DVD to Xvid

This weekend, after a long hiatus, I resumed work on some of the technical experiments I had since long meant to undertake. Ironically, fever and cold, helped me take that much needed break from work and exercise my technical muscles a little bit.

The first major experiment I carried out was ripping a DVD and converting it into the Xvid format. A DVD of the movie "Sorry Bhai" (and a really nice movie, I must add) served as the guinea pig for the experiment.

How I did it?

Step 1 - Ripped the DVD using DVD Decrypter.

DVD Decrypter is one of the best free DVD ripping tools available out there. It is "end of life" in the sense that no new versions of it are under development, but version 3.5.4, that I used, did the job fairly well. It is especially reknowned for its capability to copy protected DVDs and removing the region protection feature of the DVD while ripping.

How to use DVD Decrypter?
Download DVD Decrypter from http://www.dvddecrypter.org.uk/. It is a small 878 KB download (proving the adage that great things do come in small packages).
Install it & run it.
Load the DVD you want ripped in the DVD drive. DVD Decrypter will automatically detect it.
Switch to 'File' mode by clicking on "Mode" > "File".
By default, it will select all the relevant files
Alternatively, you can manually select all the files listed over here.
You can know more about exactly which files to rip if you read about the file structure of DVD Videos @ the websites like -
http://stream.uen.org/medsol/dvd/pages/dvd_format_filestructure.html
http://club.cdfreaks.com/f72/tutorial-dvd-video-file-structure-77646/
http://www.dvd-replica.com/DVD/data-2.php
Once you have selected the relevant files, you can specify a destination folder (make sure that there is ample free space available wherever you are choosing to save the ripped files).
The final action you need to undertake is to Click on the huge DVD to HDD icon to actually initiate the ripping procedure. The entire rip does not take more than 5-10 mins (at least that is how much it took for the DVD that I had ripped).

Step 2 - Covert the ripped file to Xvid (or DivX) format.

For this, you use a took called AutoGK. AutoGK (as the name suggests) completely automates the MPEG Layer 2 to MPEG Layer 4 conversion process.

How to use AutoGK?
In the "Input File" section, just select the IFO file for the first video tile set (would normally be the VTS carrying the movie) - VTS_01_0.IFO. You can also select an individual VOB file from the title set to encode.
In the "Output File" section, specify the name and destination of the output AVI.
You don't need to do anything in particular with the "Audio Track" and "Subtitle Track" sections. Leaving that to defaults will do.
Just specify the output size - selecting 700 MB (the average size of a DivX or Xvid file) might be a good idea.
Once, you have done all this, click "Add Job" and then click "Start".
Please be aware that DVD to DivX (/ Xvid) conversion is a very time consuming process (taking two passes in all). So, much so, that makers of AutoGK have included a "Shutdown when done" option in the AutoGK interface.

That is it, after a couple of hours, while you continue to use your PC for other purposes (except that it slows down the conversion process a little bit), you have a pretty handy 700 MB high quality movie file in your hand which you can be easily shared as a bittorrent.
Some relevant websites that talk about the conversion process in greater detail are -
http://www.doom9.org/index.html?/autogk.htm
http://www.ehow.com/how_2309420_use-auto-gordian-knot.html

NOTE - Needless, to say both DVD Decrypter and AutoGK have several configuration options you can fiddle with to improve the quality of the final file. However, for a bare bones rip up and conversion, the instructions given above should suffice.

So, happy ripping to all of you :) Feel free to let me know how does it work out...

iPhone as a Removable Drive

DiskAid is a wonderful small program that lets you access an iphone's or ipod touch's file system. Using it you can copy off songs from the iphone and also use the iphone as a removable storage device...

You can read more about it at its home page - http://www.digidna.net/diskaid/

Some of its features (as listed on this page are) -

- DiskAid is a Freeware, 100% free of charge.

- PC Windows & Mac OSX compatibility.

- Supports iPhone 1, 3G and all iPod Touch.

- Auto detection feature, just plugin it in !

- Copy Files & Folders between your iPhone or iPod Touch and your Computer

- Files & Folders Browser

- Drag & Drop

- Features rich file organization including folder creation, renaming... etc.

- No jailbreak needed

- Supported firmware versions : 1.1.1 to 2.0.2

Interestingly, I am using it on the firmware version 2.1 and have not faced any problems with it so far.

