All our DVD Catalyst products use a technology we call “transparent batch”. Its the one reason why we made DVD Catalyst in the first place.
History of DVD and Video conversion tools:
When mobile video started to become popular around 2004, the first generation of video conversion tools became available. Conversion Wizards, Studio’s and the likes all provided an easy, step by step interface to walk you through the process, but the one problem all of them had was that you could only convert one thing at a time.When the lengthy conversion process was complete, you had to start over with the program, and click through all the steps again for your next movie or TV episode from the same DVD.
Over the years, some companies have improved their software to incorporate batch, in which you can queue up conversions before the conversion, but you still have to perform the steps for each item you want to convert. Others, with the popularity of dual-core and multi-core systems implemented a technique to convert multiple items at the same time, but if you are converting from DVD or are only converting a single video file, it does not help.
When we released our first software over 6 years ago (mDVD/mVideo), we did this to make our own life easier. We had a large collection of DVDs, and rather than clicking through an app over and over, we decided it was faster to build an application of our own to do this for us. With our software, as it still is today, you just adjust the settings for your device to your needs. You add video content to the program, and then start the process. Each item will be converted using the settings you provided, if its a single DVD movie, or if you are converting 100 video files.
With DVD Catalyst 1 we started with a “queue” system, a list of files/dvd tracks, where you could modify settings for each individual item (change language/subtitle on a few, remove black borders from others etc), and when you were happy with the settings and changes you made, the one click would convert everything.
With DVD Catalyst 2, our “gadget” collection (as well as the amount of supported devices in the program) was growing, and we came up with the idea of a “device queue” on top of the “video queue”. This enables you to create a list of devices, and everything you convert will be converted for all the devices. So if you have a Blackberry yourself, and someone else in your household has an iPod, you would end up with 2 files, one specifically optimized for each device. To this day, only DVD Catalyst has this capability.
With DVD Catalyst 3, we worked towards a 0-click system. Folder monitoring, language/subtitle selection/black bar removal, all completely automatic if you would want to. You can set DVD Catalyst 3 up in such a way that if you walk past your computer and insert a DVD, it will automatically convert it. When you walk past it a little later, and the DVD drive sticks out, all you have to do is replace the DVD for a different one.
So what is transparent batch?
A Batch conversion is a list of conversions, performed in order. When you start the conversion, the first item will be converted, and when complete, it will automatically continue to the next one, without the need to click on anything.
While there are a lot of programs that can do batch conversions, you need to set up each conversion individually, and then save the information to the batch-list. For a DVD with 4 TV episodes, this means you have to do this 4 times by hand. If you have a collection of 20 video files, you will have to do this 20 times.
Transparent batch works differently. We call it this, because to the user, the process is transparent. You don’t have to deal with it. Every conversion with our software is always treated as a batch-conversion, even if you are converting one item. Because of this, you don’t have to manually save each item for a batch conversion. You just add your DVD and select the episodes you want, or add a video file, 10 video files or 100 video files (just drag them onto the program) it does not matter. After that, just click on the button to start the process.
