applefans
applefans

 
 
 
 

« March 2010
SunMonTueWedThuFriSat
 
1
2
3
4
5
6
8
9
10
11
12
13
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
   
       
Today

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Sunday Mar 14, 2010
 

How to rip Blu-ray movies to Apple TV on Mac?

4theme100201.jpg

Are you still frustrated to look for a practical Blu-ray ripper for your Apple TV on sorts of search engines? In fact, there are numerous different Blu-ray rippers in the market, but unfortunately, not all of them are easy-to-use and powerful while ripping BD movies to do other use, especially for people who are using Mac OS. To relieve the troubles of Mac users, this thread will present you how to rip Blu-ray movies to Apple TV via the available software Pavtube Blu-Ray Ripper for Mac in detail. Just check its step-by-step instruction as below freely.

Click here to download Pavtube Blu-Ray Ripper for Mac, then install and run it.

Step 1: Load BD files, select Apple TV format and specify save path

You can press tag "DVD Folder" or "IFO Folder" to input Blu-ray files. If you like, you can tick checkbox before "Merge into one file" to combine all the .m2ts files into one file. Also, you are allowed to specify a path to store the output files for your Apple TV through clicking "Browse" button; otherwise, this program will export the output files to a destination folder set by default automatically. No matter you use your indicated path or defaulted path, you can finally get the ripped files via hit "Open" button.

4total100201.jpg

Do remember clicking the drop-down list of "Format" to select an Apple TV workable format. Once you click this button, you can do your selection from the following interface:

4appletv100201.jpg

Step 2: Adjust video and audio parameters

Suppose you need change some video and audio parameters to manage the output file size and quality, you can totally achieve it by clicking "Settings" button. All the parameters in the following panel can be adjusted as you like.

4settings100201.jpg

Step 3: Convert

After the above settings are done, what you should do next is just hitting "Convert" button to start BD ripping for your Apple TV. Conversion interface is as below, you can get ripping info from it as much as possible, such as the ripping progress, elapsed and left conversion time, generated and estimated file size, so that you can know accurately about the time expenditure and space occupation.

4ripping100201.jpg

See, only three simple steps, you can finish ripping your BD movies to your Apple TV successfully. Why not have a try about Pavtube Blu-Ray Ripper for Mac?

Tips:

1. This program also supports editing DVD and Blu-Ray clips. It provides editing functions like trimming video duration, cropping video area, adding watermark, adjusting special effect, replacing audio, and more.

2. It adopts advanced audio and video sync tech which enables you to have a high quality output video without any audio/video out of sync problems.

3. This program has its own built-in codec, so it will not install any codec to your computer, which avoids the unexpected codec problem.

4. Pavtube Blu-Ray Ripper for Mac is at super high ripping speed. Its advanced coding technology quickens the conversion speed. With this Mac Blu-Ray Ripper, you can convert DVD, Blu-Rays 1.5 or 2 times faster than other similar tools.

 

How to rip Blu-ray files for playback on iPhone 3GS via Mac OS?

bd4theme091224.jpg

As a matter of fact, Blu-ray rippers specially developed for Windows operating system are much more than the applications designed for Mac OS, thus Mac users often feel troublesome to search for such a program, especially for one that is easy-to-use and practical, to deal with their tons of Blu-ray collections, not to mention how to add these BD files into portable devices for playback. Fortunately, a powerful utility called Pavtube Blu-ray Ripper is released recently in purpose of relieving Mac users’ trouble. It is capable of ripping BD files into many other common video formats, such as AVI, MP4, WMV, MKV, MOV, FLV, SWF, RM, 3GP, AAC, AC3, MP3, OGG, WAV, WMA, M4A, etc., so that you can do whatever you like with the ripped files, adding to media player for local playback, importing to iMovie, Final Cut Pro for further editing, sync to iPhone 3GS for entertainment, or do something else at will. Now I am going to focus on one aspect only, and will be glad to show you how to use this application to rip Blu-ray files for playback on iPhone 3GS via Mac OS.

bd4total091224.jpg

Step 1: Load BD files

There are two ways to do it, namely, through "DVD Folder" and "IFO File".

Step 2: Choose a format for iPhone 3GS

Click the drop-down list of "Format", and then click the option "iPhone", after that select an output format according to the specification of your iPhone 3GS. All are as the following interface showing, and here I choose "iPhone 3G H.264 640x480(*.mp4)" for instance.

bd4iphone091224.jpg

Step 3: Set destination folder

Click "Browse" button to decide where to load the output files for your iPhone 3GS. If not, Pavtube Blu-ray Ripper will export the ripped Blu-ray files to a save path set by default automatically.