CoverFlow in iTunes

This was not supposed to be too large an experiment. A casual encounter with a friend's iPOD Touch yesterday, provoked an interest in CoverFlow - the visual album browsing facility built into various Apple products (hardware or software). As I started reading about it, the power of collaboration, in this case between an artist and a programmer, became more and more apparent to me. Nowhere is this happening more freely than on the World Wide Web. WWW has allowed people from different backgrounds, nationalities... to interact with each other and tap into each other's brains. CoverFlow was created by an independent Macintosh developer, Jonathan del Strother, based upon a concept first introduced by the artist Andrew Coulter Enright in his blog entry "Dissatisfaction Sows Innovation" http://web.archive.org/web/20051225123312/thetreehouseandthecave.blogspot.com/2004/12/dissatisfaction-sows-innovation.html


Since, I do not have an iPOD capable of displaying CoverFlow style album art, I decided to explore it more within the iTunes software itself. I started with attempting to create an album for the movie "Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na" in iTunes that I could then visually browse through in CoverFlow fashion. The steps followed by me were -
(a) Download all the songs of the movie.
(b) Use Google Images to pick up a cool wallpaper of the movie as album art.
(c) Do a quick batch processing of all the songs of the album to ensure that all of them have the same ID3 tag information and all of them carry the newly selected album art as well.
(You can find the steps to do all this at http://lifehacker.com/software/step-by-step/maximize-coverflow-on-your-ipod-with-itunes-308023.php)
(d) Repeat the same steps for a couple of other music albums.
(e) Switch to the CoverFlow view in iTunes, maxmize the same and easily browse through the albums in a cool graphical environment.
APPLE ROCKS!!!

Hopping Onto the Wifi Bandwagon

Our home is finally wireless enabled. We had been thinking of doing away with the mess of wires for a long time now. It seemed a little inconvenient, having to get into the bedroom each time one of us wanted to check out something on the Internet or, in general, wanted to just surf around. It kinda defeated the entire purpose of possessing a laptop. Last night, I spent close to 3 hours figuring out how to get this setup in place. I am putting in the steps I went through trying to configure our new linksys WRT54G router with a Hathway Cable connection so that someone else may benefit from my experience.

Goal : Get online wirelessly.

Equipment : Motorola Cable modem (supplied by Hathway), Hathway Cable Connection, Linksys WRT54G router, HP Pavillion DV6703Tx laptop running Windows Vista Home Premium.

Steps :
1. Tried using the CD supplied with the Linksys router to configure the wireless network. Got stuck at step 6 while trying to "detect the computer settings". It kept prompting for a password. A quick google search revealed that many linksys users had, in fact, reported facing the same problem. Someone, recommended doing a reset on the router. Tried that... unfortunately, it did not work :(

2. Decided to chuck the CD, roll up my sleeves & do it the dirty way. First connected the router to the modem, then used the CAT6 supplied with the router to connect it to the RJ45 on the Pavillion. Hathway provides static IP addresses to its users (why?). Set the properties of the LAN connection on the laptop to "Get an IP address automatically". The DHCP server in the router, assigned an IP address to the laptop. Fired up IE & logged into the admin page of the router using -
http://192.168.1.1/.
The username field is to be left blank & the default password is "admin".

3. Went under Setup > Basic Setup tab.
Specified the IP address, Subnet Mask, Default Gateway, DNS server 1 & 2 supplied by Hathway under Internet Setup.
The only other change made on this page was to the Time Settings.

4. Went to the Wireless > Basic Wireless Settings tab.
Changed the SSID to what I wanted.
Went to the Wireless > Wireless Security tab.
Changed the Security mode to "WPA Personal". Specified a WPA Shared Key (a passphrase).
Forgot to mention, the linksys admin page needs you to click on the Save Settings button everytime you make any changes to the page.

5. Went to the Administration > Management tab & changed the default password for the router's admin page.

6. That is it... Turned on the wireless button & "Viewed the Available Wireless Networks" on the laptop. It detected the wireless network I had created & also connected to it without a hitch. So far it all semed pretty good. Tried to fire up IE & go to Google. Oops! "Page cannot be displayed". :((

7. That is the point where I was suddenly left clueless. Shouldn't the router, by default, act as a gateway & allow me to connect to the Internet through it. Dismantled the entire setup, used the old wired way to go online & did some more googling. Finally figured out that some ISPs associate the IP addresses they supply with the MAC address of your computer's NIC. Same is the case with Hathway. There are two way to get around this -
(a) Call up your ISP and ask them to reset your MAC address in their records. NOTE - This must be done WITH the router connected to the modem.
(b) Clone your NIC's (wired) MAC address on the router using the "Clone your PC's MAC" option given under the Setup > MAC Address Clone" tab.
I chose the first option. A quick call to Hathway later (Thank God for 24*7 tech support!), I was next to bacchi, in our living room, surfing the Net, in peace, wirelessly. :)

Digital Rights Management (DRM)

In this post, I will be talking about DRM (Digital Rights Management) in context of music files.

