IT Werkz Sometimes

I’ve managed to get some movies on the iPhone using AnyDVD and Handbrake.

AnyDVD works OK and manages to rip just about any DVD you fling at it, even Blu-Ray apparently ferchrissakes. It’s quick too, ripping most movies in between 30 and 45 minutes. The Handbrake software, that converts those ripped movies to the MP4 format that the iPhone likes, takes longer though. Usually a couple of hours and some movies just fail to convert, stalling after several hours.

Once converted you just double click the file to get it into iTunes, or drag it in, and then check the file for it to be synced to the iPhone. The picture looks great as well. The file size is around the 1 gig size so you could get several movies onto the iPhone. I’ve demo’d them to several people and they have all been impressed, though I’m not sure if I’m ever going to actually watch a complete movie on it, it’s more of an experiment I suppose. Not that all movies have successfully synced onto the iPhone.

I’ve ripped, converted and loaded into iTunes OK several movies that have been checked into iTunes they resolutely refuse to sync. There was plenty of room for them, so that was not the cause of the problem. Just dunno. What has synced OK: Master and Commander, Die Hard 3, Event Horizon, The Aristocats (a-hem). What doesn’t sync: Pulp Fuction, Amazing Journey. What has been ripped OK with AnyDVD but failed to convert with Handbrake: A Few Dollars More. What does not even rip? Solaris.

Update 15/03/2009: I was having a lot of trouble with that version of Handbrake and eventually downloaded I newer version – 0.9.3 – which works much better and has converted, for instance ‘For A Few Dollars More’.

Go figure that.

Got another email from Slysoft the other day regarding the non working license key for CloneDVD.

Didn’t have the heart to give it another try till today and it worked. The previous license key/registration file they had sent would not update the registry as it was not a registry updating file i.e. a file with a .reg extension.

When I looked at the new file it appeared to be attempting to update the registry exactly the same way as the previous non working file. The only difference being the file type as displayed in Windows Explorer, this was a file with a .reg extension, so there was a fair chance it would work. The working version is of type ‘CloneDVD Registration Key’ and the always working AnyDVD registry file was of type ‘AnyDVD Registration Key’, which is consistent with the .reg extension.

The never working CloneDVD registry file was of type ‘CLONECD File’. Hmm..Clone CD? Well that was a bit of a Slysoft mashup wasn’t it. I’m surprised Slysoft let that mistake loose onto the great unwashed. I wonder how many other people have had trouble with this stuff?

Got the game Motorstorm for the PS3 and it plays great. Also tried several of my old non-HD DVD’s on the PS3 to see how the Blu-Ray upscaling was. For comparison purposes I also played a couple of minutes of the same films on the normal non-HD DVD player. There was definitely an improvement.

The picture quality of non-HD DVD’s played and upscaled on the Blu-Ray were closer to the picture quality of Blu-Ray disks themselves than they are to the picture quality when they are played on a non-HD DVD drive. And that’s a big deal, as whilst Blu-Ray disks are relatively expensive there is no reason to buy them as non-HD disks play so well. Bet I still do buy a few anyway. Let’s see, when’s Goodfella’s out on Blu-Ray?

AnyDVD, when you insert a DVD, pops up a message stating that it is ripping the DVD and I think states that when finished it will let me know. It doesn’t happen.

To get it to work you need to right click on the icon in the system tray and select  Rip DVD video To Harddisk. That works, everythings ripped, adverts, the lot. When I came to use DVDClone to write the ripped files to a blank DVD it failed as the total size of the ripped files was greater than the 4.7 gig capacity of a blank DVD, so you end up deleting unwanted VOB.

When using DVDClone as a standalone DVD copier i.e. clone the original disk, it just sits there. For some reason you need to enter the disk name but even then nothing happens. Hmmm…

Sony Vegas is good. The pdf documentation file is comprehensive but not really a Dummies guide so you just have to wade through it. There are a lot of concepts to understand. I used to use Cool Edit Pro to edit music files and Vegas is similarly time based so some of it is quite familiar but of course the addition of video is enough to mangle your mind a bit more.

Quote of the day

‘The task was, of course, impossible as well as heartbreaking. With tears in their eyes, the selection panels had thrown away the Veda, the Bible, the Tripitaka, the Qur’an, and all the immense body of literature – fiction and non-fiction – that was based upon them. Despite all the wealth of beauty and wisdom these works contained, they could not be allowed to reinfect virgin planets with the ancient poisons of religious hatred, belief in the supernatural, and the pious gibberish with which countless billions of men and women had once comforted themselves at the cost of addling their minds’ from The Songs Of Distant Earth (1986) by Arthur C Clarke