build 1.7

Convert DVD to your iPod, your iPhone, Pocket PC, PSP, Droid, Nexus One or Zune for free. DVD Catalyst Free is the ONLY free 1-click DVD conversion utility available, and enables you to create video files for your portable devices without the need to read through complicated guides or to install a variety of different programs.

Before DVD Catalyst Free, the only option for free DVD conversions was to use guides found on community websites. These guides usually require the user to install a couple of different applications, all designed to perform a single task, and then follow the steps in order to get to the end-result. While these guides do offer a lot more control over the actual conversion quality, the problem is that it takes a lot of time and trial-and-error to get things figured out for new users. In most cases, forums where these guides posted, there are numerous newbie users who are confused or have problems with one step in the process. As a result, we decided to create DVD Catalyst Free.

DVD Catalyst Free takes care of all the steps in those guides, and eliminates the need to install additional software. It is based on DVD Catalyst 3, and while it lacks many advanced features, it retains the 1-click user interface, and the most popular device profiles.

Besides converting DVDs, it can also convert video files from and to a variety of different video formats, without the need to install codecs. No additional software is required for DVD Catalyst to do it’s thing.

Included device profiles

Apple iPhone. (All versions) Files are created with the H264/AVC video codec to produce the best quality. This is the same format Apple uses for its content on iTunes.

Apple iPod Touch. (All versions) Files are created with the H264/AVC video codec to produce the best quality. This is the same format Apple uses for its content on iTunes.

Apple iPod Nano. (3G, 4G) Files are created with the H264/AVC video codec to produce the best quality. This is the same format Apple uses for its content on iTunes.

Apple iPod Video. (5G, 5.5G, Classic) Files are created with the H264/AVC video codec to produce the best quality. This is the same format Apple uses for its content on iTunes.

· Cellphone 3gpp. Compatible with most cellphones with video capability.

· Zune 4. Files are created with the H264/AVC video codec to produce the best quality.

· Zune 8. Files are created with the H264/AVC video codec to produce the best quality.

· Zune 30. Files are created with the WMV video codec to ensure compatibility.

· Zune 80. Files are created with the H264/AVC video codec to produce the best quality.

· Zune 120. Files are created with the H264/AVC video codec to produce the best quality.

· Playstation Portable. Files are created with the H264/AVC video codec to produce the best quality. Files need to be stored in the “VIDEO” folder located directly on the memorystick.

· Windows Mobile. Files are created with the DIVX video codec to produce the best quality. For playback, a DIVX-capable video player application such as TCPMP is required. You can find many versions of TCPMP on www.tools4movies.com/tcpmp

· Windows Mobile VGA. Files are created with the DIVX video codec to produce the best quality. For playback, a DIVX-capable video player application such as TCPMP is required. You can find many versions of TCPMP on www.tools4movies.com/tcpmp

· Palm Treo. Files are created with the DIVX video codec to produce the best quality. For playback, a DIVX-capable video player application such as TCPMP is required. You can find many versions of TCPMP on www.tools4movies.com/tcpmp

· Palm Centro. Files are created with the DIVX video codec to produce the best quality. For playback, a DIVX-capable video player application such as TCPMP is required. You can find many versions of TCPMP on www.tools4movies.com/tcpmp

· Audio only MP3. Converts only the audio portion of your videos/DVDs, basically turning them into audiobooks.

NEW in 1.7:

Google Nexus One

HTC Droid Eris

Motorola Droid

Options

DVD Catalyst Free is created to provide a simple way to convert movies for portable devices. Besides a basic quality adjustment, it does not have configuration options to modify settings set by the device profiles. Selecting a device profile automatically sets parameters required for creating video content compatible for the selected device, but nothing else.

To be able to modify additional profile settings, such as audio quality or black-bar removal, please upgrade to one of our other products, found on www.tools4movies.com. Besides offering more configuration options, they offer faster DVD conversions for most DVDs as well.