What is DRM?

The simplest explanation of DRM (devoid of the ususal Microsoft style crap) can be found here:

"DRM is computer code that can be embedded in music and video files to dictate how these files are used.

The best-known example is the music Apple Computer sells at its iTunes Music Store. Using a DRM system it invented called FairPlay, Apple has rigged its songs, at the insistence of the record companies, so that they can be played only on a maximum of five computers, and so that you can burn only seven CDs containing the same playlist of purchased tracks. If Apple hadn't done this, the record labels wouldn't have allowed it to sell their music."

http://ptech.wsj.com/archive/ptech-20051020.html

Another example of DRM is the Microsoft's Playforsure initiative. Playforsure was a way for Microsoft to negotiate a deal between the record companies (who owned the songs) and the portable media player manufacturing companies. Simply put, if you download DRMed music from an online music store that carrries the Playforsure logo (e.g.- Napster), it will only (and definitely) play on any portable media player carrying the same logo (e.g.- Creative's Zen Media Player). Read more about Playforsure at -

http://www.playsforsure.com/

While Apple sells DRMed music from its online music store - Itunes music store, in the AAC format, Microsoft specifies the WMA format for its playforsure certified music files. MP3 format has thankfully been spared from any DRM style limitations.

Another interesting piece of news, that has created quite a lot of furore on the Internet, is that Microsoft's own portable media player - Zune, is not playforsure certified. While, Microsoft earlier sold DRMed music through its online music store MSN Music, it has now chosen to discontinue that and rather migrate to an Apple like model - it now owns the music store selling the media (Zune Market Place) AND the portable media player which will play that music (Zune). This is quite a radical departure from its earlier portrayal of a 'narrow' itunes universe (actually 'not-so-narrow' if you look at Apple's online music store's market share) v/s a 'big' playforsure rest of the world.

Why is DRM so controversial?
Simply because it puts restrictions on the way you copy, play, burn, transfer music that you legally paid for. That does not really gel with the basic Internet philosophy of restriction less sharing. Check out more about DRM and some examples of DRMed files at -

http://netforbeginners.about.com/od/p2plegalitiesandethics/f/drm.htm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6120272.stm

http://news.zdnet.com/2100-3513_22-5324402.html

iPhone

This is amazing - a gadget that truly combines style, innovation and futurisitic technology, in a radically simple design. The design, in fact, seems to take the KISS concept to the very heart. Now, this is what I call - beautiful!!!!!!!!!

A picture is worth a thousand words. Take a test drive of this phone @

http://www.apple.com/iphone/

Also, read the transcript of the MacWorld 2007 keynote address @

http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/09/live-from-macworld-2007-steve-jobs-keynote/

Now, I know what to ask Santa Claus for the next christmas (the phone is expected to be available in the Asian markets sometime next year) :)

Bluetooth Ahoy

We recently invested in a mid range Samsung mobile, Samsung X630. The most attractive feature of our latest acquisition was that it supports Bluetooth. Needless to say that from day one, I always meant to check the Bluetooth capabilities of this phone. Spread over a week, piece by piece, we got the opportunity to discover the hither-to unknown world of Bluetooth. Let me take you through our fascinating journey of exhilarating successes and nerve racking failures...

Our first step was to acquire a Bluetooth dongle. Fortunately bacchi was able to arrange one for us from one of her colleagues. We started with discovering the capabilities of the Bluetooth protocol stack built into Windows XP Service Pack 2. In fact, that is also when we first learnt that when Microsoft introduced Windows XP, they, in spite of being a Bluetooth SIG signatory, considered Bluetooth adoption so meagre, that they purposefully left out support for it in their Operating System. Microsoft's Windows XP SP2 bluetooth protocol stack, though, a boon for cheap bluetooth dongle users (like us), who do not have Widcomm drivers bundled with their dongles, has loads of limitations. More apparent of these, as we discovered, were -

(a) Inability on the part of our mobile to detect our desktop PC. Because of this, we were forced to stick to simplex file transfer (desktop to mobile only). From what I read on Net, I found that several other users had reported a similar problem with their mobiles. While there IS a Microsoft article which seems to talk about this and gives suggestions to fix it ("Turn Discovery On" in Bluetooth properties), it did not seem to somehow work in our case. However, as a first step to resolving this kind of a problem, you can read this article at -

