which_chick (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
which_chick) wrote2004-08-07 06:00 pm
which_chick) wrote2004-08-07 06:00 pm
(no subject)
It was a codec problem. I'm a dork.
With three programs and a codec, none of which costs money (I believe I've mentioned the appeal of "free" at least once already), it is possible to change DVDs into reasonable-sized .avi files.
1. DVD Decrypter (free) takes stuff off DVD and stuffs it on hard drive. Requires enormous amounts of hard drive (8 gig) and a goodly chunk of time (two or three hours). on my machine, which is a laptop not designed for this crap.
It is maybe possible to skip step 1 and run DVDx right from the DVD drive, but I didn't think of that until I was about halfway through step 1. Also, my machine doesn't do this sort of thing particularly happily, so smaller steps are easier for it.
2. DVDx (free) and an XviD codec (free) will slurp the huge files from step 1 and put them out in a monolithic .avi file. This takes a goodly chunk of time (six hours?) and somewhat less hard drive than step 1. The monolithic file I got was 963 MB for the first DVD of Weiss Kreuz, which contains episodes 1-5 at 640x480. (It's gorgeous. It has subtitles. It is just right, except for being about a gig. I want it in smaller pieces, but everything else is wonderful.)
Since Weiss is pretty low-budget stuff (most other anime contains more animation), I wouldn't bet on this as being some kind of standard. Just get another hard drive. You know you want to, anyway.
3. Like me, the folks playing along at home (not that there are any) probably want to split the giggish .avi file into reasonable, episode-sized hunks. My various wanderings in search of clue have convinced me that VirtualDub 1.5.10 (free) will do this if I read enough of the documentation to figure out how to make it work. Preliminary experiments show that it does, indeed, load up the entire file and proceed to let me do stuff to it without crashing. It's really quite amenable and I'm sure I'll like working with it once I... er... yes, yes, make with the reading of documentation instead of clicking on things to see what they do. (Don't worry. I made a backup of my unmodified .avi file so that once I screw up one, I have a backup. I am not going to play fast and loose with something that took six hours to get.)
Also, for everyone out there in tech support hell: I am living proof that some people in this world actually go out onto the internet with an I want to know how to... question and DO NOT immediately post a plea for handholding in some message board or other. Some of us actually give it the old college try, or several of the old college tries, before we beg shamelessly for help.
With three programs and a codec, none of which costs money (I believe I've mentioned the appeal of "free" at least once already), it is possible to change DVDs into reasonable-sized .avi files.
1. DVD Decrypter (free) takes stuff off DVD and stuffs it on hard drive. Requires enormous amounts of hard drive (8 gig) and a goodly chunk of time (two or three hours). on my machine, which is a laptop not designed for this crap.
It is maybe possible to skip step 1 and run DVDx right from the DVD drive, but I didn't think of that until I was about halfway through step 1. Also, my machine doesn't do this sort of thing particularly happily, so smaller steps are easier for it.
2. DVDx (free) and an XviD codec (free) will slurp the huge files from step 1 and put them out in a monolithic .avi file. This takes a goodly chunk of time (six hours?) and somewhat less hard drive than step 1. The monolithic file I got was 963 MB for the first DVD of Weiss Kreuz, which contains episodes 1-5 at 640x480. (It's gorgeous. It has subtitles. It is just right, except for being about a gig. I want it in smaller pieces, but everything else is wonderful.)
Since Weiss is pretty low-budget stuff (most other anime contains more animation), I wouldn't bet on this as being some kind of standard. Just get another hard drive. You know you want to, anyway.
3. Like me, the folks playing along at home (not that there are any) probably want to split the giggish .avi file into reasonable, episode-sized hunks. My various wanderings in search of clue have convinced me that VirtualDub 1.5.10 (free) will do this if I read enough of the documentation to figure out how to make it work. Preliminary experiments show that it does, indeed, load up the entire file and proceed to let me do stuff to it without crashing. It's really quite amenable and I'm sure I'll like working with it once I... er... yes, yes, make with the reading of documentation instead of clicking on things to see what they do. (Don't worry. I made a backup of my unmodified .avi file so that once I screw up one, I have a backup. I am not going to play fast and loose with something that took six hours to get.)
Also, for everyone out there in tech support hell: I am living proof that some people in this world actually go out onto the internet with an I want to know how to... question and DO NOT immediately post a plea for handholding in some message board or other. Some of us actually give it the old college try, or several of the old college tries, before we beg shamelessly for help.