (should) result in the elimination of the anti-circumvention clause FOR USERS, not for developers. For a variety of reasons, I don't think such a lawsuit will ever happen, among other reasons because I don't think even the movie studios believe they could win that one. But I believe a defense of "I circumvented the copy protection because it was interfering with my legal copying of my own media under fair use" would be successful. The DMCA seems to contain a paradox then--it claims that it does not restrict fair use, yet it contains the anti-circumvention clause which DOES restrict fair use when it comes to protected media. This conflict really needs to be resolved! Personally, based on my small layman's understanding of copyright law, in a battle between Fair Use and anti-circumvention, fair use will win. It's something at the heart of copyright law and it's a free speech issue--this is right of parody as well as just right to have backup copies. But the issue needs to come before the court before it can be decided *sigh*

Of course even if it becomes legal to circumvent for one's own fair use(and for my part, I behave as if it IS legal and go ahead and sue me big brother, I dare you), it still won't necessarily become legal to distribute technology which accomplishes the circumvention. That's a separate issue. But I think it's dangerous to outlaw something just because it CAN be used for illegal purposes. The software isn't evil in and of itself, it's all in the user! Maybe someday after this law has been dismantled, DVDs will come with a key like you get with games now, that you'll have to enter into your (included on the DVD) ripping software to allow you to rip it. That still won't prevent people from sharing stuff that they've ripped, but hey, taken a look on Kazaa or any of the other fileshare networks lately? Nothing will prevent piracy entirely. But the movie and music producers need to find a way to protect their rights without infringing on mine. Go after the people actually breaking the law, quit trying to outlaw technology!

[tourdewolf]

Quite frankly this software has yet to perform. Using ipaq 2215 and 5 different dvds I tried it on 3 different machines (all xp pro) 2.4 P4 - Geforce 4200, Cel 1.1 Diamond viper, 2.8 P4 Ati radeon 9600. All with ample (over 200gb) hard drive space. On the first machine there were numerous program error msgs, no profile etc, all were discussed with the developer via email resulting in resolution for only a couple. On the second and third machines the software seemed to work but would always hang between step 1 and 2, resolved by using the special menu to jumpstart the encoding of the mpg file into wmv (first pass creates an mpg file). On 2 dvds the program would pause and ask if I wanted to fill the audio buffer with blank audio. Still the result was only average video and a horrible delay in audio (nearly a 1/2 second). Granted this is a great idea and I am in full support but this latest version is not ready for prime time. IMO I feel that the developer should be offering this as a beta version and not charging $25. Fortunately Handango has a 30 day return policy.

Edit:
Speaking of Handango service... As far as I can tell the return policy at Handango is non existent as well. I have requested a refund for this item 4 times and have yet to get a real response. (only an automated reply stating my message has been received). Great! Am I missing something? is there a way to request a refund other than the automated webform?

[aviator]

well I wanted to use this to get some music videos onto my iPAQ but since each music video is not stored in individual vob files and the IFO file offered to me in the open dialogue seems to be the full length of the whole disk, and since the start after and stop after options are so inflexible it has not proven possible to do this.

Has anyone else tried to get some music videos and perhaps has a tip?

In the meantime I have emailed the author with the suggestion to offer the ability to start and stop at fully user defined times

[Ekkie Tepsupornchai]

well I wanted to use this to get some music videos onto my iPAQ but since each music video is not stored in individual vob files and the IFO file offered to me in the open dialogue seems to be the full length of the whole disk, and since the start after and stop after options are so inflexible it has not proven possible to do this.

Has anyone else tried to get some music videos and perhaps has a tip?

In the meantime I have emailed the author with the suggestion to offer the ability to start and stop at fully user defined times
I can't speak for this WMEncoder solution, but this is certainly achievable ripping to DivX.

[aviator]

The author pointed out to me that in the sounds and subtitles options, video settings you can select index which does gives me the ability to select the song I want. This works on about 70% of my music videos so far but the others just have a single index of [00] for the total duration of the DVD

[Shaun Stuart]

Anyone know how to get this to encode so that it fills the screen on WM full screen mode.

I have tried both 16:9 and 4:3 modes but both still show in a letterbox format on my pocket pc - wasting a lot of space.

[sqesy]

I have the same experience. Actually widescreen has an aspect ratio of 2.35:1. DVD to Pocket PC cannot do anything with it.

Try "Pocket-DVD Studio" developed by www.pqdvd.com

It is much better than DVD to Pocket PC. Better quality, faster, more stable and easy to use customizing options. It has several cropping modes which support widescreen very well.

Anyone know how to get this to encode so that it fills the screen on WM full screen mode.

I have tried both 16:9 and 4:3 modes but both still show in a letterbox format on my pocket pc - wasting a lot of space.

[iPAQFanatic]

Bill Gunn,
I ripped Two Towers with DVD Shrink then encoded it with Media Encoder 9. The whole process took less than two hours on a Athlon 2800+.
Can you give me more info about using DVD Shrink and WME? That sounds interesting to me. What settings did you use? What type of file does Shrink save DVD as? Anything else you could add would be helpful.