Selecting a device profile automatically selects the proper video format required for playback on the selected device. Some devices, such as PalmOS- and Windows Mobile-based devices do not have proper video playback, and for these devices, additional software is needed to be able to play the created video files. Please refer to the “Included device profiles” section for details on this.

In addition, the device profile sets the screen size of the device, which is used to optimize the video to make it fit, while preserving the best possible quality. The video will just be resized to fit within the screen size set by the profile, without further modifications. Depending on the device, as well as the video content, you might have black borders when viewing the video on your device. To eliminate this, please upgrade to one of our other software products.

The video quality is also automatically set by the device profile, but you can freely adjust this to fit your needs. The default setting for each device is selected based on providing a good quality at a reasonable file size. A quality indication (Q-value) gives you an indication of what quality to expect. Usually a value of 8 provides good quality. If you increase the video quality, keep in mind that the resulting quality can never be better than the quality of the original video, and going over 12 will not really be noticeable.

Check out this video for a good overview of many of the features in DVD Catalyst 3+ with Booster Pack. Now the Cat takes advantage of multiple cores/processors better than before with faster conversion and better performance all around. Updated frequently, DVD Catalyst 3+ will convert video for any popular device. Check out the video and tell us what you think in the comments if you want a chance at winning a free copy!

Due to issues with the protection system, the trial version has been changed to convert 20% of Movies, TV Shows and Video files.

NEW:
Verizon/Motorola Droid Profile added, existing profiles modified to use actual device resolution (854×480)
New HTC Android models added (Hero, Milestone)
Forced Subtitles Checkmark added (was always enabled in previous versions)
CPU indicator checkmark (turn off to gain a little extra performance)
Checkmark to turn off renaming files if they exist.

Fixed:
Integer issues on some DVDs including The Dark Knight
Failed conversions due to non-standard characters in the User profile folder.
2-Pass conversions

Included device profiles:

