Real World Computing

In a previous post, I discussed ways to find subtitles to add to your AVI movies and I also looked at using Google Translate to modify them if they weren't in English (or your chosen language). Note: All of the software mentioned here is free. See: Finding and Adjusting Subtitles on AVI Files . In this post I want to look at how to change the timing on subtitles. Why would you need to do this? Movies have different frame rates depending upon the country that they are shown in and the system they are shown on.  Common frame rates are 23, 25 and 29 frames per second.  You'd be surprised how quickly subtitles can get out of whack if they're designed for the wrong frame rate. Find the Start and End of the Dialogue. Open your movie in a player, like the excellent VideoLAN (VLC Media Player) and locate the first and last sentences in the movie.  You'll find the time in the bottom right hand corner of the player - make a note of it. Adjusting the Subtitle File ...

If you enjoy watching foreign films or if you're hard of hearing like me, then subtitles are a must in your movie collection. In my last post, I covered how to convert movies from DVD to AVI for playing on a portable player. In this post, I'll be discussing subtitles. There are two types of subtitles, burned in and selectable. Obviously the selectable type is best because you can turn them on and off and you can obtain different languages too. Within the selectable type, there are a few formats with the most common being sub/idx files, txt files and my personal favourite, SRT files. In order to get your subtitles to play in players like VLC VideoLAN and on player boxes like the WD TV box, you'll usually need to put the subtitles in the same folder as the AVI and name them the same. So if you movie is called "Return of the Scary Kittens.avi" then your subtitle should be called "Return of the Scary Kittens.srt". Some players allow you to have mult...

Forget the why and wherefores of what we're doing - That's part one which you can read here . Lets get started; Ingredients A computer with a large hard drive 20GB Free? Pentium 4 3GHz or Faster and a DVD drive A copy of DVD Decrypter - it's free A copy of AutoGK - it's free DVD Decrypter http://www.dvddecrypter.org.uk/ This software allows you to copy the files from a DVD to your hard drive. The project was shut down some years back but it's still possible to get hold of it on the internet. An alternative to this is DVD Fab. There's a free version and a commercial version. The difference between the two is that the commercial version handles more DVD protection schemes. http://www.dvdfab.com/free.htm AutoGK http://www.autogk.me.uk/ AutoGK is short for Auto Gordian Knot which describes a knot so difficult to untie that it was cut instead. It's quite apt considering the purpose of this tool. It's not a single piece of software but rather i...

I'm very much a believer in the idea that "files" will be the next big format for video entertainment after DVDs. I guessed right from the start that blu-ray would win the format war against HD-DVD but I never thought that either would take over. About 15 years ago, after having ridden the music upgrade from LP Records to tapes and to CD, I stumbled across this "new" format called MP3. Back then, there were no MP3 players, just computers but I was enthralled by the idea that with enough storage, I could save my music collection in a way that meant that I could play them without ever having to get a CD out of the cupboard again. I emarked on a quest to convert my entire library of Music CDs to MP3. People thought I was weird but a few years later as MP3 players became more readily available, I reaped the rewards. I didn't have to convert anything - it was already done. I see video entertainment as following the same path. As with my early MP3 conversio...

I often need to create bootable CDs and DVDs but it's weird because I frequently end up buring myself a new coaster instead. It's not that the process is difficult, just that nero has a few too many options and I forget which ones to choose and end up picking the wrong one. I figured that the best way to avoid this mistake in future would be to write the steps down. Procedure Insert CD or DVD into your DVD Burner. Start Nero Burning ROM 9 Choose DVD-ROM (Boot) or CD-ROM (Boot) depending on what you're creating You'll be prompted for a disk image source. Choose a Nero Source - you'll usually find them somewhere like this... C:\Program Files\Nero\Nero9\Nero Burning Rom\DOSBootImage.ima Leave the Boot Locale as English - unless you really need a different keyboard layout Tick the box marked [X] Enable Expert Settings Choose Hard Drive Emulation and leave any other settings as they are. Click the button marked New Add any files you want but don't try to add operati...

Why would you do this? This technique is very useful for archiving users mail files when the user has left the company. It enables you to have a look at the mail file without having to copy it off the CD and back on to the Domino server. I have also used this technique when somebody's mail file got too big to be really useful when traveling. They were able to take their old mail on CD with them while accessing new mail from a fresh database. Regardless of your reasons for choosing this method, make sure that you comply with your local corporate records retention regulations before deleting any databases from your server. Before you begin These instructions are designed for use with the standard Lotus Notes mail template. If you have additions such as archiving or document management facilities built-in, you will probably need to use the load convert command to convert the database back to a standard Lotus Notes mail database before this procedure can be successful. Procedure Lo...

Youtube (http://www.youtube.com) is an excellent source of video material. I guess most of us already know that. Most people also probably know that you can download videos from there if you use Keepvid (http://keepvid.com/). I don't trust things to stay where they are on the internet, so if I see something I like, I grab it. Hence Keepvid works really well for me. Recently I found that I'd downloaded quite a lot of things that I wanted to compile into a single DVD. That way I could watch them on the TV. I looked around for something to convert the Flash Video format (FLV) used by Youtube and I found RivaVX (http://www.rivavx.com/). Now, I can't vouch for the commercial product, since the freeware product did all that I needed, but I think it's worth mentioning that video conversion software that comes without bundling and without awful watermarks is rare. So RivaVX are to be congratulated - check them out if you want to do something similar. So, to summarize:...

The Wishlist One of my long-time wish lists for DVD recording was the ability to transfer all of those great music videos that come with movies from being scattered throughout the thousand odd DVDs in my collection to be on just a few compilation DVDs. I'm not really sure about the legality of the whole thing but given that I own these DVDs and that they are bought, not pirated I can't see an issue. Admittedly I haven't tried terribly hard to find the answer to a problem but I have put it to the number of user groups and they haven't been able to give me a decent solution. Last weekend, while mucking about on my computer, I think I accidentally solved the problem. Step 1: Unlocking the DVD The first step, after installing some relevant software which I will detail in this article, is to insert a DVD (duh...) and get a player, such as media player to play the DVD. It's not a bad idea to navigate to the music video and have a look at the title and chapter informati...