DVD Catalyst

[dvdcatalyst]

I just got catalyst 3 and its taking over an hour to rip a 2hr 13min movie. My laptop is very fast, don't know why its so slow.

Have a look here

DVD Catalyst Conversion Speed Tips | Tools4Movies, the official home of DVD Catalyst

The main speed tips that do not affect quality at all:

*Install the Boosterpack. The boosterpack installs an additional conversion engine, which is basically a newer version than the one DVD Catalyst has. It’s a free download, and will speed things up considerably, even with the same settings.


*Turn off the CPU indicators. In Global Settings > Advanced, remove the checkmark for them, restart DVD Catalyst, and you will gain some extra performance. The CPU indicators (blue bar(s) at the bottom right) look nice, but they don’t really serve any purpose, other than to show you how busy your computer is.


*If you are converting from a DVD, a tool that removes the protection on the fly, such as AnyDVD or DVD43 will reduce the work needed to be done by the conversion, and thus speed it up a little. In some cases, when the protection is too strong, DVD Catalyst switches to a slower conversion mode, (”restarted conversion” message) to be able to convert the movie, so if there is no protection, it will always use the faster method.


*If you are converting video files, if possible, put the output location on a different harddrive than the one you have the original files on.


*NEVER convert directly to a device or a storage card. The transfer rate of flash memory is not the greatest, so conversions will be terribly slow.


*Don’t convert from and to a USB device at the same time. The USB bus can only handle so much data, and having the data go back and forth at the same time will slow things down.

Other things to look at:

Laptop DVD drives are usually not comparable in speed with desktop drives. This could be the bottleneck
Some DVDs are more protected than others, and in some cases, DVD Catalyst restarts the conversion to a slower, safer conversion mode to be able to convert the DVD.
Other programs could interfere with the conversion, such as DVD burning programs running in the background
Other programs could take up processor power, so less is available for the conversion, such as Media Center doing a recording at the same time.
To eliminate software complications, you can try running DVD Catalyst in WIndows Safe Mode. This does not load any programs that otherwise run on startup, and gives dvdcat all the power it could use.

 

[huzier]

First of all, GREAT program. I used IMtoo for a couple years, then I got away from ripping movies for my LG dare for a while. This is VERY easy....Here's my question...
I got Hangover through itunes. Will Catalyst convert it to play on my moto Droid?
Thanks

 

[dvdcatalyst]

First of all, GREAT program. I used IMtoo for a couple years, then I got away from ripping movies for my LG dare for a while. This is VERY easy....

Thank you

Here's my question...
I got Hangover through itunes. Will Catalyst convert it to play on my moto Droid?
Thanks

Unfortunately no. The iTunes purchased movies, as well as Digital Copies you find on some DVDs are wrapped in some form of DRM. There are a couple of programs out there (TuneByte for example) that use a recording method that can do something with these files, however, its usually easier to just rent and rip the DVD instead.

 

[3turner]

Thank you for a great program.

Only problem I have run into is when ripping the Star Wars movies, I got files that were incomplete. For example, the conversion would say that the conversion was completed but I would have a file size of 400 to 500 MB. Opening the file and looking at the movie, I noticed that the conversion stopped in the middle of the movie and was not completed. It happened to me on Episode III, V and VI. I can't get Episode VI to complete the conversions...all others have converted completely.

I have the booster pack installed and am using the default settings for the Droid.
I have two DVD optical drives: Sony DVD Rom DDU1615 and Lite On DVDRW LH-20A1H in a Dell XP SP2 MCE 2005. Funny thing is that sometimes the Sony DVD Rom does not recognize any tracks to convert that the Lite On DVDRW does...so I use the Lite On more.

 

[dvdcatalyst]

Thank you for a great program.

You are welcome, Thank you for using DVD Catalyst.

Only problem I have run into is when ripping the Star Wars movies, I got files that were incomplete. For example, the conversion would say that the conversion was completed but I would have a file size of 400 to 500 MB. Opening the file and looking at the movie, I noticed that the conversion stopped in the middle of the movie and was not completed. It happened to me on Episode III, V and VI. I can't get Episode VI to complete the conversions...all others have converted completely.

I have the booster pack installed and am using the default settings for the Droid.
I have two DVD optical drives: Sony DVD Rom DDU1615 and Lite On DVDRW LH-20A1H in a Dell XP SP2 MCE 2005. Funny thing is that sometimes the Sony DVD Rom does not recognize any tracks to convert that the Lite On DVDRW does...so I use the Lite On more.

The Star Wars DVDs themselves should convert without any problems. The problem you describe I have heard quite a few times before, and in almost all cases, it was related to the DVD drive. Its a bit hard to justify since you have tried a different drive already, but still I am leaning towards this.