Step 4: Adjust video and audio parameters

This program allows users resetting video and audio options like codec, aspect ratio, bit rate, frame rate, etc., in that case, you can take charge of the output file size and image quality in a proper way.

Step 5: Start Blu-ray ripping

Once the above steps are completed, then you can click "Convert" button to begin ripping your BD files. After finished, the generated files for iPhone 3GS can be found by clicking "Open" button with ease.

Additional tips for Pavtube Blu-ray Ripper:

1. Tick the checkbox "Merge into one file", you can combine all the Blu-ray files to be as a single file, so as to enjoy them on your iPhone 3GS without intervals.

2. Pavtube Blu-ray Ripper adopts advanced audio and video sync tech, which enables you to have high output quality without any audio/video out of sync problems.

3. It enables users to select subtitle, audio track as well as camera angle.

4. It provides users with simple editing functions, such as crop, trim, add watermark, add special effects, take place of the original audio, etc.

5. The multithread technology makes it 1.5 or 2 times faster than other similar tools.

6. Besides ripping BD files into other media formats, it also supports directly copying Blu-rays and general DVDs to the hard drive of your Mac.

 
Sunday Mar 07, 2010
 

The best free Hulu Downloader you've ever seen

huludownloader100208.jpg

Hulu Downloader Beta is a practical Windows application to help you capture Flash videos (.flv, .f4v), Movies, TV Shows, Movie Trailers, MTV, etc. from video sharing websites like Hulu.com, Youtube.com, Google

video, Myspace, Yahoo! Video, CBS, MTV, Megavideo, Photobucket, Dailymotion, Veoh, Demand Five, etc., and save them on your hard drive, play them back whenever you want without being connected to the

Internet.

websites100208.jpg

It is capable of downloading movies quickly and flawlessly, so as to enrich your movie collections with the most popular online video resources.

Features Highlights:
Widely support for overwhelming online videos
The app is able to browse and download video clips from video hosting websites of HTTP, PTMP, PTMPT, PTMPE, PTMPTE protocol, and these cover overwhelming majority of websites such as Hulu, Veoh,

Boxee, Joost, YouTube, Yahoo Video etc.

Capture URL automatically
The URL of any video clip that is playing will be auto-captured and listed out for your convenience, and you can download it with one click or just ignore it. There is no need to add URL manually.

Enrich your A/V collection
This Hulu Downloader is capable of downloading any video and audio file you can play online so that you can turn numerous online video and audio into your own collection. What’s more, a powerful player is

inlaid for you to play back the videos in library freely.

Convert downloaded videos freely (come up soon with full version)
You are allowed to convert the downloaded videos to various video and audio formats compatible with portable devices like iPod, iPhone, 3G phone, etc. With this app, you can enjoy the online flash videos on

your portable players freely, whenever and wherever.

Free download Hulu Downloader Beta:

http://download.huludownload.com/hulu-downloader/huludownloader_setup.exe

 

How to rip DVD to AVI on Mac

dvdtheme100301.jpg

Pavtube DVD Ripper for Mac is specially developed for Mac users to remove DVD copy protections, as well as rip DVDs to almost all other popular video and

audio formats including AVI, MP4, 3GP, AVI, MPG, MPEG-4, FLV, MOV, 3G2, VOB, MP3, FLAC, MKA, OGG, WAV, AC3, M4A, etc., so that the generated files can be played on various media players or mobile

devices, or imported to some video editors to make your own movie works.

Here is a step-by-step guide to rip DVD to AVI on Mac OS X.

Step 1: Load DVD files

You can click "DVD folder" or "IFO file" to load DVD files directly from the DVD-Rom or from an IFO image file.

dvdrippertotal100301.jpg

Step 2: Select AVI as output format

Click on the pull down menu of "Format" to choose AVI as output format

Step 3: Set advanced settings

Click on "Settings" button, and you are allowed to adjust audio and video parameters on the popup window including codec, bit rate, frame rate, sample rate, aspect ratio, and audio channels. Do remember

clicking "OK" button to save your settings.

dvdripperprofile100301.jpg

Step 4: Set destination folder

Click "Browse" button to specify where to export the output files to.

Step 5: Click "Convert" button to start ripping DVD to AVI

The following window will show you clearly about the ripping info, such as time elapse, estimated left time, generated file size, and estimated file size. In that way, you are able to manage your time and storage

space in a proper way.

dvdripperripping100301.jpg

Once ripping work is done, you can click "Open" button to get the output AVI files effortlessly.

Additional tips:

1. The ripping speed of this software is 1-2 times faster than the similar programs. Merge multiple files into one file is available.

