World: r3wp

It comes and goes. It is now one free license per email address, 
not per person :)

Did the US economy worsen through the day? :-)

they have also extended the offer to 2 days due to the over load

now they've put the full versions up for direct download.

Yeah, I got those first thing in the morning. I notice that the requests 
for serial numbers are now split into Mac and Linux - I wonder what 
that means for the earlier requests where they didn't make that distinction? 
The offer seems to be the same number of days here, no change.

Anyone know of a markup language that outputs flow charts?  

Something like:

(Start) -> [Get input] -> (End)

And this would out put a smartly laid out flow chart.

Graphviz?    Check this hello world to see if it'll float your boat. 
 http://www.graphviz.org/Gallery/directed/hello.html

I looked at, not sure, I was hoping for something more, er...universal...

Also, what are the best tools to rip a DVD to an AVI file on Windows. 

The trick here is (well, a) Windows), but more importantly, that 
the AVI will have proper keyframes, which seems to be the problem. 
 All the systems we have played with produce AVIs you CAN'T skip 
through.

Text to flowchart (not free)
http://www.allclearonline.com/

Sunanda, yes, cool, this is more what I'm talking about.  Price is 
not an issue for me, although I always prefer things to be based 
on standards, so there are free products, and for sale products.

I've used Allclear in the past (I probably still have a DOS license 
for it!).

What's nice is how simple the text dialect is -- or was in those 
days....I've not checked recently.

Yeah, seems so, and they have a split window, which solves a lot 
of issues.  Thank you very much...

An old boss of mine swore by AllClear.

Wow $340...

excluding tax

Must be a British product ... strong English accent in the demo

Reichart: not skipping the AVIs might also be the player? But keep 
in mind, that to reduce size, keyframes are inserted "rarely" (ie. 
only when needed) rather than regularly. I've never had problems 
though with skipping... but I must say I never liked any of the Windows 
programs to do this.

Reichart - there is probably plenty of tools, I usually search DVD 
to AVI, and it is often also directly name of some tools. As for 
ripping, I use the combo form Slysoft - CloneDVD, AnyDVD

If it is an unencrypted DVD, try to make an ISO, then mount it with 
Clonedrive. From there on, I tend to use Nero and encode to MPEG-4 
- greatly reduces size and is almost universal, especially on mobile 
devices. Quicktime also support MPEG-4

AnyDVD is cool little tool, which removes all protections .... not 
sure how it is legal and that the company was not sued yet, but it 
is different problem ...

Two things:

= The subtle question = 


We have played with a lot of software, and ALL of them (that we have 
tried) have failed to produce a final product that works.  Meaning, 
all players (WMplayer, WinAmp, VLC, etc.) do not allow skipping, 
and, again, keep in mind, this is using Windows tools to Rip, and 
then encode (usually two products have to be used ).


I make this clear because I'm not questioning that this can be done 
correctly from Linux (or perhaps Mac even).


So my question is really "[are you sure] from windows you can produce 
a 700m avi from a DVD that allows skipping [keyframes] on Windows?"


Our search of forums tells us others have the same problem, and people 
eventually give up and go to linux.

(Warning, rant ahead) :)

= The law = 


First, we all have to recognize the laws are slightly different in 
each country.  Part of what makes this confusing is that America 
tends to set the "tone" for the rest of the world (since it makes 
the most profitable media in the first place.  Not the most media 
keep in mind, for example Iceland makes more books per person for 
example).  And what makes this really confusing is that America has 
state and local laws, which can conflict but will still be overruled 
by federal law.  Marijuana is a good example.  Some states say YES, 
and the Feds say NO.  So you are still committing a Fed crime if 
you use this stuff.


However in the case of copyright, it is the other way around.  Organizations 
say NO, and the Feds say YES!


But the REAL trick here is that software that cracks DVDs is illegal, 
but having the resultant backup is not.  How is that for confusing?


Bottom line, there is a fair use act, which stands, but another law 
that makes getting that fair use to work for you that is illegal. 
 I should probably blog this since I could not find a good example 
of this clear statement on the web. 


However, the best thing I could find was just the simple Wikipedia 
entry for the judge herself that both made the heavy blow, but also 
defended the other individual rights.  

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_Illston


Personally, she symbolizes to me the scariest type of person in power. 
 Which is, she became myopic and decided to just solve the one problem 
in front of her, as opposed to requiring that the issues be solved 
correctly higher up so that this small problem could be handled.


In other words, she saw a leaking toilet, and ruled that the water 
should be cut off to the bathroom.  Then turned around and said, 
but everyone has a "right" to use the bathroom.

It is people like this that allow tyrants to gain power.

(end of rant)

As for me, it is simple, I own all my CDs and DVDs. 

