Thursday, July 13, 2006
DVD Catalyst 2.0 mini review
When people think of software for their Pocket PC, it normally involves an application that is installed on the mobile device itself. One area that many people overlook is software for the desktop PC with a focus on improving the usability of the handheld. One such genre is DVD conversion allowing you to compress an entire movie down to a relatively lightweight size while retaining an optimised experience for the user.
I tried out the previous version of DVD Catalyst and was impressed by how simple and quick it was to convert your movie collection to the mobile format. Building on this, a whole lot more has been added allowing the user to customise the results and yet still remain intuitive and quick to use.
Starting up the application gives you the home page where you select the type of project you wish to run through i.e. converting a DVD from the original disc, image file or folder or converting a video file from a similar range of sources. Also on this home page is a link to check for updates which for this application is quite an important feature – more on that later.
Screenshot – Home Page
Once you have selected the source of your video, the next screen in the wizard style interface takes you to a properties page of sorts which gives you some information on each video file that has been selected such as duration, resolution and frame rate. You can select which of these files you wish to convert and also amend the output name, brightness and contrast of the converted file. Clicking on a file in this page will give you a real time preview of the video that includes any changes you have applied thus far.
Screenshot – First Options page
Clicking next brings us to the main conversion page. This will be the most commonly tweaked page as it allows you to select one of many predefined profiles to suit a variety of different mobile devices such as PDAs, phones, PSP and iPods among others. Selecting a suitable profile sets such things as resolution, video and audio bitrate at a suitable ratio for the target device. These can be tweaked to your own personal preference and if you have found a customised setting what works well for you then this can be saved as a new profile for later retrieval. Profiles are a big bonus for this application as you may have a couple of different target devices and calling up a previous profile is a very quick way of setting all your options in one go. Hidden away on this page under the Advanced button are more settings which can be amended such as a custom resolution, the type of codec you wish to use, audio volume and video frame rate. You also have the option of selecting two pass encoding for a better quality conversion at the expense of time. One cool feature is that you can mix your profiles in the same encoding session so say for example you have a movie that you wanted to convert to be watched on a Pocket PC and an iPod, all you need to do is load up the first profile for the Pocket PC and then add another under the Advanced tab and select the iPod profile. This will encode the movie twice, once to each chosen output format. You can do this for multiple devices and it saves a whole lot of user interaction as the application takes care of it all.
Screenshot – Main Options page
Hitting next will bring you to the next page in the workflow which is cropping. A preview of your movie will play and beneath this are four icons that represent a form of auto cropping. Yes, this program will even crop your movies for you if you wish to remove the black bars from widescreen ratio moves as an example. Not only do the presets give you an illustration of the type of cropping, they will actively search out the black bars in the video and crop based on that so they are not set at any one predefined ratio. There are manual adjustments on the right of this page should you wish to over ride the auto mode and dial in some figures of your own. If cropping is not needed you can simply hit next to go to the final page.
Screenshot – Cropping
This last page gives you a quick overview of the file(s), the target device and estimated file size. All you need do here is click the start conversion button and the application will run through all the jobs listed on this page showing the start time, percentage done and where applicable, the finish time for each job keeping you fully up to date with the progress. This wizard approach to the conversion lets you tweak the right settings at the most logical time and is still very quick to run through; you literally can set up your video conversion in seconds.
So what else makes this application such a joy to use? Well, once you have figured out which settings you wish to use, the next time you start up the application you can simply opt to run it in quick mode which lets you select the target device, the input file(s) and then head straight to cropping before starting your conversion, missing out the conversion settings which are already in the target device settings. You can also do something similar by selecting the profile option on the home page, selecting your own profile and input file(s) and then going straight to the final conversion page missing out all the in-between steps. These two features are great for people who know how the output will be generated and wish to just select their files and let it the program do the rest.
For me, one of the most convenient features of this application has to be the batch conversion facility. When you are selecting your source videos, you can select multiple by ctrl/shift clicking or by using the ‘from folder’ option and then converting all the files in the one job. This is especially great for converting all the episodes from a series of your favourite TV program for example. Settings can bet set independently for each episode or you can apply settings globally to all the files and again you can have many video files selected and converting in literally a few seconds. The icing on the batch conversion process is that if you have more than one DVD ROM drive attached to your PC or shared over a network, you can select multiple DVDs for your sources and batch convert them all.