2. Enable users to select specific subtitle and audio track to convert.

3. Guarantee audio-video in sync.

4. With exception of adding text as watermark, images, GIF animations, and videos can also be added as watermarks to realize the picture-in-picture effect.

5. You can use the "Trim" function to select certain DVD clips to convert. And you can also take advantage of the "Crop" function to remove black edges or change the screen size.

 

Remove BD+ protections from Blu-ray movies on Mac

BD+ is a technology used to prevent unauthorized copies of Blu-ray discs and the playback of Blu-ray media using unauthorized devices, which is more powerful than the former AACS protections. This article

aims to provide a solution for removing BD+ protections from your Blu-ray movies. Follow this way, and then you can take full advantage of your own purchased BD movies in your own ways.

Required software:

Pavtube Blu-Ray Ripper for Mac

Pavtube Blu-ray Ripper for Mac is a powerful tool specially designed for Mac users to rip, convert, backup and edit both Blu-ray and DVD movies. The source file could be from Blu-ray disc, DVD, Blu-ray and

DVD folder, ISO and IFO image file. The ripper is capable of decrypting region codes, and almost all copy protections, including AACS, BD+. Besides backup movies to hard drive, it also supports output other

popular audio and video formats to playback on your beloved portable devices such as iPod, iPhone, Zune, Blackberry, PSP, Creative Zen, Xbox 360, Apple TV etc.

Well, following is the solution:

1. Download and install Pavtube Blu-Ray Ripper for Mac, after that, launch this program and click "DVD Folder" or "IFO File" to load BD movies into this program.

bdrippermactotal100303.jpg

2. If you just want to rip the main movie, you can tick the file with the longest duration time only. Afterwards, click on the pull down menu of "Subtitle" and "Audio" to select your wanted language. The preview

window is able to show the effect of your dynamic switching on subtitle and audio track in real time.

3. Click the drop-down list of "Format" to select output format, and if you want to retain the original quality to full extent regardless of the output format, you can choose "Copy", and then "Directly Copy".

4. Click "Settings" button to adjust audio and video parameters like codec, aspect ratio, bit rate, frame rate, sample rate, and audio channels.

bdrippermacprofile100303.jpg

5. Click "Convert" button to start BD ripping and BD+ copy protection removing. As long as the ripping work is finished, you can click "Open" button to get the output files which are in your desired format and

without neither AACS nor BD+ copy protection.

Additional Tips:

Generally, Blu-ray media has a large file size because of its high definition quality, so the ripping time will be longer than that of standard DVDs. To avoid waiting around, you can click "Option" button to tick off

the checkbox "Shut down the computer after conversion". Do remember clicking on "OK" button to save your settings.

bdrippermactotalshut100303.jpg

If you are a Windows user, you can free download this Blu-ray ripper to remove BD+ protections on your PC.

 

How to convert TiVo files to MOV, MPEG, AVI, MP4, FLV, WMV, and VOB on Mac

As we all know there is no certain software developed for Mac users to transfer and replay TiVo DVR recorded files as "TiVo Desktop" doing on Windows. But if you want to do format conversion between TiVo file

and other video formats on your Mac directly, what is your method? My way is to use Pavtube Video Converter for Mac to achieve my goal. Once you are sure you have the same requirement as I do, follow these

steps to find the solution.

Requirements:

- TiVo recordings: they can be from your own TiVo DVR or from the DVR of your friends

- TiVo Media Access Key: it is a specific 10-digit number assigned to every TiVo account holder. If your TiVo source file are from your friends, then ask him/her for it.

- Pavtube Video Converter for Mac

Step 1: Launch Pavtube Video Converter for Mac and click "Add" button to load TiVo files

In the first attempt, a dialog window will pop up as below, just click "OK" button.

videoonvertermacadd100303.jpg

After that, the following window will allow you to enter your Media Access Key, just insert it, and click "OK" button to confirm. What you should do next is clicking on "Add" button to load your TiVo files again. Or

you can directly drag and drop the file into this program. Meanwhile, suppose you want to let it alone and do something else during the conversion, you can tick "Shut down the computer after conversion".

accesskey100303.jpg

Step 2: Select output format

Click on the drop-down list of "Format" to select output format. This utility supports a wide range of output format, including MOV, MPEG, AVI, MP4, FLV, WMV, VOB, and customized formats for iPod, iPhone,

PSP, PS3, Apple TV, BlackBerry, etc.

total100303.jpg

Step 3: Do advanced settings

Click on "Settings" button to adjust audio and video parameters like codec, aspect ratio, bit rate, frame rate, sample rate, and audio channels. If you are not good at this step, you can totally skip it. By the way, if

you wanna combine multiple files to be as a single file, you can tick the checkbox "Merge into one file" in the main interface.

settings100303.jpg

Step 4: Click "Convert" button to start conversion

Once finished, you can get the output files via clicking on "Open" button with ease.