Clearview miPC Infinity
Apple AppleTV (Fast)
Apple AppleTV (HQ)
Apple AppleTV (HD)
Apple AppleTV (HQ HD)
HD ( 720) Apple TV
HD ( 720) Apple TV HQ
HD ( 720) eGreat  720
HD ( 720) eGreat  720 HQ
HD (1080) eGreat 1080
HD (1080) eGreat 1080 HQ
HD ( 720) Zune HD
HD ( 720) Zune HD HQ
HD ( 720) XBOX 360
HD ( 720) XBOX 360 HQ
HD ( 720) PS3
HD ( 720) PS3 HQ
HD ( 720) WD HD
HD ( 720) WD HD HQ
HD ( 720) NMT XVID
HD ( 720) NMT XVID HQ
HD ( 720) NMT H264
HD ( 720) NMT H264 HQ
Apple iPhone (Fast)
Apple iPhone (HQ)
Apple iPhone 3G (Fast)
Apple iPhone 3G (HQ)
Apple iPhone 3GS (Fast)
Apple iPhone 3GS (HQ)
Apple iPod Classic (Fast)
Apple iPod Classic (HQ)
Apple iPod Nano (Fast)
Apple iPod Nano (HQ)
Apple iPod Touch (Fast)
Apple iPod Touch (HQ)
Apple iPod Video (Fast)
Apple iPod Video (HQ)
Apple iPod TV-Out
Toshiba TG01
Toshiba TG01 (HQ)
Generic 3GP Cellphone
Audio Only Movie to MP3
Tivo to MPEG
Tivo to MPEG Copy
Generic VCAST Cellphone
Verizon Droid
Verizon Droid HQ
Verizon Droid HQ2
Motorola Milestone
Motorola Milestone HQ
Generic MPEG4 Cellphone
Generic AVC/H264 Cellphone
Nokia Nokia 3GP
Nokia 9300
Nokia Nokia AVC (N95)
Nokia Nokia 5800
Nokia Nokia MP4
Dingoo A320 (AVI)
Generic Windows Mobile PocketPC (TCPMP)
Generic Windows Mobile Smartphone (TCPMP)
Smartphone Generic DIVX (TCPMP)
HTC Touch (TCPMP)
HTC Touch 3G (TCPMP)
T-Mobile myTouch 3G
HTC Touch Viva (TCPMP)
HTC Touch Pro (TCPMP)
HTC Touch Diamond (TCPMP)
HTC Touch Diamond2 (TCPMP)
HTC Touch Dual (TCPMP)
HTC Fuze (TCPMP)
HTC TyTN II (TCPMP)
HTC P6500 (TCPMP)
HTC P3570 (TCPMP)
Verizon XV6900
HTC Touch Cruise (TCPMP)
HTC Touch HD
HTC Touch HD2
Nokia 810
Nokia 810 HQ
HTC Touch LEO
HTC Touch Pro2
HTC Imagio
HTC Imagio HQ
Verizon VX6975 (Imagio)
Verizon VX6975 (Imagio) HQ
HTC MAX 4G
HTC Touch HD (HQ)
Generic WMV
Generic WMV HQ
Generic DIVX HQ
Generic AVI HQ
Generic MPEG2
Generic MPEG2 HQ
Microsoft Zune 4
Microsoft Zune 4 (HQ)
Microsoft Zune 8
Microsoft Zune 8 (HQ)
Microsoft Zune 30
Microsoft Zune 30 (HQ)
Microsoft Zune 80
Microsoft Zune 80 (HQ)
Microsoft Zune 120
Microsoft Zune 120 (HQ)
Microsoft Zune HD (HQ)
Microsoft Zune HD (TV )
Microsoft Zune HD (TV HQ)
Zune Zune HD (TV)
PocketPC PocketPC 2000
PocketPC PocketPC 2002
Microsoft W Mobile 2003
Palm Palm Treo / Centro
Palm Pre
Palm Pre (HQ)
PocketPC Palm Treo 7XXw
Palm Treo 7XXp (TCPMP)
Epson P2000
Epson P2000 AVI
Epson P4000 AVI
Creative Zen 4GB
Blackberry 81xx Pearl
Blackberry 83xx Curve
Blackberry 8330 Curve
Blackberry 87xx Series
Blackberry Storm
Blackberry Storm2
Blackberry Storm (HQ)
Blackberry Storm2 (HQ)
Blackberry 89xx Curve
Blackberry 89xx Curve (HQ)
Blackberry Tour 9630
Blackberry Tour 9630 (HQ)
Blackberry Bold
Blackberry Bold (HQ)
Misc Meizu M6 Miniplayer
Microsoft W Mobile 2005
Philips GoGear Opus SA5295
Microsoft W Mobile 5
Microsoft W Mobile 2006
Microsoft W Mobile 6
Microsoft W Mobile 2003 VGA
