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Which is not bad at all considering my hardware configuration.

Intel PIII 600 Mhz 133fsb
256 megs Cas2 Cruical Tech
Leadtek Winfast Geforce 2
40 gig Western Dig HD
Win98SE
Plextor 708A
Memorex 4x DVD R+ (burned at 8x)

Nero 6 Ultra
Nero Recode 2
DVD Decryptor

I personally think that it is amazing that I can get DVDs backed up on my OLD system with perfect results. The backup copies look amazing (granted I did menu and movie only to keep compression below 10%) and all with multichannel soundtracks.

How much more blood can I squeeze out of this old PC??? I thought for sure that I would soon be upgrading Motherboard, Ram, and CPU but why when I can do everything with my old system.

I posted this topic for all you cheap/broke/frugal guys and gals like myself who are holding on to the old technology. Forget what the "minimum system requirements" are and give it a shot for yourself.

Thanks to everyone for making this forum work, I have been a long time lurker who acted on everyones TIPS and made DVD magic happen for the first time this weekend!!!

P.S. - Having a burner like the Plextor in a system like mine is like putting a V8 in a Civic...

you should try out dvdfab

Just look at it this way.This is what I run.
P4 1.8
512mb pc2100
Hitachi/LG dvd-rom
Plextor 708
WinXP home
DVDShrink/Recode

This setup takes me less than 40 minutes.If no compression,less than that.
You can't squeeze blood out of a turnip.

E

40 minutes to burn a dvd movie?

thats crazy, i turn em out every 13 minutes at 4x dvd-r

hoxlund wrote:40 minutes to burn a dvd movie?

thats crazy, i turn em out every 13 minutes at 4x dvd-r

Oh surely you jest

HE doesn't mean burning the DVD. Silly.

However my time is for movies that are compressed and are being subjected to two passes of analysis. So his times aren't truely a proper comparison.

Bennybone is correct.It doesn't take me 40 min. or less to burn a movie,it's 40 min. or less in total to do "everything"!!!!If I rip with Shrink or Recode it takes on average 11 minutes to do the movie then 14 minutes to burn.I don't burn at 8x.Usually 2.4x or 4x.I also don't use DVD - media.Just DVD + up to this point.
hoxlund
If you can do everything in 13 min.,let me know the secret.I gotta know.
Bennybone
I don't second analyze.I can't tell the difference with it.
Take away the second analysis and then tell us what time it takes or just guess.So we can be accurate.

E

it takes me 13 minutes because i do a direct burn at once with recode 2, 14 minutes if you want to include the analysing in the beginning before you add the movie title to the project

no second pass (no visual differece)

I don't second pass either.I can never tell the difference.I also don't burn at once.I'm not that brave.

E

ive got a very beefy system as you can tell down below in my sig

so i always do burn at once, like I said 13 minute burns

I've no worries about what my machine will do it's just that I can't afford to spit out coasters.I like to see the .vob's on HD before I burn.Sort of a security sytem or safety blanket.I'm too chicken to try it any other way.Story of my life.

E

Ok hear me out on this one...

A disadvantage to having a system that is "quick" could be that you don't leave your computer station while transcoding and burning backups.

For example, since my lowly rig takes 1 1/2 hrs to 2-pass on a transcode I was able to eat dinner, clean the kitchen, and watch half of a movie with the kids. I pretty much know that the system isn't going to surprise me with a quick time so I am able to live out my "after work life" to its fullest while still getting perfect DVD backups.

Now tell me, honestly , since your PC's are so fast do you usually sit there throughout the whole process staring into your monitor... Because I wouldn't think that one would feel comfortable walking away from the machine only to come back and find that they wasted 10 minutes of "possible" burn time.

Just a thought

i often do other things while its burning, play xbox, read news on computer, chat on computer

i never just sit there and stare at progress bar, also id like to know why you do the 2-pass thing, it makes no difference

also even if you rip the .vob/.ifo to your hard drive you can still burn a coaster, doing it my way i have never gotten a coaster. And ive burned a total of probably 400 movies with my drives

I've had this Plextor for about a month and I've back't up about 85 flix and done maybe 40 cd-r's.Only 1 coaster.I guess I put it on the HD(DVD'S)first is 'cause I've had good success.It's also 'cause a few times I've rip't the wrong audio track and if I don't catch myself I'll burn movies with the the Director's Comments or some crap like that.I don't think sometimes.If I had a couple of stax of DVD± media I'd try it your way but I don't so I go the safe way.
2 pass thing,I've seen no difference.

