Introducing ratDVD - the DVD movie download format?

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#1

I just posted the article Introducing ratDVD - the DVD movie download format?.

       Here      is a very  interesting project, just released and there is very little user information around so  far. Yet, it is enticing to say the least. RatDVD was ...

Read the full article here:  [http://www.cdfreaks.com/news/10377-Introducing-ratDVD---the-DVD-movie-download-format.html](http://www.cdfreaks.com/news/10377-Introducing-ratDVD---the-DVD-movie-download-format.html)

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#2

This sounds like a “very” complicated pointless version of dvd-shrink type programs it is not an alternate to Divx/Xvid as it sounds it sounds like it doesn’t even do anything since he talks about not being able to use CD, Then what’s the point?Other DVD Programs do this already less complicated AND most important no need to install DRM Crap Media player 10
[edited by jef195 on 01.06.2005 08:15]

#3

No, it’s not like any other DVD-Ripping software available out there. This piece of software does DVD shrinking and at the same time preserves the original movie format. I haven’t seen so far DivX/XviD mofies featuring menus, extras, multiple soundtracks and so on, all in all at a (hopefully) good quality.

#4

OK! I Like the sound of it. Is there a way around having to install WMP 10? or will there in the future? i Haven’t installed it (WMP)and would prefer not to.Thanks.

#5

If it’s doing DVD shrinking I wonder if most people would be thinking about downloading a 4.7GB of movie! Pls people don’t compare a DVD shrink of 4.7GB with DivX/Xvid of 700MB.

#6

I’ve downloaded, installed and run the software, I didn’t install WMP10, the proggie is compressing stuff as I speak. But the damn thing is awfully slow! I am running it on my office system right now, it’s a Sempron 2500+ with 1.5 GB DDR400 (Kingston) and a GeForce 6600 GT and it’s doing about 15 frames per second , maybe less. So I guess I won’t watch “The Chronicles Of Riddick” in this new so-called “Wonder-format” today. So far, the interface is OK but the proggie lacks all the gizmos I got used to while compressing with VirtualDub or Gordian Knot. The lack of settings and the skeletal information flow from the software while compressing might be annoying for a lot of users. I don’t see many people ready to wait 6 to 8 hours for the program to finish doing its stuff without getting any feedback.

#7

Yes true but let’s give him time to mature it. I believe this is his first release so eventually it could be quite impressive.Let us know how it turns out like how big the file is, quality, settings used.

#8

I like its name! :wink: and its true source of strength. I return to the Episode. :X

#9

I wondered about doing something like this a few years ago, basicly it would compress EVERYTHING on the DVD to MPEG-4, but save where everything in the original DVD was etc, then it could be “decompressed” to MPEG-2, anfd a full DVD again. Problem was that there seemed little market for this kind of thing, those who wanted to wait overnight and cared about quality would just leave a DVDR (normally high quality, compressed with CCE) downloading, those who wanted it in a few hours would just download a XviD/DivX DVDRiP, so really, this is a compromise. And copressing and then r-compressing would only lose more quality. I personally dont think it will take of… I may be wrong… Just my two cents on this. Ben :slight_smile: Edit: I have just tried this software, the first thing I noticed is how very slow it is, my guess is that it will make about 5-7 hours to encode (much like the original automated DVD to VCD software). Maybe this software could be adapted somehow, with a bit of modding, to play the files on the PSP or something, that would make it popular, but I still dont see it being a “release format”.
[edited by bcn_246 on 01.06.2005 11:37]

#10

“Supposedly, this application can take an entire full length DVD movie, regardless of extras and create a single file of around 1 gigabyte in size with no noticable loss of quality.” 1gb :slight_smile: Read whole article before passing judgement.

#11

Right, it is indeed slow. But still twice as fast as my usual AVC encodes… and the quality is just as fine… what I miss, is a kind of quick mode that makes it as fast as XviD and in this case the quality could also go down to XviD like quality.:slight_smile: Anyway, I think this is already very interesting as “release format” since most people only have to do the “decompress” to DVD - and that is faster than the compression to ratdvd.

#12

I unfortunately had to restart my system before the proggie finished its work. However, the partial file resulted was there, but I couldn’t play it at all (it was interrupted at 81%, after no less than 7 hours of encoding). I used a file viewer to see the contents (Total Commander’s Lister) and it has some archive header (saw the ‘PK’ string) and XML tags. Interesting… I’ll make the proggie compress the whole DVD again during the night and I hope I’ll get some results tomorrow morning.

#13

I was able to encode a new DVD I had just bought into a ratDVD file last night. I do not know how long it took as I went to bed. However the file did play as I watched a few seconds prior to leaving for work. Tonight, I’ll play around with it more, such as burn to a DVD and try it on my standalone.

#14

"Warforpeace"Keep going let me know the results i actually really would like to know if it works :slight_smile: "Crabbyappleton"Let me know the results Quality,Workability. :X

#15

…Oh yeah “Live long and prosper” and"May the force be with you always"

#16

Okay, I’ve let the prog crunch the DVD all night, I can’t tell for sure how long did it take to complete compressing the DVD but this morning it was done and I could play with the final result. “Chronicles Of Riddick” dropped in size from 4470 MB to 1816,2 MB with about 10% drop in quality. I have chosen NOT to compress any audio and I’ve set the quality slider in ratDVD to 100. Oh, and for all the people out there which are concerned about having to use WMP10 I have great news! You don’t need it to convert and play .ratDVD movies! Nowm about the movie. ratDVD managed to keep the original structure intact, that includes all the features available on the original DVD. That is great! AC3 sounds were there, too, I managed to play the .ratDVD file just fine on my Genius 5.1 HT Audio System and it’s surround, baby :smiley: The only drawback is the loss of image quality, but it’s compared to compressing from DVD to DivX or XviD so that shouldn’t be such a big issue. I’m not sure what will happen with the image quality after decompressing this movie to DVD format again, maybe I’ll do that tonight and see what happens. Having both the original DVD and the (re)decompressed DVD at once might prove to be a good occasion to compare image quality and see if it’s worth compressing our movies. So far, this new movie format is promising, I simply love the idea of having the entire DVD in a single file (together with menus, extras, bonuses, etc.). But the developer should really-really try and optimize the compression algorythm, the compression takes too damn long to please…

#17

“But the developer should really-really try and optimize the compression algorythm, the compression takes too damn long to please…” the first cars weren’t fast either. Btw TMPGenc isn’t much faster on many pc’s either

#18

I guess the Chronicles of Riddick was a re-encoded DVD, not an untouched retail DVD?

#19

OK guys heres the deal so far… I downloaded this at work and found i only had one dvd on my hdd - which was made with dvd shrink, but the movie without extras was about 4300MB, so I did not use any compression and just copied the movie with no extras. This is what i fed into RatDVD and it compressed the movie to ~1.5GB, but unfortunately I could not check the quality as I was at home already using remote desktop. I have set it off converting back to dvd so will have a direct comparison tomorrow. On the home computer I ripped the Matrix (a special edition copy from china - 8060MB) and have fed that into the rat. Will report in 24hrs how it looks. This looks like a fantastic piece of software, and if the quality holds out…phew! I’ll be packaging a few dvds into the format :stuck_out_tongue: Will report back tomorrow

#20

Seems to me I will keep using CCE and then author in nero-vision. I can encode 3 movies to fit on one dvd-r, with pretty much no quality loss by using 4x pass. The only thing I would miss out on are the extras, which I find are pretty much garbage anyway, unless its an alternate ending, which I can encode anyway and add to the end of my dvd.:slight_smile: