DVD DIGEST - LIVE UPDATE Issue 16 DVD DIGEST - http://www.digital-digest.com/dvd/ DVD DIGEST | LIVE UPDATE Issue 16 Your fortnightly DVD newsletter Sunday, 23rd April, 2000 ************************************************************** TOP NEWS SUMMARY : 0. Section Zer0 - an introduction to this issue 1. MPEG-4 Central 2. WinDVD 2000 v2.1 3. A surprise, coming soon ... 4. What's new at DVD Digest Downloads ? - DVD/VCD/MPEG-4 Players - DivX (MPEG-4) Player 0.01 - MicroDVD 0.9 beta 9 - WinDVD 2000 v2.1 - Encoding utilities : - AVI2VCD 1.1 - bbMPEG 1.2 - Fez MPEG-4 Bitrate Calculator 3.5 - FlaskMPEG 0.58 - LSX-MPEG Plugin - JJE-VBRC 1.01 - SUBRip 0.7b - SUBRipper 0.2 Beta 5 - SUBTrack 1.0 - SUBViewer 2.0 Beta 7 - VirtualDub 1.3c - VOBrator 0.2b - VOBUtils 0.1 - XVCD Bitrate Cal. 1.11 - Region-free utilities : - DVD Genie 3.43 - Margi DVD-TO-GO PCMCIA Region Patcher 4.14 - Remote Selector 1.74 5. How to cancel/change your subscription email address - how to maintain the subscription to this newsletter even if your email address has changed 6. A simple thank-you - a thank-you message for all those that joined this list ******************************************************* 0. Section Zer0 Welcome to this, the 16th issue, of the DVD Digest LiveUpdate newsletter. In keeping with our promise to keep this newsletter fortnightly, we have released this newsletter (almost) on time, although there hasn't anything really exciting happening in the past few weeks, except for a few MPEG-4 related items. MPEG-4, also known as DivX, has gained even more support as the premier digital home video recording format - even with some hardware devices soon to be released, that have MPEG-4 encoding/decoding built in. DVD Digest was quite an early adopter of this beloved format, and hope to continue our support for it. Now, on with the news ... ******************************************************* 1. MPEG-4 Central To continue our support of the MPEG-4 (DivX) format, we have decided that this new and incredibly efficient format should deserve it's own section/guide within our Tech-Support site - and this is exactly what we have done. From now on, all future MPEG-4 releated guides/FAQs, as well as the current ones, can be accessed through this one section/page. And we hope to bring you even more news/downloads/information in the near future, regarding this format. You can access our "MPEG-4 Guide", or as we like to call it "MPEG-4 Central" here : http://www.digital-digest.com/dvd/support/mpeg4.html P.S : We've added and updated a few more guides since our last newsletter - those who like to capture video (in AVI format) and would like to convert them to MPEG-4 should definetly have a look at our "AVI to MPEG-4" guide. ******************************************************* 2. WinDVD 2000 v2.1 WinDVD 2000 v2.1 includes many features that PowerDVD 2.55 users have already taken for granted. Lazy as we are, we haven't had time to write up a full review just as yet, but below is a preview that goes through the new features : ========================================= Below is a preview of the review I am writing for WinDVD 2000 v2.1 - the best WinDVD release so far. WinDVD 2000 2.1 ================ 1. New features : ** Zoom - select an area on the screen with your mouse, and it zooms to that area (the area can be as small as you want, thereby you can have really big zoom) ** capture - Pressing "P" during playback captures to a .bmp file in WinDVD's capture directory. It will capture at the resolution of the DVD movie, not of the desktop. ** Closed Captioning - enables captioning on movies that are supported - different to subtitles. 2. Improvements : ** Speed - decoding speed seem to be improved, as fast, if not faster than PowerDVD. This seemed to be only true for film based DVDs, whereas TV based footage (tested : X-Files fight the future - making of documentary) still seems to be faster in PowerDVD. This is due to WinDVD's poorer BOB support - where if the computer isn't fast enough, WinDVD will skip frames, but PowerDVD does not seem to skip frames, only makes the movement a little blurry. Blurry is better than skipping, especially if you output to TV, where it is already blurry anyway. ** Sound - same high quality sound as before (maybe a little lounder?) - great 4.1 channel support, although might not support as many sound cards as PowerDVD. ** Interface - same as v2.0. I still