Free DVD Decoders?

Didn't you get one bundled with your DVD drive or video card?

I think there's a version of VLC for Windows.

----------------
On 6/19/2006 6:00:05 AM, sbougerolle wrote:

Didn't you get one bundled with your DVD drive or video card?

----------------

Yes, but I can't seem to find resource CD anymore and I've wiped the original installation a long time ago.

----------------
I think there's a version of VLC for Windows.
----------------

Cool! Thanks, I looked at it quickly and looks promising.

Victor.

Hey Victor,

I've found that Nero and such don't usually work too well to burn movies. I use DVD Decrypter to decrypt DVD's and then DVD Shrink to shrink the DVD which then in turn uses Nero to burn. It works for most DVDs, but for some of the new ones, it can't decrypt the security. I'm not sure if you'll find these programs on places like download.com and such you may want to try a file sharing program.

Leah

Victor, are you trying to PLAY Movies, or "Back Them Up"?
If you are playing, either use XP's Media Player 11, with the Codec from your Drive, and/or use the Nero's Showtime (Since you mentioned Nero). And no, Nero will not "Backup" your movies.

Consider items such as Movie Clone 3 ($39.95) from Best Buy if you need to "backup" your movies.

Ed

Remember kids, copying DVDs is bad, mmmmkay? [;)]

I rip mine and play them on my iPod [;)]

----------------
On 6/19/2006 10:19:42 AM, scaryfish wrote:


Remember kids, copying DVDs is bad, mmmmkay? [;)]
----------------

What about music? [;)]

On 6/19/2006 10:19:42 AM, scaryfish wrote:
$i

I'm pretty sure your comment is tongue-in-cheek, so don't take this as disagreement, it's just a general point about the "language creeping" that comes up in this debate too often.

There is NOTHING at all wrong with copying your DVDs, no matter what the RIAA or MPAA or any similar greedheads say, or their shills. Copyright, as it is understood in most places, includes this right for everybody who pays for copies of anything. The whole debate should be about whether it's OK to give away copies, or copy somebody else's stuff without paying them.

We all know that, of course... Possibly some of us have forgotten it, though, in the merciless onslaught of BS rhetoric the recording middlemen shove at us. Even those "nod & wink" answers to them are a defeat because along the way we're implicitly agreeing to discuss things on their terms, which are rubbish to begin with. So I must object to the comment above even though doing so seems obvious and pointless. We shouldn't be speaking their language even to make fun of them.

Personally, what I find most offensive of all in this debate is when I pay to see a movie at the cinema and still get bombarded with that obnoxious clip telling me "Downloading is stealing and illegal" (two errors of fact). Since everybody in the movie hall has just demonstrated with their money that they're willing to pay for what they watch, I see little point to the clip except brainwashing.

(dismounts from soapbox)

Anyway, getting back on topic... I understood Victor needed a way to play his DVDs.

As I understand it, you are legally entitled to make a backup copy of any media you purchase, be it a DVD, audio cassette, CD, software, etc.

Downloading, while not stealing in the true sense of the word, is breaching copyright and is illegal. If I own Spiderman on DVD and download it from a torrent site, I've broken the law, since I haven't made a copy of my specific DVD. And if you make your copies available to others - as on torrent sites - you can be held legally responsible for the consequences.

As someone who worked in the videogame business for 15 years and therefore know how much impact piracy can have, it makes me wince when people complain about movies they've downloaded. I'm a firm believer in putting my money where my mouth is - if I like the group, I buy their CD. If I want to see a movie, I watch it at the cinema, rent the movie, or buy it. If I can't afford it, I don't download it.

The climate seems to be changing; people assume they have a right to download, but no obligation to pay. [:((]

do not forget burning/downloading mp3s is legal in canada! This is why there is an extra commission on blank recordable media. ... unless you buy the ones marked 'data'

On 6/19/2006 12:53:33 PM, scaryfish wrote:
$i

Well, it's all become politicized and people on both sides of the debate are losing track of the right & wrong underneath it. Lying to the public is not a smart move on the part of the recording industry and has probably been enough all by itself to turn many people against them.

On the other side, there's never been any shortage of people who grab whatever they can get free, doesn't matter if it's piracy or sponging off the government, same morals (or lack thereof).

$i

AFAIK the general principles of copyright are that you can make unlimited copies of whatever you own >for your own use<. That is just the copyright side of things, though. With software you also have the question of use on top of the question of copying, which is where licensing comes in. Then it gets muddy because companies (like Microsoft) have been making steadily more and more aggressive claims in their licenses to the point where people rebel and just start ignoring them. Windows XP's activation requirements are a nice example. Change 3 pieces of hardware in your machine and suddenly your license is no good any more? What reasonable person would not say this is silly?

