Disclaimer: If you have to bypass encryption during the process of copying media you are violating the law. So basically as long as you don’t bypass any protection schemes it’s OK to copy music cd’s and dvd’s that you own. For personal use that is ;)
Exact Audio Copy www.exactaudiocopy.de
LAME Encoder at mitiok.cjb.net
Ripping MP3’s:
For this task you will need Exact Audio Copy aka EAC and the LAME MP3 encoder. Download both and unzip both to the same folder. When you install EAC, choose the “I prefer to have accurate results” and skip the step to install and configure LAME. Towards the end choose the option “I’m an expert” and click finish.
Now that you have EAC installed, start up the program and choose options from the menu. Deselect the “Lock Drive” option. Leave everything at their defaults and click on the tools tab. Place a checkmark next to “On extraction, start external compressors…” Then click ok.
Now choose “compression options” from the EAC menu and click the External Compression tab. Place a checkmark next to “Use external program for compression,” choose “Use Defined Encoder” from the drop down menu and browse to the foler where you d/l’ed LAME and click lame.exe. Next type the following text exactly into the “Additional command line options” field:
-V 2 –vbr-new –add-id3v2 –pad-id3v2 –ta”%a”–tt “%t” –tl “%g” –ty “%y” –tn “%n” %s
ignore the rest of the options and click on the ID3 tab and remove any checkmarks before clicking ok.
Now it’s as easy as putting in your cd and selecting which tracks you want to rip and save.
Special Note: If you have a copy-protected cd try holding down the shift key until the cd in the drive is fully spun up. You can also try running AnyDVD while you rip your cd. The best way to not go through this hassle is to check the cd labels when you buy it. Look for such things as Enhanced, DualDisc, and/or Protected labels that notify you of copy-protection technology on the disc. If a certain artists cd has copy protection you can always send them an email or post to their online message boards/forums. Don’t forget to also use the online forms/phone number of the retailers and complain. Let them know that you want copyable versions of artists cd’s. Record labels might not listen to us but they sure as hell will
listen to B3st Buy, Circuit C!ty, and W4l-Mart.
Play Internet Music On Your MP3 Player:
Did you just buy music off the internet only to find out that you can’t play it on your mp3 player? Get Replay Music from www.replay-music.com for $30 and install it on your PC. The first time you fire up replay music your going to have to change some settings. Click the settins tab in the lower right hand corner and click on the “input” tab. Choose sound card and set the volume to max. Now click on the splitting tab and make sure theres a checkmark next to split tracks. Finally, click on the Output tab and place a checkmark next to Autmatic Tagging. Choose the option to record to MP3 and set the
bitrate to whatever you want. We recommend you choose 192Kbps.
Now all you have to do is remember to have replay music running before you start playing your music Qeue up the tracks you want and when the start recording session window pops up type %A%a in the field labeled directory format. Click OK and begin streaming music from your subscription service. Remember not to do anything else on your PC while the music is recording. Don’t even IM during this because even resizing a window will cause a glitch in your music.
Backing Up DVD’s:
For this task I highly recommend DVD Shrink which is Freeware and freely available on the net.
downloads available at www.dvdshrink.org
Method 1: After installing dvd shrink, insert your DVD disc and click “Open Disk” which is the second button to the left. After selecting your DVD drive click OK. After you hit the OK button, DVD shrink begins to analyze the disc.
Once done you should be presented with a DVD structure to the left and compression settings on the right. This is where you can control what you want to backup and at what quality. Hint: you can get much better quality on the actual movie by lowering the quality of video on the menu and bonus features. Better yet, take off the audio streams for languages you won’t be using.
Next, click the big backup button at the top and set the settings so DVD Shrink knows where to save your DVD. Make sure “Create VIDEO_TS and AUDIO_TS subfolders” is checked and take a look at the other tabs to further customize the configuration.
When you click “OK” DVD shrink will begin to copy the DVD onto your hard drive and compress it to fit on a single layer 4.7GB disc.
Once DVD Shrink is finished just start up your favorite DVD burning utility and make sure you set it to burn a DVD video disc. Drag and drop the VIDEO_TS folder into the program and burn away!
Method 2 aka the MDP method: Assuming you already have DVD Shrink and DVD Decrypter installed on your system. (btw, DVD Decrypter is now an illegal program) Just pop in the DVD you want to copy and fire up DVD Decrypter. There will be a big button right in the mid left side of the program. Just click that one button and DVD Decrypter will decrypt and copy the entire contents of your DVD to your hard drive.
From there start up DVD Shrink and open to the folder where the copied files are. Follow the steps from method 1 and take off any extra video/audio streams to save space. Next click the backup button and save as an ISO file. Once DVD Shrink is finished use your favorite DVD burning utility and burn the ISO to a DVD disc. Finally pop open a can of your favorite sodi pop and test out your backup.
If you want more features and flexibility in backing up your DVD’s try these programs below: Nero Recode, AnyDVD, Intervideo DVD Copy 4, and #1 DVD Ripper.
DVD Copy 4 at www.intervideo.com $50
AnyDVD at www.slysoft.com $40
Ripping, Encoding, and Compressing DVD’s:
Before you start make sure you have AnyDVD installed and enough free space on your NTFS formatted drive. It’s also recommended that you defrag your hard drive before you start.
Now open up AnyDVD and put your DVD in the drive. Double check that your target and source are set and pick the format you want to save your movie in. Click on the hammer icon to the right side of the screen to make some changes such as changing the “Disc Label” and the resolution. If your using Divx, use the home theater profile. After you point and click on all of the movies you want to rip all you have to do is click on the rip button at the lower right corner.
Codec List:
Divx 6- The new Divx codec which supports multiple audio streams, subtitles, and multiple videos inside a single file. Basically a one file DVD. Its a good codec but it isnt widely supported yet.
Divx (AVI)- The original MPEG-4 based format is the one you want if you want your movie to play virtually anywhere. This codec also has decent video/audio quality.
WMV- If you own a Windows Media Center machine this is the way to go. It’s got better compression than Divx but it’s not widely supported. However, for Windows Media Center Extender streaming boxes this is the only format that will play.
MP4- This is the official MPEG-4 format. A lot of the portable players support this format including the PSP and iPod.
H.264- The newest codec to the MPEG-4 standard, this codec has improved compression and better image quality but it isn’t widely supported through streaming boxes. Compatibility on portable players however is excellent.
Making Your Video Mobile:
If you have any movie already converted to Divx it will be a snap to get it into basically every other format.
To format your Divx movie for a PSP simply get PSP Video 9 to transcode and load your PSP with a movie.
For Video iPod’s go to videora.com and get the Videora iPod Converter to transcode your movie for iPods.
Almost all other portable media players can be loaded using Windows Media Player 10. Media Player 10 can also transcode your Divx movie for other players so your all set!