E

with recode 2 you can preview the move, and switch different audio

For example, since my lowly rig takes 1 1/2 hrs to 2-pass on a transcode I was able to eat dinner, clean the kitchen, and watch half of a movie with the kids. I pretty much know that the system isn't going to surprise me with a quick time so I am able to live out my "after work life" to its fullest while still getting perfect DVD backups.

Bennybone
I love that reasoning.Very funny and effective.Good point.
hoxlund
I can't hear audio in Recode 2 or any other app I use to do flix.I've had more weird issues with Recode 2 than anything I have.Especially trying to do Nero Digital.Everything plays but no digital audio option.Weird but I'm not going to complain 'cause I don't do DIVX anyway.Recode 2 with Region Free or AnyDvd though works great.No probs.FAAAASSSTTT!!!!

E

so your saying in recode 2, after you add the movie track, and click on play to preview it, you get no sound? from any audio layer?

Absolutely none.It'll play the movie fine but no sound.I have all the plugs but maybe they're wrong.SVCD,MPEG2 and what not but no sound.Weird ehh.I've read where a few people have had this problem also.I've tried many flix but no success.I don't have an app that does sound so I thought it was just part of it.I also heard that the next DvdShrink will have the audio in the preview.Probably the only way I'll get sound ehh!!!Other than that though Recode works great.I love it.

E

next version of dvdshrink? where did you read that?

On a post here about 3 or 4 weeks ago.But I also read it at some DVD recording forum.Since the guy doesn't work there(or on it)anymore someone else will be adding some extra features and taking on the project.I can't remember the site address.But they said it's comin' around.Maybe then I'll get some audio in the preview playback!Recode has been pretty good so far,just no audio.

E

NoSmartz wrote:On a post here about 3 or 4 weeks ago.But I also read it at some DVD recording forum.Since the guy doesn't work there(or on it)anymore someone else will be adding some extra features and taking on the project.I can't remember the site address.But they said it's comin' around.Maybe then I'll get some audio in the preview playback!Recode has been pretty good so far,just no audio.

E

I've seen this on one customers system. His problem was that his Audio Setting for 'VIDEO' was muted. Try this. Launch the Audio setting from the Control Panel or from the Icon in your Systray. Go to OPTIONS->PROPERTIES and check the option to show the settings for VIDEO. And make sure this is not muted.

Regards,

Craig

There is no option in the audio controls that says "VIDEO".
Only Play,Wave,SPDIF,CD Digital,MIDI,CD Audio,Line In,Microphone,PC Speaker,Auxiliary and TaD in.Video plays fine just audio is zero.I installed Dvd Shrink 3.1.1 and used it a few times to see what audio sounds like. I've had probs with Dvd Shrink 3.1.1 so I'm going back to the Recode 2/AnyDvd combo.Works great.No sound but works great.What's even stranger is that I can play an Mpeg with nero Showtime and I get sound,go figure.

E

CCampbell,
Thanx a ton!!!!!
I read your post at this thread http://www.cdrlabs.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=14512&start=0&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight= and decided to give it a go and see if I could get some sound out of Recode 2.IT WORKED!!!I now have sound!Funny thing is I found that site a while ago and installed the 2 .dll's like the instructions said and it never worked.Not this time.Works like a charm.I didn't replace the wav.dll though.Is this ok?I renamed the old one to wav.bkp but decided to try the nxmyaac.dll and the nxmyac3.dll with the old wav.dll and renamed it back to wav.dll.Seems to work good.Do I need to install any of the plugs below that I got from http://neroplugins.cd-rw.org/?(other than the aac and the ac3 I've already installed)
6channel.wav
nxpsytel.dll
wav.dll

THANX Again!

E

btw the new dvdshrink works with dvd region free, no need to disable dvd region free or quit it before using dvd shrink 3.1.2

Just a little question. Will the resulte mp4 file playable on any PC, or do you need Ahead's video player to play it?

I believe it will play with a Divx plug installed into Windows Media Player.If you use use the Nero Digital function in Recode or Vision Express,Nero Showtime should be included in the package.
Haven't done a Nero Digital pass yet.Takes to looong!!!

E