Using MactheRipper...help!

Honestly you can do everything you are wanting to do with the Mac. These posts are usually frowned upon mostly because there's the implication that you're breaking the DMCA (regardless of whether that's correct or not). So it's usually not a good idea to even broach the subject here.

Trust me go Google it and you'll find what you need.

Get Popcorn 2: http://www.roxio.com/en/products/popcorn/index.jhtml
it's more recent than toast and cheaper. Toast has the features of Popcorn 1. If you want Toast wait for the next version. That will compress and burn.

Toast 7 will actually compress and burn, as well, Jason, but its not Universal Binary, unfortunately, though it should run fine under Rosetta. A UB upgrade has been promised by Roxio. It will also do a lot of things that PopCorn II can't of course (hence the higher price). Music , data discs, data spanning (letting you back up a large HD across a series of DVD's), much more control over input and output formats etc etc etc

Apart from having been updated to universal binary already I've been wondering what Popcorn II actually does that can't be done with Toast 7. Have you tried them both yourself?

Cheers

Rod

Rod,
Yes, I've been a compulsive updater of toast since cd-r's were scsi 6x or something horrible like that. Toast 7 has the whole Popcorn I inside of it. About the only thing you need toast for is to do format conversions, which it does well. Popcorn II has much more control. You can select the languages and subtitles you want and select a custom format with whatever titles you choose. If you plan on doing a lot of dl to sl conversion then I'd say you might want both in your arsenal. I can't imagine the next paid Toast upgrade not having Popcorn II in it.

I've had Toast 7 stick in Rosetta a couple of times (no way to force quit). At the same time, I've had Popcorn II stick as well.

So, I wouldn't put the quality of either or the fact that one is Rosetta and another UB up as the main reason to purchase either one. Simply, Popcorn II is cheaper and lets you do more customizing. Toast is more robust in the way it handles certain movies, costs more, and isn't as flexible as popcorn II.

Neither are necessary, but if you have a lot to backup then you probably want one.

I tried out three different compression applications and Popcorn II seemed to do the best for scenes with a lot of motion/fog if I had to compress the video.

If you've found some good dl media, have a burner, and have the time, then dvdbackup (the latest cli version), mkisofs, and hdiutil will do the trick for all but the stickiest of movies (if dvdbackup fails you just use vobcopy and let it tick away).

good luck,
-j

I've been using them both for quite a while , too, Jason (toast since SCSI days as well) , although I haven't tried PopCorn 2 (but did use PopCorn 1 before Toast 7 came along) .

I must confess that I tend to use Toast's very extensive non video related features more than anything else (and most of my video stuff is actually home shot video) , so its not really an "either / or" situation for me (and I've been running it on an iMac G5 most of the time, with a pair of fast external burners, rather than the MacBook's drive).

If I was just looking for a single DVD/CD burning piece of software I'd still opt for Toast 7 accordingly (and recommend it to others for its broader range of capability - don't think I could live without it even though the finder/disk utility burning processes are much better than they used to be).

Still. You've got me more interested than I was before. Given that there is a reasonable upgrade price for PopCorn2 I'll give it a whirl and report back.

Thanks for the info.

Cheers

Rod

Mmm,

Well I attempted to buy Roxio's supposed $29.95 US update from Popcorn 1 or Toast 7 to Popcorn 2.

Sadly when the purchase address appeared as Australia they somehow managed to convert this to no less than $70!!! Not AU Dollars (currently roughly = .75C US) but US dollars!!

I have accordingly abandoned the experiment. Having bought just every update of Toast from 4 to 7 AND Popcorn 1 I'm simply not prepared to be ripped off in this fashion.

I had enough trouble with my last Roxio on line purchase. Its a pity, but until they sort out their online purchase system I'm going to give them a very wde berth.

Cheers

Rod

I would say that's about my setup for most stuff: iMac G5 to Pioneer 110 in LaCie d2 case and NEC in a PocketDrive case. Multiple Firewire ports are the best.

I will agree that toast is an almost must have general utility. That and rpc1 drives. Toast on PPC seems to have a faster burning engine that the os so I use it for pretty much everything. Even if you use drutil, you get a longer combined time of burn and verify that toast. mkisofs + hdiutil is a lot longer. Being able to take your favorite audiobooks and play them in any dvd player, or make a large mp3 collection, is another plus. For making backups of your dvd's, as this thread implies...

IIRC there are about 3 dvd compression applications that have free trials. I don't think Roxio has that. The Roxio rebates are notoriously problematic, if you have problems making a purchase or update from there then email or call customer service.

Take a look around for coupons or discount codes because Roxio/Sonic whatever hands them out like candy (read too many 'easy creator 8' 'last chance to upgrade' emails).

If I had one of the current in-built MatshitaDVD-R drives (which I unfortunately do), and didn't have any authoring/burning utilities or other hardware then I would look at the LaCie DVD Burner with Toast:

http://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?pid=10113

not the cheapest, but it's a decent bundle and their support is good.

Just thought I'd throw that one in for anyone interested in this thread..and no..I'm not pushing either of those products.

Good Luck,
-j

I've had the update to cart price from Roxio change on me no less than twice. Each time I called them and told them the price magically changed between loading it and checkout and they fixed it.

I've only ran into one dvd that Popcorn couldn't cut down w/o compression and Toast handled that one fine. It's all about the quality.

Ethically , my trash is filled with crushed dvd duplicates of the same disk. I just have that problem of too many R2 disks and a region locked macbook drive now sigh

You can use ffmpegX (http://ffmpegx.com/) to convert the DVD folder containing VIDEO_TS into a .dmg file, which you can then burn with OSX's Disk Utility.

Here (in my country 😉 it's still legal to make a backup copy of any cd/dvd you buy for your personnal use. That right does not seems to please "Mr Apple" which told about it to the governement ... And it should end next month :-((
Have a nice day

And LiquidCD is a good, free alternative to Toast...


http://www.maconnect.ch/index.php?page=liquidcd&lang=en

Ah ha...
Toast 7.1 Universal Binary. Start your updaters.

I more or less addressed the compression issue in my first posted attempt to help you out.

Try this link, or otherwise do what others have suggested, bite the bullet and pay for an app that will do what you want....

http://www.eskimo.com/~pristine/video.html

I like the way Burn is progressing. Todays update actually added my files to a visible list. I'm giving that one the benefit over the rest. Basically all the free utilities are just GUI's for what's in the system. Once you find one w/ video compression it's all over.

The problem w/ a lot of the individual applications for video processing is that a lot of them are utilizing unlicensed code and not paying royalties. Many of them are simple compiles w/ a little gui and a 'Gimmie money' button. Then there are the rare few that work on a donation basis, can be carefully installed so as not to violate any IP, and do the job right. Separating the junk from the real deal was painful enough in PPC land. Now it's time for another round in intel land.

I hope Burn gets there, but right now there isn't anything with the simplicity, legality, price, and convenience of toast or popcorn....unless you want to pay for a machine locked version of something supported in switzerland..ok I guess that's a little harsh. There are things like dtox, but IMHO if you're getting just one application go w/ one that does all the things you want, has a solid legal reputation, and real support.

Obviously as mentioned earlier the ffmpegx author as dvd option is one of the donation ways to go. Good lot of features in that Application too. Even if you don't use it for your work, the calculators are a good enough reason to have it in your toolbox.

Good Luck,
-j

Check out Video/DVD Help. There's a plethora of info. that might help you out there.