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/870882

(b) Microsoft's Bluetooth protocol stack does not carry support for Bluetooth profiles like using a Bluetooth headphone, Voice Gateway etc. I HAVE used the Microsoft Bluetooth drivers to print to an HP OfficeJet 7410 All In One, so I know that works (more on that later). But, I don't know how effective is stuff like Dial Up Networking using the built in drivers. You can read all about the basics of Bluetooth capabilities of Windows XP SP2 at the following link -

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/883259#5

Also, some troubleshooting tips for Microsoft Windows XP SP2 Bluetooth stack can be found at -

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/883258

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/840635

Once, we had discovered that Microsoft's Bluetooth Protocol Stack was so painfully inadequate for our purposes, I decided to do some more googling in this regard. That is when, I came across this forum discussion -

http://www.howardforums.com/archive/topic/563654-1.html

It seems strange how sometimes a simple discussion between a group of individuals can turn your life around and open your eyes to an entirely new world. The most important part of this post was that it gave us a link to the Widcomm Bluetooth drivers version 5.0.1.801. These drivers are hosted at driverguide.com (which requires you to register free of cost to download them). I downloaded these drivers (it is a hefty 42 MB download) and began installing them, without much hope that they will work. Why? It seems that though most Bluetooth devices use the Widcomm protocol stack based drivers, each device has its own version of the drivers. There is no universal Widcomm driver as such which can be used with ALL these devices. Interestingly, installing these Widcomm drivers is also not as easy as downloading and simply executing the setup. Because these drivers are NOT WHQL certified, it seems the Microsoft Windows XP drivers take precedence over them. Hence, the moment you plug in the Bluetooth dongle, the Windows drivers take over. So, when the Widcomm drivers installation routine asks you to plug in the dongle, you need to click on 'Cancel' and continue the installation without plugging in the Bluetooth device. Only once the installation is complete can you plug in the dongle and then follow a set of routines to "update" the Bluetooth device's drivers to Widcomm's. Read about this at -

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/840635

It is also demonstrated beautifully, with pictorial representations, in the pdf document available at -

http://www.e-beam.com/support/Switching_from_MS_Driver_to_WIDCOMM.pdf

Interestingly, the drivers I downloaded, did not require me to manually update the Bluetooth drivers as mentioned in these articles. All I had to do, was to

- Download the drivers and execute them.
- Click on Cancel when asked to plug in the Bluetooth dongle.
- Once the installation was done, plug in the dongle and let the Widcomm drivers configuration routine automatically take over.

So, what did the Widcomm Drivers give us access to?

The Widcomm drivers created a new icon on our desktop and in the Start menu - "My Bluetooth Places". The features accessible via this link included -

(a) Being able to browse the files and folders made "Bluetooth Visible" on our mobile phone. We could also simply drag and drop files from the mobile phone to our desktop's hard drive. Also, since our mobile phone could now detect our desktop successfully, we were finally able to transfer files from our mobile phone to our desktop.

(b) A feature known as "Voice Gateway". Once, 'connected' to it, you can receive and answer your cell phone calls using the headphone and Mic connected to your computer. So, you no longer, have to tear away your headphone + mic combo to answer that all important phone call on your mobile. When you receive a call, you will automatically get a prompt on your computer, asking you if you want to accept the call. Once accepted, simply jab away on your combo.

(c) Though, this is a feature, we haven't explored as yet, you CAN use the Widcomm drivers to use a Bluetooth headset (headphone + mic combo) with your computer. Read all about configuring this at -

http://www.windowsdevcenter.com/pub/a/windows/2005/07/05/bluetooth.html?page=4

(d) You can also use Bluetooth to connect to Internet using a GPRS enabled mobile phone (another feature we haven't explored as yet). Read about the rudiments of this at -

http://www.geekzone.co.nz/content.asp?contentid=1524

(NOTE - You CAN achieve the same, albeit in a not so intuitive manner, with Microsoft's Bluetooth protocol stack as well. Check out the links given earlier for info on doing this).

So, are we happy? You bet we are. The next step is to buy our own Bluetooth dongle and explore the unexplored. And as they say in that McDonald ad, I am loving it :)

Some articles on Bluetooth theoretical basics -

http://www.mobileinfo.com/Bluetooth/FAQ.htm

http://www.bluetooth.com/Bluetooth/Learn/Basics