Video Asylum

Posted by Joe Murphy Jr (A) on August 21, 2005 at 22:32:57

In Reply to: Clarifications posted by jbmcb on August 21, 2005 at 19:06:34:

Plextools is a utility for Plextor drives, it is not the firmeware. The current version of PlexTools is 2.24b

I forgot the "b" and yes I screwed up the software with the firmware. Son-of-a-fucking-bitch! Thanks for pointing that out (seriously).

I'm not sure all Plextor drives support bitsetting. Plextor has said in the past it won't support bitsetting 'cause it violates the DVD+R standard, though they later had firmware upgrades that did support the feature on some drives. I'm just not sure which, or if all of them do.

Plextor is wrong and it has been pointed out to them that bit-setting/book-type is in the official +R specs (I believed they cried "semantics" or "misunderstanding".). I believe he is either getting the new PX-716UF or the previous PX-712UF -- why get anything older than the 712? -- which supports this and that is why I said he needs to get the latest version of PlexTools (which is the software you need to do the bit-setting/book-type change). Plextor added DVD-ROM bit-setting/book-type in v2.09 of PlexTools).

I'm not sure who makes Verbatim media (probably not Verbatim)

Verbatim is a subsidiary of Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation. I've seen some sites actually refer to them as Verbatim/Mitsubishi.

Afterdawn.com is very good, but www.doom9.net is sort of the official website of DVD "Archiving" :) The forums there have pretty much any bit of information you'd need to know.

I suggested AfterDawn because the owner likes to humorously fling shit at Hollywood and the site is not in a country that sides (at least not at this time) with Hollywood. I know Doom9 has great information, but I don't remember where they're located on the globe.

Also, some of the information on the Doom9 DVDShrink and DVDDecrypter sections are dated (check the dates at the bottom of the pages for DVDDecrypter, DVD blanks are only single-layer, etc). The site also focuses more on newer (though in some ways not necessarily better) methods and besides, he's just starting out and Doom9 presents an enormous amount of information that may be over-whelming for a beginner.

Wading through forums is fine once you're up 'n runnin', but more often than not I find them a bit too technical for beginners. What can I say, I like to have shit spelled out for me.

Below is a link to a nice interactive tutorial site (pretty cool and beginner friendly). Click on any of the guides under the "Re-author" section for DVDShrink or the "Ripping" section for DVDDecrypter. When the selected page opens, click on the "NEXT" arrow:

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