 

How to convert DVD to AVI for further editing with Windows Movie Maker

 

 

DVD movie still plays essential role in our audio/video daily life in spite of prosperity of online video and handheld devices. The problem is that DVD movie is not editable and you can only watch the movie the

way it is presented on the disk. This is a time of individual customization and showing your own style, why not tries to edit a movie and watch it whatever way you like. To edit the DVD movie, you need to

convert DVD to AVI firstly and then import the exported AVI videos to Adobe Premiere, Windows Movie Maker, and Sony Vegas etc. First let us start from what is AVI.

About AVI
AVI stands for Audio Video Interleave Which is defined by Microsoft, it can work as a container to be embedded with different codec, such as DivX, XviD, etc. The AVI video generally brings high quality, but

occupies larger disk space. It is suitable for further video editing.

To edit DVD with Windows movie maker, you need a DVD Ripper to convert DVD to AVI. This popular DVD Ripper offers AVI formats with various codec, which will

certainly meet your needs to play, and edit video etc

1. Run Pavtube DVD Ripper

If you have not installed it yet, please download the free trial version of Pavtube DVD Ripper.

2. Add DVD video by clicking "DVD ROM ", "DVD Folder" or "IFO/ISO".

dvdripperload100131.jpg

3. Choose the AVI format on the "Format" drop down box.

There are several profiles with AVI as output format.

dvdripperaviformat100131.jpg

Pavtube DVD Ripper offers several options for AVI with uncompressed codec and less compressed codec. The uncompressed codec is available for the profile

"Losseless raw video". The profile is set with recommended settings, and you can also change the output settings by clicking the "Settings" button. There are four video codecs for uncompressed AVI: BGR24,

RGB555, YUY2, and RGBA32.

dvdripperprofile100131.jpg

There are 5 profiles for AVI with less compressed codec, in "Common Video" profile, there are AVI MSMPEG4-V3, Xvid AVI, and Divx AVI, in "HD Video" profile, there are AVI HD Video and Divx HD AVI.

4. Check the "Convert" button to start converting

After conversion, just click the "Open" button, and you will find the output AVI files.

Now you have got the output AVI videos, and the rest of the work goes to video editing software. Let’s take Windows movie maker for example.

Step1: Import your video. Get your video onto your computer any way you need too. Open Windows Movie Maker.

wmm_1.jpg

Step2: Edit your AVI video. Open your storyboard by clicking "View storyboard". Your storyboard will be your timeline and where you will do most of your editing. For you movie folks we can call it your

"cutting room floor". To put your video in the storyboard, drag it from your library to the storyboard. Click the plus sign on your timeline so you can see video and audio lines. If you want to add extra audio to your

piece, import it the same way you did your video.

Step3: Play your AVI video and watch for where you want to cut and delete the extraneous video. Place your timeline cursor (the blue line that crosses perpendicular to the timeline) where you want to cut

your video and split it by choosing "Edit split". Split your original video as many times as you want. Once you split the video you see the rest of the original video in your library. Delete the video you don't want by

pressing "Delete" on your keyboard.

Step4: Add video by dragging it to the storyboard. Make sure your cursor is where you want it on the timeline because the program will automatically place your audio track where your cursor is. You will

notice your audio track goes into the audio space on your timeline. To edit audio follow the same steps as the video.

 

Solution for editing H.264/MOV footages shot by Canon EOS 7D camera

camera100304.jpg

Before its release, lots of Canon fans have been waiting for the Canon EOS 7D camera. I have just bought one recently, but it captures videos in H.264/MOV format, which is not a workable format in my editing

software Magix Edit Pro 14. So I have to find a video converter to help me out. Through taking a whole weekend to do Google searching and trying out many programs, I end up with Pavtube HD Video Converter.

I am very pleased with this program as it does an excellent job of conversion, which converts my videos into any format that I could possibly need. Share its detailed steps here, and hope it will be of some help for

you guys who have a Canon 7D as me.

First off, download Pavtube HD Video Converter, install and run it.

Step 1: Launch this program and load MOV files into it

You can click "Add" button to import .mov files, or you can directly drag and drop the files into this program.

hdvideoconvertertotal100304.jpg

Step 2: Click the drop-down menu of "Format" to select output format

With multiple output formats, Pavtube HD Video Converter is able to output proper formats for numerous video editing software and portable devices like iPod, iPhone, BlackBerry, Apple TV, etc. I select "AVI HD

Video (*.avi)" as output format for my Magix Edit Pro 14.

format100304.jpg

BTW, if you wanna combine multiple mov files to be as a single file, you can tick the checkbox "Merge into one file".

