Hey kiddies,

Long time no see. Been busy. Sorry. I see that not a
lot has gone on with DVD research, so I'll lend a slight
hand. Here's some 411 I've got now, and hopefully
tonight I'll have some more:

1) PS2's don't like DVD-RWs. That's going to totally
crimp my style. Especially when one considers:

2) Back in the day, I could burn several CDs. that was
no problem. Cd < 20 cents. No problem. DVDs,
however, are more like $3 a pop. Not exactly
something I can fiscially justify in burning several in a
row just for testing. However, I've got several movie
clips I want on DVD, so it should work out.
Unfortunately,

3) It takes a while to encode my movies to MPG-2
format. Fortunately, it doesn't take as long as I thought,
but it can take days (given my schedule) to get a DVD
together.

4) Unlike in the day (and as I'm sure you guys can see
by my absence), I don't have as much free time as I
used to. So I'll help where I can.

5) I confirmed a few nights ago that my original
accessment was right: DVD movies are burnt on a
single track. (Don't confuse this with titles, which
subdivide a track--I'll explain in a future posting)

6) Turtles are green.

7) When CSS/Macrovision/Region protections are
removed, burnt DVDs will produce a Psiroller under
MR3. oh yeah, that too:

8) I don't have MR4 yet

9) back to 7): So I'm going to test with turning those
protections on. My next DVD will just have CSS and
Region encoding (since Macrovision is just per-video,
and probably doesn't affect the shrine process, physical
track time aside)

Whew. TTYL.

--The Ever Immortal Cats

My ps2 reads dvd-rws, you sure you don't mean dvd+rws?

abso-freakin'-lutely.

oh, but i should note that I've just had the optical replaced
by Sony; it may be available on older models, but is isn't on
the newer ones.

--Cats

Darn it.

Okay, after spending probably an extra 10 hours on
burning this DVDs (both extra work to enable CSS/Region
as well as unexpected problems), I finally got it burnt.

Unfortunately, I had overlooked one simple thing: most
home DVD burners lack CSS encryption abilities. (CSS is
designed so that one can't just rip a DVD). My SuperDrive is
among them. So after all that work, the only protection I
had on it was region encoding (of which I protected for
Region 1 (North America) and Region 8 (Special) (didn't
know what it was for, so I left it in)). I didn't use
Macrovision, since that affects the actual playback of each
track (read: title), not the overall protection of the DVD.
(It's designed so that you can't just dumb-dub a DVD onto,
say, VHS. Instead, you get static or video distortion). I may
come back to it and put Macrovision back in. I don't know.

End result: Psiroller. Same as with the other movie DVDs I
have burnt. I suspect, for movie DVDs, one needs to
actually include CSS protection onto the burnt DVDs.
Without the ability to this, however, this is only conjecture.

There is another possibility that there is another variable
(such as actual media testing) at play. I'll see what else I
can dig up. But the overall answer--even without the CSS
testing--is that DVD copying for creatures is not going to
be feasible for most people. (Further, copying actual DVD
movies that you do not own is, obviously, immoral, illegal,
and very fattening, and thus not something I can
recommend or endorse).

I did confirm, btw, that DVDs are indeed a single burnt
track. (And this is why I start using the term "title" above
and in chat, as to not confuse; although, to be honest,
"track" is also correct for referring to the data burnt into the
single movie track).

--Cats, who will continue this in the next message

(continued)

I wanted to explain the makeup of a DVD, for those of you
who are not familiar with it.

A movie DVD is just like a data DVD. It is. It's in Joliet
format (ISO 9660) with at least two folders on it (one
contains the audio, which, for me, is almost always empty (I
don't use multi-language on my home movies) and one that
is video (TS_VIDEO), which contains all the video).

Unlike audio CDs, where different physical tracks make
sense, movie DVDs are on a single physical track. The data
on that single track makes up the different content of the
DVD: foreign languages, multi-angle, pictures/slideshows,
etc. On an audio CD, it makes sense having separate
physical tracks--if you're listening to your CD in your car,
for example, you don't care about different languages,
cutscenes, different angles, etc--you just want to get to the
next "chapter" or cut in the audio CD.

On a movie DVD, all those extras are combined
(multiplexed) into several files. By doing this, you can have
the same video with different subtitling or audio (language).
Further, they are combined to allow additional protection
(to prevent others from just "ripping" the video).

This also means that, unlike audio CDs, where the number
of tracks affect what creature appeared during shrining,
movie DVDs have a different set of specifications to use.
Perhaps physical track length is still used (mind you, you
can now use hours for track length; before, you could only
use minutes:seconds:frames).

But this also means, to use the TOC to create specific
creatures (like Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon for a Zan),
you would need to actually create the data to the exact
length, as well as possibly filling in much of the same info
(number of tracks/titles)--basically, something that is not
entirely that feasible for the average Joe.

So that's where I stand now. If I get any brilliant ideas, I'll
let y'all in. If anyone has any ideas or questions, just post
it. I'll be around. 8)

--Cats

Update:

I had rented MR4 a week ago (or so) and tested some of the
DVDs I had burnt. Same issue. (I don't remember what
type of creature it produced, but it was better than the lame
PsiRoller).

Long story short: if you want rares based on DVDs, you're
gonna have to physically possess the DVD to shrine the
creature.

--Cats