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labDV newsletter
Contents:
- Happy new year 2006: labDV wishes
- Success stories: DVDx and DVDShrink
- American TV serials: make your original version
- DVDDecrypter: terminated but must have
- CES Las Vegas 2006: yes, it happened!
- Mobile TV files: video on cell phones and PDAs
- MP3 software: more audio on labDV
- Home networking: video, audio, TV and PC
- French users: Trad-fr tutorials
- Friends top ten: sites who link to labDV.com
- Software at labDV.com: updates and adds
1.Happy new year 2006: labDV wishes
Health, love and prosperity to you all !!!
After a calm Digital Video year activity I'm pushing for new stuff at labDV.com website and community.
It's time for skiing over here, but I'm working hard on preparing new stuff for labDV, including taking over DVDx coding and new video software.
Anyone with good C/C++ coding skills can join me to work on a new DVDx release.
Happy new year 2006 from the whole labDV team and myself.
Contact me on the DVDx forum and join DVDx project.
2. Success stories: DVDx and DVDShrink
DVDx 2.3 |
DVDShrink 3.2 |
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 |
While these two freeware hasn't been released for a while they are still the most popular video software out there:
- DVDx to backup a DVD movie to a Video-CD or AVI (DivX) movie
- DVDShrink to backup a DVD movie on a smaller blank DVD
While DVDShrink requires a blank DVD (more expensive than a blank CD) the backup process take less than 30 minutes which is about 8 to 10 times less than with DVDx (or any other DVD to CD solution).
Related links:
3. American TV serials: make your original version
Many people are very frustrated by French, German and other European TV companies which broadcast American TV serials with ugly localized versions.
For example, the Veronica Mars First Season will be broadcasted by 13ème Rue channel on CanalSat network as of next March 8th, 2006. The preview showed an unacceptable French version, so I pay monthly fee for 13ème Rue and I can't watch their only good show in 2006!
I'm not happy with that but I can do something: download all Season One and their French subtitles and burn a DivX CD for my DivX Peekton set-top player (DivX and .SRT compliant).
Here's a short how-to for European enthusiasts:
- Download eMule software from eMule project website and install it.
- Use eMule Search to find all Veronica Mars Season 1 videos and start reception.
- Download Veronica Mars Season 1 French subtitles or another language from here.
- Burn a DVD with all episodes and their .srt files and enjoy on a DivX player
If your DivX player is not compliant with subtitle files, you can make a subtitled movie with VirtualDub and the Vobsub plugin. You can also preview, edit and adjust subtitle files with Subtitle Workshop freeware (look at all our subtitling utilities).
How about protecting copyrights: I pay for 13èmeRue channel which broadcast an ugly TV show so I've paid for these copyrights and I guess I can view a nice TV show version while 13ème Rue has a de-facto monopoly for it in France.
Congrats to Sci-Fi France: they broadcast the terrific Battlestar Galactica serial in Multi-language version so I can watch the original version with Teletext subtitles directly on my DVB PVR. Sci-Fi France is also an exclusivity from CanalSat and they broadcast most of their show in multi-languages versions.
Post a message in labDV forums if you want me to develop a more detailed related how-to.
4. DVDDecrypter: terminated but must have
Due to some pressure from lobbies, the author of DVDDecrypter has decided to stopped its work. However for some fair reason you may have to backup a commercial DVD movie, for example to have a backup copy or to make a DivX to carry while traveling in vacation. Or to remove annoying commercials and copyright warnings which are more and more common and takes minutes before the DVD player can start the real movie you paid for.
So we keep a downloadable copy of DVDDecrypter last release available from labDV.
5. CES Las Vegas 2006: yes, it happened!
Sounds that nobody eared about CES Las Vegas, what a surprised! Yes, I haven't seen any report about CES 2006 on TV, or Press, maybe just a few short reports from Yahoo Tech News.
I went through the CES press room and read that attendees were very satisfied (I would say auto-satisfied) by the CES 2006! From my perspective, there's no breakthru this year! The real innovation was in Intel Viiv technology (to make home video networking easier) and High-Definition TV (and maybe DVD Bluray).
The 2006 International CES focuses on 30 product categories spread throughout the Las Vegas Convention Center (LVCC), the Sands Expo and Convention Center, the Alexis Park and the Las Vegas Hilton. Some exhibitors taking space at the 2006 show include: Audiovox, Canon, Casio, Dell, Eastman Kodak, Epson, Fuji, Google, HP, Intel, LG, Logitech, Microsoft, Panasonic, Philips, Pioneer, Samsung, Sharp, Sony, Texas Instruments, Thomson, Toshiba, XM Satellite Radio and Yahoo.