think PowerDVD has an edge over WinDVD here, but that's just me. 3. Overall : The best WinDVD yet - but still a little unstable in areas (cause a few GPFs when I tested it). It is now as good, if not better, than PowerDVD - although it will really depend on what kind of hardware you have, as faster computer owners will perfer WinDVD, but Voodoo3 and S3 Savage owners (both cards aren't compatible with WinDVD 2000) and those with slower computers would probably prefer PowerDVD. **** 1/2 (4 and 1/2 stars) ========================================= You can download the WinDVD 2000 v2.1 trial version here : http://www.digital-digest.com/dvd/downloads/wdvd_down.html ******************************************************* 3. A surprise, coming soon ... We've got a surprise coming your way. You may or may not find it useful, but it's been something that has long been missing from our site from the day we started. Watch this space ... ******************************************************* 4. What's new at DVD Digest Downloads ? - DVD/VCD/MPEG-4 Players - DivX (MPEG-4) Player 0.01 - An early version of an upcoming DivX player, with easy to use subtitle options - MicroDVD 0.9 beta 9 - Approaching the 1.0 version, and now includes some very sophisticated features - WinDVD 2000 v2.1 - The latest release of the WinDVD 2000 player, read section 2 above for more information -------------- - Encoding utilities : - AVI2VCD 1.1 - Converts AVIs to VCD compliant MPEG-1 files - bbMPEG 1.2 - Also includes the AVI2MPG2 tool - Fez MPEG-4 Bitrate Calculator 3.5 - Easily calculate the bitrate needed for MPEG-4 encoding - FlaskMPEG 0.58 - The best A/V encoding tool there is, especially for MPEG-4 encoding - LSX-MPEG Plugin - A much requested MPEG-1 encoding plugin for Adobe Premier and FlaskMPEG - JJE-VBRC 1.01 - Video Bitrate Calculator - SUBRip 0.7b - A sub-title/picture ripper with timecode ripping function - SUBRipper 0.2 Beta 5 - Use to extract subtitles from a DVD - SUBTrack 1.0 - Subtrack is an utility that will permit you to view subtitles for DVDs and other formats - SUBViewer 2.0 Beta 7 - Make your own subtitles with a simple Microsoft Notepad and SubEditor for synchronization - VirtualDub 1.3c - very useful proggie for MPEG-AVI manipulation - a must have. - VOBrator 0.2b - View/demux audio/video from DVDs and VOB files - very nice!! - VOBUtils 0.1 - Splits .vob files using the .ifo file - XVCD Bitrate Cal. 1.11 - Calculates the bitrate that you need to make a XVCD -------------- - Region-free utilities : - DVD Genie 3.43 - Just released today, features more tweaking options for soft-Cinemaster (eg. Acceleration support for GeForce/G400 cards) - Margi DVD-TO-GO PCMCIA Region Patcher 4.14 - A frequently requested region free tool - Remote Selector 1.74 - Support for the latest Creative Dxr3 software (V4.30 released March 29 2000) ******************************************************* 5. How to cancel/change settings for your subscription to this newsletter Changing subscription settings for this newsletter can be hard, so here is a short guide : 1. Go to this link : http://www.listbot.com/cgi-bin/subscriber 2. Enter the email address this newsletter is sent to and also the password you chose when signing up to this newsletter. The email/password should have been sent to you in an email from "ListBot" or "ListBot Verifier", with the subject "Account Activated" or "REPLY REQUIRED: DVD DIGEST LiveUpdate Subscription Verify". 3. You should find options to change/cancel your subscriptions. Note : using your sign-up account, you can sign up to the 1000's of other newsletters available from listbot.com ******************************************************* 6. A simple thank-you Just a note to thank all the thousands of people, including you, who joined the DVD Digest LiveUpdate program. We've spent quite a bit of time developing this site, and making it what it is today, and really do appreciate your continued support. We have changed most of our click ads into banner impression ads, which means you no longer need to click on them, although it will still helps my advertisers. And if you are interested in advertising on our site, don't hesitate to contact our webmaster @ : webmaster@digital-digest.com We hoped you enjoyed another LiveUpdate newsletter. We'll try to make this newsletter a regular fortnightly one in the future. Thank-you ======END OF LIVEUPDATE NEWSLETTER======