DVD Catalyst has been developed with a plug in system in mind meaning that new codecs and supported devices can be added simply, without the need to upgrade the whole application. Speaking of codecs, a vast majority are supported with conversion to and from popular codecs such as WMV, MP4, DIVX and many others included. While we are on the subject of updates, I want to go back to the importance of the check for update button I mention on the home page. DVD Catalyst 2.0 is a continually improving product with a very active support; I highlighted one area that I felt could be tweaked and the following morning the update was available – now that is dedication to the customer!
I have made a vast number of different conversions from DVDs and video files on my hard drive to various different formats with a total mixture of resolutions and bit rates and the application has yet to fail me. Batch conversion is completely reliable and you can quite happily queue up a few series of a particular program overnight and have them all waiting for you in the morning in their respective mobile formats. The speed of this application is determined by a number of factors such as source material, codec used and of course the speed of your computer and perhaps the longest conversion would be going from a DVD to WMV using two pass encoding. This process requires an in-between file created as an AVI before the resultant WMV can be generated. If you chose a DIVX AVI as your output file then this in-between step is not required and so the conversion would be much faster. I also found during my testing that this application will make good use of a dual core processor and I successfully converted an entire series of 25 minute episodes using two pass encoding from AVI to WMV in an average of 14 minutes per episode. You can safely half this figure to seven minutes if only using single pass encoding – not bad for a full episode using a 3Ghz Pentium D processor.
I have to say that I am nothing short of completely impressed with DVD Catalyst 2. Everything about this application is a pleasure to use, from the intuitive interface, through the speed of operation and batch processing to the rock solid stability. Throw in a very competitive price and top notch customer support and you really have one truly excellent value for money product.
For more details and purchasing, please visit Handango and if the price wasn’t competitive enough for you, use this code for a further $5 discount - 6548E9F5. Remember you have a fully functional 7 day unlimited trial to see for yourself before purchase. Please visit the DVD Catalyst home page for more details and support issues.
I tried out the previous version of DVD Catalyst and was impressed by how simple and quick it was to convert your movie collection to the mobile format. Building on this, a whole lot more has been added allowing the user to customise the results and yet still remain intuitive and quick to use.
Starting up the application gives you the home page where you select the type of project you wish to run through i.e. converting a DVD from the original disc, image file or folder or converting a video file from a similar range of sources. Also on this home page is a link to check for updates which for this application is quite an important feature – more on that later.
Screenshot – Home Page
Once you have selected the source of your video, the next screen in the wizard style interface takes you to a properties page of sorts which gives you some information on each video file that has been selected such as duration, resolution and frame rate. You can select which of these files you wish to convert and also amend the output name, brightness and contrast of the converted file. Clicking on a file in this page will give you a real time preview of the video that includes any changes you have applied thus far.
Screenshot – First Options page
Clicking next brings us to the main conversion page. This will be the most commonly tweaked page as it allows you to select one of many predefined profiles to suit a variety of different mobile devices such as PDAs, phones, PSP and iPods among others. Selecting a suitable profile sets such things as resolution, video and audio bitrate at a suitable ratio for the target device. These can be tweaked to your own personal preference and if you have found a customised setting what works well for you then this can be saved as a new profile for later retrieval. Profiles are a big bonus for this application as you may have a couple of different target devices and calling up a previous profile is a very quick way of setting all your options in one go. Hidden away on this page under the Advanced button are more settings which can be amended such as a custom resolution, the type of codec you wish to use, audio volume and video frame rate. You also have the option of selecting two pass encoding for a better quality conversion at the expense of time. One cool feature is that you can mix your profiles in the same encoding session so say for example you have a movie that you wanted to convert to be watched on a Pocket PC and an iPod, all you need to do is load up the first profile for the Pocket PC and then add another under the Advanced tab and select the iPod profile. This will encode the movie twice, once to each chosen output format. You can do this for multiple devices and it saves a whole lot of user interaction as the application takes care of it all.