Step 3: Click "Settings" button to adjust audio and video parameters

To make good control of the output file size and quality, you can adjust all the items in the following interface, including codec, aspect ratio, bit rate, frame rate, sample rate, and audio channels. Generally

speaking, the larger input values, the better output quality, but accompanying with the larger output file size; the smaller input figures, the smaller output file size, but accompanying with inferior output quality.

That is to say if you want to do advanced settings, you need make a balance between the file size and the file quality.

settings100304.jpg

Step 4: Click "Convert" button to start conversion

Once begin, the following window will show you clearly about the conversion information, which will help you to manage your time and storage space in a proper way. If you do not want to wait for the whole

conversion process through, you can choose "Shut down computer after conversion" to leave it alone.

conversion100304.jpg

As long as the conversion is completed, you can click on "Open" button in the main interface to get the generated files.

Well, several simple steps, hope it helps.

 

Have fun with Blu-ray and DVD movies on your Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10

XPERIA X10, the first Android device from Sony Ericsson, is delivering a consistent user experience where communication truly becomes entertainment. The UX platform builds on top of the Open OS and creates a

unique Sony Ericsson user experience by combining best-in-class entertainment features with signature applications, unrivalled integration of social media services and a rich graphical user interface. And an

important lightspot of XPERIA X10 is the Sony Ericsson Mediascape which is the smart way to get all the music, photo and videos you want from your favourite friends and artists. It accesses content from

everywhere—your phone, YouTube, PlayNow—and presents everything for you. In addition, the SanDisk supports up to 16GB for you to store anything.

sony_ericsson%20xpera_x10.png

One more thing, as Blu-ray and DVD movies are more and more popular, enjoying such HD movies anywhere will be a trend in the near future. It will be a nice experience to watch Blu-ray and DVD movies on

XPERIA X10, especially on its huge and high resolution and pixels touchscreen. However, XPERIA X10 will only accept MP4 and 3GP video format, how can we put the dvd files into a phone for playback. That’ s

what I wanna share with you. Here we go:
Required software:

Pavtube Blu-Ray Ripper

Step 1: Download, install and launch Pavtube Blu-Ray Ripper

Once launched it, you can load BD files to it through three ways-"DVD Rom", "DVD Folder" and "IFO/ISO".

bdtotal100207.jpg

Step 2: Select subtitle and audio track

Click pull down menu of "Subtitle" and "Audio" to select your needed subtitle and audio track respectively. The drop-down list will show you all the info clearly, including language and stream ID of subtitle,

language, audio codec, audio ID, and audio channel of audio. You can choose one at will, and the preview window will show you the changes in real time.

Step 3: Select output format

Click the drop-down menu of "Format" to select "Common Video"> "H.264 Video (*.mp4) as output format.

format100207.jpg

Step 4: Start Blu-ray ripping for X10

Once all settings are done, you can click "Convert" button to start Blu-ray ripping.

The output MP4 files can be found out via clicking "Open" button effortlessly, what you should do next is uploading the videos from your computer to the memory card of your X10.

 

How to back up Blu-ray and standard DVD movies to your hard drive

 

 

Until now, all my three TV cabinets have been full filled with a large number of DVD and Blu-ray discs. I believe it is time to digitize them and back up some of them to the hard drive of my PC, and others to a large

capacity external hard drive, so as to manage all the movies in a tidy and orderly way.

I just did a simple search for a blu-ray ripper and reviews on Google, and found the Pavtube Blu-Ray Ripper. Almost every guide or website review either rated Pavtube as the No.1 ripper or as being highly

recommended. I also read some user reviews from different websites that convinced me to download the trial version of this application. It worked perfectly on both standard DVD and Blu-ray conversion. Best of

all, I was able to open, copy, and watch every?Blu-ray movie, irrespectively whether the Blu-ray was bought in Japan, Europe, or USA. Share this utility here, and hope this helps.

You can free download Pavtube Blu-Ray Ripper here.

How-To:

1. Run Pavtube Blu-Ray Ripper and click "DVD Rom", "DVD Folder" or "IFO/ISO" to load DVD and Blu-ray movies. Generally speaking, the file with the longest duration time would be the main movie, if you just

need back up the main movie, tick off this one only.