The 2006 International CES set several major show records including number of attendees at more than 150,000 and exhibit space at 1.67 million net square feet of space. The show again proved that it is truly the international center of the digital world as it drew more than 23,000 international attendees
The show featured a broad array of exciting product and exhibitor announcements, many of which provide consumers with unprecedented control over when, where and how they watch movies, listen to music, view their digital photos and access information, education and entertainment content. Convergence was a big trend on the show floor in 2006 as traditional product categories merged together to create unique, multi-functional digital devices. In addition, the convergence trend transcended the show floor with an exciting array of announcements concerning cross-industry partnerships that promise to give consumers a variety of choices in the way they obtain, view and listen to digital content.
Reflecting the strength of the transition to high definition television (HDTV), the show floor featured the latest developments in display technologies, such as organic light emitting diode (OLED) and surface-conduction electron-emitting display (SED), along with a variety of products and innovations that build upon HDTV.
Other show highlights included the latest in Bluetooth, digital audio, digital imaging, HD and satellite radio, home video production and in-vehicle entertainment. This year's CES expanded to Innovations Plus at the Sands which housed new and emerging technologies. Visitors to the Sands were wowed by the latest advancements in robotics, ultra-wideband, IPTV, VoIP and more.
The Automobiles Convergence with Consumer Electronics SuperSession Henry Muyshondt of the MOST Cooperation discussed the MOST synchronous high-speed multimedia network.
At Thursday's final Super Session, "CNET's The Next Big Thing" top level executives from Linksys, Samsung, Sony and Toshiba, CNET editors and CNET users discussed the next big thing in technology trends for 2006. CNET predicts that mobile or handheld content, next generation DVD formats and home entertainment hubs will be the next big thing for 2006. An interesting twist to the session was the immediate polling of the audience to gauge their feelings to the three emerging trends. Wireless polling devices were given to the audience and they were asked three questions for each new trend. Results were immediately aggregated backstage and shared. Audience participants felt that the biggest barrier to the adaptation of handheld devices is the availability of content. An overwhelming number of audience members felt that Blu-ray would win the next generation DVD format war. Audience members also felt that difficult set up of home networks was preventing consumers from adopting them.
To finish, I went thru the new product page, again disappointing, I didn't find any new products excepted HDTV sets and HDTV media boxes. But my feeling is that majors are working on mobile or handheld content, next generation DVD formats and home entertainment hubs and the change will be in the digital products usage, bringing advanced features to any users.
6. Mobile TV files: video on cell phones and PDAs
Video is brought into cell-phones, PDAs and some MP3/MP4 potable players (iPod will be considered next month) so some new tutorials appeared to copy DVD movies to Mobile TV or .MTV files.
There're certain differences between your home cinema and your mobile device. The first apparent difference is screen size. While at home you may have 70cm or greater screen size, your device is usually many times smaller. Another limiting factor is processor speed, which frequency is typically beating at 100 - 400 MHz (compared to about 3000 MHz of today's usual desktop PC).
Yet another limitation is available space. While DVD is shipped on a disc that can hold about 8 GB of data, typical size of expansion memory card on a mobile device is about 256MB (512MB or 1GB are also available, but let's talk about standard user).
Taking these limitations into account, there's clear task - putting contents of a DVD movie (considering it has about 90 minutes, but may have more) into a device-friendly format, to fit into 128MB memory card, and being played fluently.
The solution proposed by Lonely Cat Games is to first rip the DVD with DVDx and then to reduce the AVI size with Smart Movie DVD.
The Smart Movie DVD guide at Lonely Cat Games...
7. MP3 software: more audio on labDV
Today, most of you got a small MP3 player so most of us need some cool tools to convert audio to MP3 files. I've added a bunch of tools in our labDV downloads:
- ABC Amber Audio Converter : a useful utility which helps you convert wav files to mp3 files (or mp3 files to wav files). The software supports a batch conversion, a run from command line, more than 50 languages. Batch conversion ability allows you to convert a unlimited number of audio files at a time.
- Audacity : a powerful open-source freeware to edit and encode audio which accepts a lot of Open Source plugins for audio effects.
- BeSweet and BeSweetGUI : an audio transcoding tool: it lets you convert audio files from one format to another. Supported formats : MP3, AC3, WAV, MP2, AVI, Aiff, VOB, Ogg Vorbis.
- Lame ACM Codec : MP3 codec based on Lame encoder (to encode audio tracks in MP3 with VirtualDub).
- Lame DirectShow Filter : Elecard MPEG Layer III Audio Encoder provides software-only MPEG Layer III audio encoding solution. It is implemented as a Microsoft DirectShow filter and could be easily incorporated into your capture and network streaming applications.
- Lame : MP3 encoder (useful for audio editing/encoding software, like Audacity).
- VOB2Audio : tool to extract audio tracks from VOB files.
I also added two AC3 utilities in our audio software:
- AC3 Decoder : downmix AC3 5.1 to Dolby surround sound for stereo headphones or speakers.
- Aud-X free codec : to bring to people an easy technology for encoding Divx/Xvid movies with 5.1 sound the same way they used to do it with the simple MP3 stereo encoders. Since Aud-X 5.1 sounds great at 128 kbps and is compatible with AVI – you can reencode DVDs the same way you are used to, but with full surround sound. More on our forums...