I know it sounds like an easy way out for me, pointing the finger to something other than DVD Catalyst, but I've ran into this quite a few tiimes, so if possible try the same DVD's on a different computer, or if possible, a different drive.
Your Sony drive might work, but if its the same as the one I have in my Dell laptop, it might take a few times of insert/eject before the drive actually recognizes the DVD.

Please insert the DVD first, make sure it shows up in My Computer before starting DVD Catalyst to make sure the computer actually sees the movie.

The thing that happens is that Dual Layer DVDs sometimes have issues on drives that come with brand-name computers. Companies such as Dell, Gateway, HP, etc use cheap components for their computers (even for their high-end series) to keep the cost down, and the cheaper drives often cause complications at the point of where the movie switches from one layer to the next.

 

[3turner]

The Star Wars DVDs themselves should convert without any problems. The problem you describe I have heard quite a few times before, and in almost all cases, it was related to the DVD drive. Its a bit hard to justify since you have tried a different drive already, but still I am leaning towards this.

I have a laptop I can try it on, but the Lite On DVDRW is a newer drive, about 1 year old. I replaced the original Dell drive with the Lite On drive.

Your Sony drive might work, but if its the same as the one I have in my Dell laptop, it might take a few times of insert/eject before the drive actually recognizes the DVD.

Please insert the DVD first, make sure it shows up in My Computer before starting DVD Catalyst to make sure the computer actually sees the movie.

I'll try this method next. I've been starting DVDCatalyst first before putting the movie in. Maybe that could be it. Thanks for the response.

 

[rsdroid]

This is awesome! Just tried the free version (not trial) just to see how it would work. Awesome! Just loaded The Last Samurai (2 hr, 48 min.) on my Droid and the quality is fantastic! Took just under an hour to upload DVD onto my laptop (and I was browsing the web on the same laptop the whole time), and less than 10 minutes (probably closer to 5) to copy onto my SD card. Took just under 1 gb of memory.

The only thing with the free version is not being able to get rid of the black bars on the side so that it will use the full screen of the Droid, which I expected from reading on the website. The quality and ease of use will make me purchase the full version on payday! That will fix the use of the full screen! Loving this! :icon_ banana:

 

[cyber3d]

Does DVDCataylst have the ability to create a menu for selecting chapters/scenes? Am I missing something here.

 

[dvdcatalyst]

Does DVDCataylst have the ability to create a menu for selecting chapters/scenes? Am I missing something here.

Hi Cyber,

Nope.
I'm unaware of any player for the droid that would be capable of handling menus in video. While there are a few video formats that can actually include menu's (mkv and mp4 to be exact) the menus won't be playable.

You can use the "split in scenes" option to generate seperate files for each scene, and then create a playlist to play them all in sequence and add the capability to select your scenes.

 

[porr1]

I got the same problem I left it running over night went to work came back home and it was still running.

 

[dvdcatalyst]

I got the same problem I left it running over night went to work came back home and it was still running.

Please visit this link, and see if anything applies to your issue, otherwise, please let me know what DVD you are having issues with.

DVD Catalyst Conversion Speed Tips | Tools4Movies, the official home of DVD Catalyst

Also make sure you have no other programs running when the conversion is running.
On most computers when you insert a DVD, it will start playing using your DVD player application. If two programs (DVD Catalyst and the DVD player) are using the DVD at the same time, conversion speed will be terrible.
The conversion process is quite demanding of your computer, but if there is something else doing something at the same time, the conversion speed will slow down a little. Windows Media Center recording a show while the conversion is running will slow down the conversion as well.

 

[soulless]

gonna upgrade my rig to a quadcore before i really dig into this DVD conversion stuff. my opteron 165 dual core 2.7ghz w/2G rams just isn't enough..

 

[dvdcatalyst]

gonna upgrade my rig to a quadcore before i really dig into this DVD conversion stuff. my opteron 165 dual core 2.7ghz w/2G rams just isn't enough..

Should work just fine, the HQ profiles might take a little longer, but you should still be able to do a 2 hour movie in a little over an hour.
If you pick the standard profile (which still looks good) it will be less than an hour.

 

[JTAC]

Keep it up Mitch!

 

[Burtonbell]

I see there is a PS3 option for the DVD Catalyst and I have a question on that.

One DVD I am actually having problems with is in .mkv file and it doesn't look right on my PS3. Any ideas on how to configure the settings so that I can burn it to a DVD-R and watch it on my PS3? I tried with another movie file to see if it's the .mkv causing problems but even that movie came out fuzzy and the aspect ratio was wrong.

So far, this is the best DVD burning software for the Droid I have used. Thanks!