Each file will be checked by default after imported, right click on any one of the files, and then there will be a popup window to let you uncheck all, just do it, and afterwards to tick off the checkbox before the file

you need converted.

bdrippertotal100305.jpg

2. Click on the drop-down menus after "Subtitle" and "Audio" respectively to select your required languages and sound effect.

3. Select output format and specify save path

Click on the pull down list of "Format" to select output format and click on the folder icon at the opposite side of "Output" to specify destination folder.

To backup your DVD and Blu-ray movies without any quality loss, you can choose "Copy"-"Directly Copy", this will retain the output files in the original .vob and .m2ts format.

copy100305.jpg

If you’d like to convert them to other video formats, then you can choose one according to your needs.

hdvideo100305.jpg

4. Click on "Settings" button to do advanced settings

The popup window will allow you to adjust audio and video parameters including codec, bit rate, aspect ratio, frame rate, sample rate, and audio channels, 5.1 surround sound is supported as well.

settings100305.jpg

5. Click on "Convert" button to begin backing up your DVD and Blu-ray movies

Once finished, you can find out the output files via clicking on "Open" button with ease.

 

Convert DVD to good quality MPG or VOB

I have been looking for a program to help me convert some of my DVD movies to MPG or VOB formats with good output quality, so that I can make use of them to do other use. After spending an entire weekend Google-ing the Web and trying different packages I decided to purchase Pavtube Blu-Ray Video Converter Ultimate, since it works with not only DVDs, but also Blu-ray discs and almost all video files, which provides one-stop service and versatile functionalities. The most important thing is that it works well, without audio and video out of sync issues and guarantees an excellent output quality to meet my needs. Suppose you are having the same requirements like me, please find the step-by-step instruction I shared as below:

BTW, you can free download Pavtube Blu-Ray Video Converter Ultimate here.

Step 1: Launch this program, and click "Load DVD" to add DVD files.

This program will tick all the imported files by default, but generally, the one with the longest duration time would be the main movie, so you can right click on the file to uncheck all, and then tick off this one.

ultimatetotal100305.jpg

Step 2: Select your needed subtitle and audio track

This program is capable of recognizing all the subtitle and audio track information, which enables you to select your desired languages to convert.

Step 3: Select MPG or VOB as output format

Click on the drop-down menu of "Format", and then the output formats profile will pop up. To output MPG format, there are "Common Video" and "HD Video" to choose from. I’d like to output good quality files, so I select "HD Video"-"MPEG-S HD Video (*.mpg)" as an example.

hdvideo100305.jpg

There are also vob formats customized for different regions. Notice that NTSC is a video format used in North America, Central America, Japan, and parts of South America; PAL is the video format used in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, most of Asia, and parts of South America; SECAM is used in Africa, Asia, Pacific Islands, Former USSR, and Americas. You should select one according to your geographical regions.

vob100305.jpg

Step 4: Click "Settings" button to adjust audio and video parameters

You are allowed to adjust codec name, aspect ratio, bit rate, frame rate, sample rate, and audio channels to customize the file quality and file size.

Step 5: Click "Convert" button to start ripping DVD to MPG or VOB

Once finished, you can get the output files via clicking on "Open" button with ease.

Additional tips:

How to adjust Brightness, Contrast, and do Deinterlacing

One more reason I prefer to this DVD to MPG or VOB converter is that I also love the way to make the video quality brighter or darker and adjust the contrast and do deinterlacing. Go to "Edit" icon, and then the following editor window will show off. Hit on "Effect" button firstly, and then drag the slider bars under "Brightness", "Contrast", and "Saturation" to do adjustment. Meanwhile, you can click on the pull down menu of "Effect" to add special effects to your videos, and tick off the checkbox "Deinterlaing" to remove the obvious lines that go across the image.

effect100305.jpg

 
Saturday Jan 30, 2010
 

Solution to playback Blu-ray movies on TV via WD TV HD Media Player

blurayripper-wdhd-theme091204.jpg

Want to find a solution to playback Blu-ray movies on your widescreen TV via WD HD Media Player? As a matter of fact, WD TV HD Media Player promises to play just about any video format you throw at it, including high definition video up to 1080p. You put the videos on any USB mass storage device, like an external hard drive or a thumb drive, and plug it into the device, WD TV HD Media Player will recognize the files on the drive and play any video, audio, or photo files it finds. However, according to the feedback provided by some users, WD TV HD Media Player does play m2ts selectively only, some are, and some are not. In purpose of solving this problem, this post will talk about how to rip Blu-ray movies to USB for playback on TV via WD TV HD Media Player.