The audio tools in labDV software downloads.
8. Home networking: video, audio, TV and PC
More and more people got several PCs with audio and video contents and a home cinema installation in their living room. There isn't a lot of solutions to connect them them and share contents in the house.
While Intel is bringing the new Intel Viiv technology to make it easy to share multimedia contents in home networks, some solutions are available:
Wi-Fi networks
The most common LAN solution nowadays, with a lot of solutions from D-Link, LinkSys and NetGear. The 802.11g standard provides a correct solution to build a home network and share multimedia in-house content. The performance is acceptable, with real transfer rate about 24Mbps. Two situations in which you should avoid using Wi-Fi network: if your house has some non-square angle walls (too much signal attenuation) or if you also have a Radio-Frequency TV in-house solution, because it uses the same 2.4GHz frequency.
PLC networks
Power-Line-Carrier technology builds a network through the in-house power lines. It's the recommended solution if you also have a Radio-Frequency TV in-house solution. Forget the legacy 14Mbps PLC devices, the real transfer rate about 4Mpbs is not sufficient for sharing multimedia contents. The new High-Speed 85Mbps PLC devices provides real transfer rates about 20 to 40Mbps, which is usually better than Wi-Fi rates.
Radio-Frequency TV in-house broadcast
Solutions provided by CGV or Philips can broadcast the analog TV signal (video and audio) which can be received in any room with a compliant receiver connected to another TV set or a PC TV card. The IR remote signal can be sent from the receiver to the main TV with a transmission in the other way. It's a shame that there isn't any Multimedia Center capable to replace a RF TV in-house broadcast (because none offers a TV-in connection yet). You may notice that a Wi-Fi device near the receiver will make the RF signal useless (video and audio interferences) because both uses the 2.4GHz frequency.
Multimedia set-top centers
Pinnacle ShowCenter 200 is the most complete solution yet but KiSS (now a Cisco company), LinkSys and D-Link offers also good solutions. These multimedia centers centralize access to multimedia content in the living room (it's connected to your home-cinema TV set). They are all preferably connected to Wi-Fi networks, but they all have an Ethernet port so they could be connected to PLC networks (while I didn't tested it).
A big feature is missing in the multimedia centers: the capability to record On-Air show from TVs or DVB decoders with the multimedia centers and share the videos with computers. I hope we'll see some solution coming in 2006 (Intel Viiv technology is considering it).
Post a message in labDV forums if you want me to develop on home video networking.
9. French users: Trad-fr tutorials
From Fench-spoking users only, I've found some cool tutorials in Trad-Fr.com forums:
ASPI: le premier élément à vérifier en cas de problème
BitSetting: Changer le Book Type d'un DVD+R ou +R DL
DVDDecrypter: extraction + conversion AC3 en MP3/WAV
DVDDecrypter: gravure de salon compatible avec DVD Shrink
HeadAC3he: convertir de l'AC3 en WAV/MP3/OGG/AAC
IFOEdit: créer des chapitres DVD
IFOEdit: fusionner plusieurs films DVD
VirtualDub: Décalage Audio/Vidéo
VirtualDub: Intégrer des sous-titres
VirtualDubMOD: extraire une partie d'une vidéo
This web site also offers French localized versions of many video freeware.
10. Friends top ten: sites who link to labDV.com
This new rubric is to thanks labDV friends who link their web sites to labDV.com:
- Lonely Cat Games
- ASCROCCO.IT
- bbMPEG's Home Page
- dvd.pagina.nl
- ãå¾ï¼·ï¼¥ï¼¢
- SOFTOROOM.NET
- DVDãã³ãã¼ããå¼·åãªããªã¼ã®ã½ããé
- dvd-dezone.net
- MP3 DivX Gate ( ãã¼ã lous73-82)
- FREE IPOD VIDEOS.ORG
11. Software at labDV.com: updates and adds
Now there are 206 software available from labDV.com, most of them are freeware.
New software added in January
In audio, Audacity is a powerful open-source freeware to edit and encode audio. It is compatble with free and professional plugins (LADSPA, Nyquist, VST) for more audio effects. Lame ACM Codec is a MP3 codec based on Lame encoder (to encode audio tracks in MP3 with VirtualDub)
In video codecs, Panasonic DV codec (VFW) plays and imports DV video with any tool. The Panasonic DV codec is a Video-For-Window codec and works perfect with Virtualdub.
Latest software updates
- Audio (compression and editing)
- ABC Amber Audio Converter 1.03
- BeSweet (beta) 1.5b31
- Lame ACM Codec 0.9.0
- Avisynth
- AviScript Lite 2.9
- Video codecs
- Panasonic DV codec (VFW) 2.64
- DVD copying
- DVD Decrypter 3.5.4.0
- cladDVD .NET 3.5.6
- Encoding (MPEG)
- D.I.K.O. 0.77
- Video players
- VLC media player 0.8.4a