I simply want access to them using the technology I chose (which 
I also paid for).


I won't share them, copy them to others, etc.  Just, want to pay 
for and enjoy the material, free of the medium.

Hasn't Larry Lessig covered this territory?  Particularly the tension 
between Fair Use and DMCA?

Side post:  In Canada we pay a levy on blank media (that is taxed) 
to cover "piracy".  The CIRPA (and not-for-profit CPCC) have collected 
$100's of millions and last I heard (I could very well be misinformed 
as this levy is hidden "to avoid consumer outrage") they have not 
paid out one dime to any artists, citing that the system to ensure 
the redistribution to artists is fair hasn't been figured out yet. 
 So the bank account just gets bigger (and I assume, so do the "work" 
parties they hold for each other).

Reichart - if you want to have precise skipping etc. possibility, 
IIRC tools like Nandub, Virtual dub allowed something like that. 
Those are scriptable tools. But they work with AVI, they don't allow 
you to RIP DVD, so you would have to use two tools.

Reichart, please remember me while I'm at the ranch, and we can go 
over this together. As I said, I think that the Windows tools simply 
suck, but, I still have hope that there is some way (not an easy 
way, I bet) to make them work the way you want it.

Since we're talking about video stuff ... what's the best tool to 
convert ts files?  These are H.264 high definition tv streams that 
are transmitted by local TV transmittters .. ie. not satellite .. 

I've downloaded about 10 tools and they all choke including ffmpeg. 
 VLC manages to view a few frames before it crashes too.

I downloaded a trial version of Cyberlink PowerDVD 8 which is able 
to play them, but it's very choppy as I only have a core duo laptop. 
 I need a quadcore I think to play back these files!  hence the need 
to convert them so I can watch them on the DVD player.

Pekr, any update on the ffmpeg wrapper that you commissioned? Is 
it just a gui for the command line tool, or does it do something 
else?

http://elliottback.com/wp/how-to-rip-a-dvd-a-tutorial/

Gab, yeah, you should show Jim and Mark.

Pekr, yes, I think this REQUIRES 2 tools.

Graham, try with mplayer, and if it can play them, mencoder to encode 
them (there are Windows tools that use mencoder as the backend). 
It will take quite some time I guess. ;)

you may also be able to just use mencoder to remultiplex them into 
a .mp4 or a .avi etc. (best would be .mkv) and then use your favorite 
tool to reencode them.

I have mplayer installed on my Acer Aspire One .. trying now :)

in my experience... if mplayer can't play it, it's very hard to find 
anything that can play it :)

nah ... only displays the first frame and stops

Gab, I have found that VLC will play files Mplayer barfs on.  And 
of great interest to this conversation, it will recover from the 
lack of keyframes.  It will just play it anyway, and it will look 
like grab until enough data goes by .  Which is probably what Mplayer 
does not want to do since it looks like the player is broken for 
a momemnt.

Files saved from digital cameras often do not have keyframes.  Long 
files seem to annoy mplayer, and has no way to Rev/FF through them, 
but VLC will.

This convo reminds me of the G1.  When ever a product comes out, 
people start to complain.  There is always some obvious feature or 
bug out the gate.  And everyone has to spend their time figuring 
it out, forums fill with talk.


The G1 was released (Android), it does not have stereo Bluetooth. 
 A hardware feature that should be standard given it is a "media 
phone".


It also has no micro connector, so you need a special cable to hook 
up a standard headset.


This alone knocked me out from buying one.  I guess I will have to 
wait for the G7.b, which will only be made for one month, they will 
do everything correctly, but it will not be supported, and I will 
only be able to buy it on eBay.  This is true if it is like any other 
device I end up buying…

Mplayer is weak on some specific kind of files, and I found too that 
VLC often will play them instead... but they've been the exception 
for me (and mostly .mp4 files - that is, in general VLC has better 
support for the QT format).

note though that VLC doesn't give you many options if you want to 
reencode the files, so if VLC is the only thing that can play it, 
reencoding won't be easy, unless you're ok with what VLC will produce.

VLC can't play it :(

you sure the file is not encrypted in some way?

i never had a hd tv transport stream file to play with though, so 
i guess i don't have much advice.

yes, and power dvd 8 can play it.

Following a discussion in a non-[web public] group: I've just uploaded 
a very rudimentary utility to estimate the size of a REBOL application.
Please give it a go (if only for the bragging rights).

Also, please let's have a discussion about better metrics tahat could 
be included.
The script is here:
http://www.rebol.org/view-script.r?script=application-sizer.r

And the documentation -- which includes the results of running it 
against the REBOL.org CGI scripts is here:
http://www.rebol.org/documentation.r?script=application-sizer.r

May the biggest app win!