$i

That's where things get interesting.

First, let's not gloss over an obvious point again: downloading COPYRIGHTED material is breaching copyright. Downloading is not generally wrong nor should we assume that downloaders are downloading anything in particular. There are the obvious cases of people downloading legitimate things (demos, free software, etc.) and then there are the less obvious cases where the people who created the content say "go ahead and download it" even though the middlemen disagree.

Second, is copyright infringement actually criminal or is it a civil matter?

Third, whether it's wrong to offer stuff up is yet another question, and depends on circumstances. Recording industry flunkies, again, would like to make it all illegal but this is just silly. If your friend's dog eats his DVD should you be committing a crime by letting him copy yours as a replacement? Downloading is a more complex question than that (especially with BitTorrent), obviously, but there is a principle there all the same.

Last but perhaps most important - in Canada a lot of these questions are irrelevant and none of these activities are illegal at all (for now, anyway) because the courts have ruled in favour of copiers in several key cases. Up here it's simply not illegal to offer up content nor to download it. It might have been illegal to view it but that doesn't matter because the Canadian Copyright Board charges a levy on the media we use to copy, so if you have bought any CD-Rs or similar things you've already paid for the content and have a legal right to view it. (That again, is all strictly looking at the copyright of things, which is more relevant to music & video than software).

$i

The rental place is probably just as guilty of infringement as downloaders, so how is this any better?

I believe people have a right to be rewarded for what they create, so I too buy whatever software I use and I have no pirated DVDs or CDs on my shelf. That doesn't obligate me to accept wrong-headed theories of Intellectual Property, however, or make me blind to the gross corruption and hypocrisy behind the recording industry (and many software companies).

It's interesting to think where all these trends will go, but I suspect a lot of the outcome will be dictated by economics as much as anybody's notions of right or wrong. Stubborn companies seem determined to try one copy-protection technology after another, but I'm sure they're going to keep failing forever. It's just going to get easier and more common for people to keep stuff and the providers who survive will be the ones who adapt to that way of doing things. Is it right or wrong to fight the weather? Who knows, but it sure is stupid!

In Canada, this issue also birngs up other issues, including:

- Proof that harm is being done: No neutral study has shown that piracy is causing any harm. Some people argue that downloaders wouldn't have bought anyway. In some cases, especially for older material, some individual artists have found that allowing downloading actually increases their income. In general, artists seem divided on whether downloads harm them or not. However, one way or the other, the need has to be demonstrated before lock-down technologies become widely accepted and written into law.

- Relation to copyright: If the movie and music industry feel that they aren't losing money because of downloads, they already have the right to lobby for a levy on any medium that allows copying, or for an increase in their share of the levy. They haven't shown that they need new technolgies to supplement these levies, or that these technologies will protect their rights better than existing copyright law.

- Privacy: The Personal Information and Electronic Document Act defines what sort of information may be collected by companies. Among other provisions, this information must be gathered only with consent, used only for the reasons it was gathered, collected for a reasonable purpose, and store securely. Under these terms, many of the controls that the movie and music industry are lobbying for might be challenged as illegal.

- Competition: /Interoperability: Lock-down technologies are being decided by the companies, not by governments or any international organization -- the ones that should be setting the standards. If there are no common standards, then you may need to buy a buy a company's hardware to play the company's entertainment offerings. That would be anti-competitive, especially for second-tier vendors.

- Restriction of legitimate use; Under Canadian law, you have the right to make a backup copy for personal use. You also have the right to repair hardware, or, in the case of computers, run open source software on them. Lock-down technologies may make all these things impossible if they are implemented the way that the industries want.

All these issues seem a large price to pay for anti-piracy tehcniques that probably won't deter the big time pirates for more than a week. That's why Norway is considering a ban on all such devices, and people are protesting in France about them.

In the United States, the Defective By Design campaign (www.defectivebydesign.org) is organizing a campaign against them. In Canada, IntellectualPrivacy.ca is mounting a grass roots lobbying effort against them. Both are worth looking at if you haven't seen them already.

Howdy. I was actually looking for just a DVD decoder to play DVD movies. It was like once in a very long time I actually could have a weekend to myself and catch up on those new releases.

Just to add my 2cents, I think Windows' version of Mplayer is theoretically capable of playing DVDs. In fact, before getting Steve's reply, I tried to run mplayer in Windows but didn't get too far with that but I think my command was correct:

mplayer dvd://<movie title>

VLC looks more promising [:)]

windows media player does inface, goto play cd

same with media player classic,

but the best is still Cyberlink Power DVD

[:0] I need a DVD decoder