Screenshot – Main Options page
Hitting next will bring you to the next page in the workflow which is cropping. A preview of your movie will play and beneath this are four icons that represent a form of auto cropping. Yes, this program will even crop your movies for you if you wish to remove the black bars from widescreen ratio moves as an example. Not only do the presets give you an illustration of the type of cropping, they will actively search out the black bars in the video and crop based on that so they are not set at any one predefined ratio. There are manual adjustments on the right of this page should you wish to over ride the auto mode and dial in some figures of your own. If cropping is not needed you can simply hit next to go to the final page.
Screenshot – Cropping
This last page gives you a quick overview of the file(s), the target device and estimated file size. All you need do here is click the start conversion button and the application will run through all the jobs listed on this page showing the start time, percentage done and where applicable, the finish time for each job keeping you fully up to date with the progress. This wizard approach to the conversion lets you tweak the right settings at the most logical time and is still very quick to run through; you literally can set up your video conversion in seconds.
So what else makes this application such a joy to use? Well, once you have figured out which settings you wish to use, the next time you start up the application you can simply opt to run it in quick mode which lets you select the target device, the input file(s) and then head straight to cropping before starting your conversion, missing out the conversion settings which are already in the target device settings. You can also do something similar by selecting the profile option on the home page, selecting your own profile and input file(s) and then going straight to the final conversion page missing out all the in-between steps. These two features are great for people who know how the output will be generated and wish to just select their files and let it the program do the rest.
For me, one of the most convenient features of this application has to be the batch conversion facility. When you are selecting your source videos, you can select multiple by ctrl/shift clicking or by using the ‘from folder’ option and then converting all the files in the one job. This is especially great for converting all the episodes from a series of your favourite TV program for example. Settings can bet set independently for each episode or you can apply settings globally to all the files and again you can have many video files selected and converting in literally a few seconds. The icing on the batch conversion process is that if you have more than one DVD ROM drive attached to your PC or shared over a network, you can select multiple DVDs for your sources and batch convert them all.
DVD Catalyst has been developed with a plug in system in mind meaning that new codecs and supported devices can be added simply, without the need to upgrade the whole application. Speaking of codecs, a vast majority are supported with conversion to and from popular codecs such as WMV, MP4, DIVX and many others included. While we are on the subject of updates, I want to go back to the importance of the check for update button I mention on the home page. DVD Catalyst 2.0 is a continually improving product with a very active support; I highlighted one area that I felt could be tweaked and the following morning the update was available – now that is dedication to the customer!
I have made a vast number of different conversions from DVDs and video files on my hard drive to various different formats with a total mixture of resolutions and bit rates and the application has yet to fail me. Batch conversion is completely reliable and you can quite happily queue up a few series of a particular program overnight and have them all waiting for you in the morning in their respective mobile formats. The speed of this application is determined by a number of factors such as source material, codec used and of course the speed of your computer and perhaps the longest conversion would be going from a DVD to WMV using two pass encoding. This process requires an in-between file created as an AVI before the resultant WMV can be generated. If you chose a DIVX AVI as your output file then this in-between step is not required and so the conversion would be much faster. I also found during my testing that this application will make good use of a dual core processor and I successfully converted an entire series of 25 minute episodes using two pass encoding from AVI to WMV in an average of 14 minutes per episode. You can safely half this figure to seven minutes if only using single pass encoding – not bad for a full episode using a 3Ghz Pentium D processor.
I have to say that I am nothing short of completely impressed with DVD Catalyst 2. Everything about this application is a pleasure to use, from the intuitive interface, through the speed of operation and batch processing to the rock solid stability. Throw in a very competitive price and top notch customer support and you really have one truly excellent value for money product.
For more details and purchasing, please visit Handango and if the price wasn’t competitive enough for you, use this code for a further $5 discount - 6548E9F5. Remember you have a fully functional 7 day unlimited trial to see for yourself before purchase. Please visit the DVD Catalyst home page for more details and support issues.
Comments:
<< Home
Only one comment. The tool is a nice tool and it works perfect when you want to rip a DVD inkl subtitle. But if you have a file and a .str subtitle it doesn't incorporate the subtitle. Is there a player that can handle subtitles also.
If you r output file is an avi, I believe you can use VirtualDub to render subtitles to the file however this would be an extra step. If you know of other software that can automate this then please let me know. As things stand though, DVD Catalyst is designed primarily around DVDs.
Post a Comment
<< Home