WD TV HD Media Player supported file formats:

Video: MPEG1/2/4, WMV9, AVI (MPEG4, Xvid, AVC), H.264, MKV, MOV (MPEG4, H.264), Subtitle SRT (UTF-8)

Audio: MP3, WMA, OGG, WAV/PCM/LPCM, AAC, FLAC, Dolby Digital, AIF/AIFF, MKA Playlist PLS, M3U, WPL

Photo: JPEG, GIF, TIF/TIFF, BMP, PNG

The Blu-ray ripper we will use is called Pavtube Blu-Ray Ripper , which can rip and convert DVDs and Blu-Ray movies directly to any other formats, including HD video format. Now let’s have a look at its operation steps.

Step 1: Download, install and launch Pavtube Blu-Ray Ripper

Step 2: Load Blu-ray movie, select output format and set destination folder

There are three ways to importing Blu-ray movie, namely by pressing “DVD Rom”, “DVD Folder”, “IFO/ISO”. As soon as Blu-ray files are loaded, now you can click the drop-down button of “Format” to select output format. In order to keep Blu-ray in high definition, here I choose “MKV HD Video” for example, so that the ripped files can be played via WD TV HD Media Player.

blurayripper-hdvideo091204.jpg

At the same time, you can click the folder icon at the end of “Output” to indicate save path, of course, you can skip this step, because this program offers a destination folder set by default, if you do not specify, it will export files to this folder automatically. Moreover, if you want to play your files without intervals, you can check “Merge into one file” to combine multiple chapters to be one file.

blurayripper-format091204.jpg

Step 3: Set advanced settings

Besides this, you can also click “Settings” to adjust video and audio parameters to ensure the output HD quality. Changing video and audio codec, adjusting aspect ratio, bit rate, frame rate, sample rate, etc. are all available here.

blurayripper-profile091204.jpg

Step 4: Ripping

Once all the above settings are completed, you can click “Convert” button to start Blu-ray ripping, and the output HD MKV files can be found by clicking on the button “Open”. After that, you can copy these files to your USB, and plug in it to WD TV HD Media Player to enjoy via TV.

Tips:
According to some users’ feedback, the output files of Pavtube Blu-Ray Ripper is the only format that they can smoothly fast forward at 16x regardless of the output format.

 

Expand capacity of Apple TV


appletvtheme100126.jpg

For some reasons, I haven’t made full use of my 40GB Apple TV in the last 2 years. Recently, I have more spare time to do so, and would like to use it in my living room with my wide screen TV to enjoy its functionality fully. It works fine to playback all the files I throw at it, but 40GB is too confining for all my photos and music, not to mention my movies and other video collection. To solve this problem, once I have to make my Mac Pro and iTunes running to stream all my data to the Apple TV. It seems a bit troublesome, I dislike it. So I look for a solution to expand the capacity of my Apple TV. Via Google, I’ve found some useful articles talking about this issue, and I followed them, and finally successfully upgrade the hard drive of the Apple TV lately. Here I’d like to document my process below, but before that, I’d like to show my gratitude to people who I’ve got useful info from their articles, even though I can not remember their exactly names now.

In summary, the process is relatively simple, a small 40GB hard drive can be freely replaced, thus becomes a DIY Apple TV.

Dismantle the Apple TV, remove the hard drive, and connect it to an Intel Mac Pro via WiebeTech Forensic DriveDock or other 2.5-inch hard drive FireWire bridge. Start the Mac, and you will see that hard drive partition of Apple TV is structured as follows:

/dev/disk5

#: type name size identifier

0: GUID_partition_scheme *37.3 GB disk5

1: EFI 34.0 MB disk5s1

2: 400.0 MB disk5s2

3: Apple_HFS OSBoot 900.0 MB disk5s3

4: Apple_HFS Media 36.0 GB disk5s4

400MB of space which could be used to store the system restore data. Extract overall image via CopyCatX, and recover them to a new hard drive which you want to change back. I found lots of people like using a Western Digital 120GB WD1200VE hard drive. Install the new hard drive to Apple TV, and in the test, you will find the system continues to recognize only 40GB of space, because the partition information is the same with the original 40GB hard drive. But in fact, there are more than 70GB of space not being used.

appletvduplicate100126.jpg

Remove the new hard drive to re-connect to the Mac, and allocate the unused more than 70GB space to the Media partition with the help of iPartition or other partitioning software. Be careful, not to change the EFI or the other 400MB partition.

ipartition100126.jpg

After install it back to the Apple TV, all the 107GB space will be recognized completely, you are done!

appletvitunes100126.jpg

Now I’m able to store more photos, movies, music, and television shows on the Apple TV. But when it comes to video playback, Apple TV has strict formats limitation, it caused troubles again, and I have to convert all my videos to Apple TV formats .mp4 and .mov in advance. However, this does not the most important thing I’m concerned, because I have already have a video converter on my Mac Pro, and my most intention is to watch my Blu-ray on it. Fortunately, via Google again, I get an available Blu-ray Ripper for Mac to meet my needs, which is able to run on Mac independently as long as you have an external BD drive. To keep HD quality as well as compress BD size, I usually select HD video as my output option. A great product, I like it. Besides this, it seems there are also another version developed for Windows user, attached this BD ripper here, maybe it’s your choice.