Microsoft W Mobile 2005 VGA
Microsoft W Mobile 5 VGA
Microsoft W Mobile 2006 VGA
Microsoft W Mobile 6 VGA
Microsoft PocketPC DIVX (TCPMP)
Smartphone Smartphone DIVX (TCPMP)
PocketPC DIVX VGA (TCPMP)
Asus eee  7″
Asus eee  9″
Asus eee 10″
MSI Wind  9″
MSI Wind 10″
Generic Netbook 7″
Generic Netbook  9″
Generic Netbook 10″
Generic Netbook 11″
Generic HD Media Player (Average)
Generic HD Media Player (Good)
Generic HD Media Player (Best)
Archos A404 H264
Archos A604 H264
Archos A605 H264
Archos A605 XVID
Archos 105
Archos 405
Archos 5 (with H264 plugin)
Archos 7 (with H264 plugin)
Archos AV500
Archos AV700
Misc Camera2DIVX
Misc Cowon A2
Cowon Q5W
Cowon A3 (DIVX)
Cowon Q5W (H264/AVC)
Cowon iAudio 6
Cowon iAudio 7
Cowon iAudio X5
Cowon S9
Cowon O2PMP (DIVX)
Cowon O2PMP (H264/AVC)
Cowon D2+
iRiver Spinn
iRiver LPlayer
iRiver E100
iRiver P7
iRiver Clix
Samsung Omnia
Samsung i8510 INNOV8
Samsung Omnia II
Samsung Omnia HD i8910
Misc Cavalry CAPP6
Misc Disney MixMax
Motorola KRZR
Motorola RAZR
Motorola SLVR
Motorola MOTOKRZR K1m
Motorola MOTORIZR Z6tv
Motorola MOTORAZR maxx Ve
Motorola ZN5
Motorola MOTORAZR V9m
Motorola MOTO Z6c World Edition
LG VX 8700
LG VX 8350
LG VX 9400
LG enV
LG EnV Touch
LG EnV Touch HQ
LG Chocolate
LG VENUS
LG Voyager
Samsung Gleam
Motorola DEXT MB220
Samsung Eternity
LG Vu CU920
Sony-Ericsson p910
Sony-Ericsson SE Xperia X1a
Sony-Ericsson Aino
Sony-Ericsson Satio
Samsung FlipShot
Samsung SCH-u540
Samsung SCH-u550
Samsung SCH-u620
Samsung Alias SCH–u740
Creative Zen Vision
Creative Zen Vision M
Creative Zen Vision W
Misc GP2X
HandheldPC Jornada 720 (TCPMP)
HandheldPC MobilePro 900 (TCPMP)
HandheldPC MobilePro 900c (TCPMP)
HandheldPC Sigmarion 3 (TCPMP)
HP IPAQ 22xx
Nokia N770
Nokia E72
Nokia N82
Nokia N800
Nokia N900
Nokia N900 HQ
Nokia N70
Nokia N73
Nokia N91
Nokia N93
Sony Playstation 3(PS3)
Sony Playstation 3(PS3) HQ
Sony Playstation 3(MPEG)
Sony Playstation 3(MPEG) HQ
Sony Playstation 3(COPY AUDIO)
Sony Playstation 3(COPY AUDIO) HQ
Sony Playstation 3(AVC)
Sony Playstation 3(AVC) HQ
Sony Playstation 3(H264)
Sony Playstation 3(H264) HQ
Sony Playstation P(PSP)
Sony PSP (PSP)
Sony PSP HQ
Sony Mylo2
Sony Playstation P(PSP) HQ
Sony PS3(AVC)
Sony PS3(AVC) HQ
Sony PS3(H264)
Sony PS3(H264) HQ
Sony PS3 DIVX
Sony PS3 DIVX COPY AUDIO
Sony PS3 DIVX HQ
Sony PS3 DIVX HQ COPY AUDIO
Sony PS3 XVID
Sony PS3 XVID COPY AUDIO
Sony PS3 XVID HQ
Sony PS3 XVID HQ COPY AUDIO
Sony Walkman NWZ
Sony Walkman X
Samsung S8000 JET
Samsung S5230 STAR
Misc Samsung U800
Misc Sansa Connect
Misc Sansa Fuse
Misc Sansa View
YouTube Flash Video
Misc FLV
T-Mobile T-Mobile G1 (Fast)
HTC HTC Dream (Fast)
T-Mobile T-Mobile G1 (Standard)
HTC HTC Dream (Standard)
T-Mobile T-Mobile G1 (HQ)
HTC HTC Dream (HQ)
Android HTC Hero
Android Acer Liquid
Acer neoTouch
Samsung B7620
Generic XVID_MP3
Generic DIVX_MP3

