Is there software available to select approximately 20 minutes of certain scenes of a DVD and burn them onto a CDR in DVD format? I know that copying it into VCD format can do it. But since the segment is only about 20 minutes long, I would rather just leave it in a compressed DVD format. I understand that my standalone DVD player may or may not play them, but I figure that it’s worth a shot.

Purpose: I would like to copy portions of my children’s DVDs so that the kids can handle the copies without concern. Some of the select episodes are only 20 minutes long.

I have used DVD X Copy Platinum for straight DVD copying. It works great because it automatically compresses the selected items to fit onto a 4.7 GB DVD. (The compression is usually about 50% to 60%.) But I was unable to use the software to select one individual episode off the DVD, and I did not see an option to copy to CDR.

I am hoping that there is another software available that will allow me to identify and select small portions of the DVD and then automatically compress them to fit onto a CDR in DVD format.

Thanks for the help.

Dave dimpell@acmgfcu.net

-- David Impellizzeri (dimpell@acmgfcu.net), January 03, 2005

Answers

That's really outside the scope of this board, since it deals with DVD copying. Check sites like www.afterdawn.com and doom9.org. Both of those sites have lots 'o goodies on how to copy DVDs. Look for the "guides" section.

Just as a note, however, bypassing the CSS encryption on a DVD is illegal in the USA.

-- Bryan (gryps-innocens@gryphon.zzn.com), January 03, 2005.

What Bryan said is true, although the legal doctrine of Fair Use should apply and since the copies are for your own use, I think you'll be OK from a legal standpoint. You can do what you want to do, but it's pretty involved. I also want to point out that even if you do this, you probably won't be able to play the discs. Most standalone DVD players will not play DVD format on CD-R discs. The Philips DVP-642 will. You have to keep the bit rate below 4500 Kpbs or even the players that will play these discs will have problems. It's a LONG story as to why you have to change the bit rate and why DVD on CD-R almost never works.

If you want to try, here's what you will have to do. 1) Decrypt the DVD to your PC's hard drive using something like DVD Decrypter. 2) Use editing software to edit the DVD files and extract the part of it that you want. 3) The odds are very high that you will have to re-encode the video to get it below 4500 Kbps. You will need TMPGenc (http://www.tmpgenc.net) or something similar. 4) Burn the file to CD-R. It may not be necessary to author it into DVD format. If a player will play DVD on CD-R, it will probably play what we call "raw MPEG" files too, which means that you can just burn your video to disc in data format and it will play.

I would recommend looking at the forums Bryan suggested. You'll learn a lot if you do this, but unfortunately, it may really be more work for you than it's worth.

-- Root (root@yahoo.moc), January 04, 2005.