Well, by the way, Apple installed Fujitsu hard drives in original, and this could be due to their relatively small power and heat consumption, so when replacing the hard drive, you can also take this factor into account. In addition, the replacement of the hard disk will let you lost product warranty, please proceed with caution.

 

Easiest way to convert AAC 5.1 to AC3 5.1


videoconvertertheme100128.jpg

Surfing online, often see people asking questions like this: “Does anyone know how to convert 5.1 AAC to AC3? If so, what software do I need and encoding/conversion settings. Thanks in advance for any help.” As a matter of fact, this is a normal question, because some of our usually used multimedia devices can decode or read audio codec selectively only, we have to do format conversion to meet their requirements. For example, some theatre amplifier can only decode AC3 5.1 format, while Apple TV can only deal with AAC audio, or whatever. In this post, I’d like to document a easiest way to convert AAC 5.1 to AC3 5.1, in the near future, if I have enough spare time, I’d like to talk more about how to convert AC3 to AAC, that may be in my another post.

To convert AAC 5.1 to AC3 5.1, you just need Pavtube Video Converter only. This program is capable of reading a wide range of video and audio formats, including videos from DVs or camcorders (JVC, Panasonic, Cannon, Sony, etc.), TiVo (*.tivo), DVDs (*.vob), Blu-ray (*.m2ts,), YouTube (*.flv, *.f4v), and many other videos in common media formats, like mp4, avi, mkv, ts, tp, evo, aac,dts and so on. The detailed process is as below:

videoconvertertotal100127.jpg

Step 1: Click “Add” button to load your video files

Step 2: Select output format and specify save path
Click the pull down menu of “Format” to select your needed format, here I choose “MKV HD Video (*.mkv) for instance. Click the folder icon at the end of “Output” to decide where to locate the output files.

Step 3: Click “Settings” icon to specify AC3 5.1.
Once click “Settings” button, a “Profile” window will pop up as above. Now you should select ac3 as audio codec, and select 5.1 as audio channel. By the way, you’d better adjust audio bit rate at 448K to match the effect of 5.1 channels to full extent. All needed settings are completely showing in the above interface, you just need follow them, and this will lead you to get an AC3 5.1 surround sound successfully.

Step 4: Click “Convert” button to start conversion

As long as conversion is finished, you can click “Open” button to find out the output files with the converted AC3 5.1 channels.

Well, hope this helps.

 

How to rip Blu-Ray movie to 3GP?

Pavtube Blu-Ray Ripper is a professional converter for users to convert Blu-Ray movie to almost all popular video formats and a basic tool for you to enjoy high quality videos on 3G Phone. With this program you can convert Blu-Ray movie, either in your hard drive or directly from the Blu-Ray disc to *.3gp and *.3g2 for watching on 3G Phone wherever. For more information, please visit Pavtube Blu-Ray Ripper.

Now please find a step-to-step guide to convert Blu-Ray to 3GP:

Tip: Make sure you have installed Pavtube Blu-Ray Ripper and got your Blu-Ray disc at hand before conversion.

Step1. Add Blu-ray files

Run Pavtube Blu-Ray Ripper, click DVD ROM to extract Blu-Ray movie from disc, or click DVD Folder if you would like to add Blu-Ray files from your PC. The Loaded Blu-ray video information will be showed in the file list, and you can rename the output videos in the file list. Select the segments you would like to convert. If you are not sure which to select, try double click on a selected file so as to preview it.

Step 2. Customize the output settings

Move down your mouse to the format bar, click it to select output format. As you would like to play the videos on 3G Phone, point to 3G and select 3GP or 3G2 from the submenu. Then you could specify an output folder to save converted videos. Just type save path in Output bar or click the small folder icon to specify the output folder.

Step 3. Start conversion

Check the file list and make sure all the required files are selected, then click Convert button on the right bottom to start converting Blu-ray videos to 3GP. A window will pop up, and you can view the progress of conversion or set auto shutdown from the window.

When the conversion completed, you are free to copy the converted videos to your 3G Phone for enjoyment.

You can download Pavtube Blu-Ray Ripper for free trial from here.