Due to the way DVD Catalyst was created, it’s possible to “hack” or trick DVD Catalyst into getting these to work properly. Please note that while the information below has been reported to work without any issues, it does not mean that there are no issues.

First some information on WTV files. WTV files are simply DVR-MS files, which in turn are MPEG2 files. WTV is a wrapper around DVR-MS to add some additional information, similar to ID3 Tag information in MP3 files, or the tags in MP4 files.

While most video file formats can contain some basic information, cool things like Album art, cover images and such are only found in a few. DVR-MS does not have the capability for this, so, rather than to modify the whole Media Center f0rmat, Microsoft simply created a shrinkwrap around the files that does support additional information.

Unfortunately there are not many programs that can handle this wrapper. Thankfully, Microsoft did implement an “unwrapper” method to transform the WTV files into normal DVR-MS files again.

WTV to DVR-MS : just rightclick on a WTV file, and an option to “convert to .dvr-ms Format” shows up. Left-click on that, and a DVR-MS file will be created of the WTV file. Since it’s just copying the file without the WTV wrap around it, this process is fairly quick (depends on your harddrive speed)

Now to get better DVR-MS support in DVD Catalyst, you will have to perform the following steps:

#1: Download and install the DVD Catalyst Boosterpack

http://www.tools4movies.com/dc3b.zip

#2: Start DVD Catalyst 3 and close it. This activates the Boosterpack in DVD Catalyst.

#3: Download a special DVR-MS fixed version of mencoder from the following website:

http://babgvant.com/files/

#4: Make sure DVD Catalyst 3 is not running and do the following:

In Windows, click on Start > Run (or for Vista/Win7, hold down the windows key on your keyboard and tap the R key)

In the Run dialog, type in:

%appdata%

and click OK.

#5: Extract the files from the downloaded Mencoder file, and copy ONLY mencoder.exe and libx264-56.dll into the “DVD Catalyst3″ folder

It will ask if you want to overwrite the mencoder file, which is OK (it needs to)

#6: Close everything, and start DVD Catalyst. All should work fine now.

What does this trick do?

The Boosterpack is incompatible with all DVR-MS files, so as of 3.81, DVD Catalyst uses a work-around for them. When you use DVR-MS files with DVD Catalyst and the Boosterpack installed, it will use the Boosterpack for all conversions except DVR-MS files. When it converts a DVR-MS file, it falls back to the original conversion engine.

By replacing the original conversion engine (the steps in this post), the work-around for DVR-MS files will use the replaced conversion engine, and for all other conversions, DVD Catalyst will use the Boosterpack.

The reason why this cumbersome method is required to make it work is because the DVR-MS version of mencoder does not support all of the options that DVD Catalyst uses. Certain DVD access methods are not available, as well as some conversion formats, so by using the Boosterpack, those missing elements will not cause any issues.

Purchase for $20 (or more) on your favorite software there, and get DVD Catalyst 3 as a bonus for free ($9.95 value).

The offer lasts until November 16, 2009

link

DVD Catalyst 3 v3.83.5 is currently available on most of the normal locations, including the various sales-websites. You can obtain it by either using the original link you received upon purchase, or simply click on the cat-eyes to update.

What is new?

Since the last posted release notes, plenty of new device profiles have been added, including the newer Blackberry models, the Verizon Droid, HTC Pro2, Touch2, HD2, Leo, and the new Sony Aino and Satio phones. WHile many devices use similar profile settings, Sony (as usual) always does things different, and for their new models, a new screen resolution was added in DVD Catalyst 3, 640×360.

Besides the new profiles, a few things were added/changed as well.

With 3.83(.0) we added the CPU indicators. Small animated bars at the bottom right that shows you how busy your computer is. While it looks cool, it does take up a little power away from the actual conversion, so just to be able to squeeze a little more performance out of your computer, we added an option (Global Settings > Advanced) to turn them off.

In 3.83 some issues were reported in regards of 2-pass conversions. These have been adressed and fixed.

Some DVDs, such as The Dark Knight, caused some weird error messages in DVD Catalyst, and these have been adressed as well.

Recently, an issue with failed conversions was linked to having a non-standard character in your username. DVD Catalyst, by default, looks for the Video folder in your user profile on your computer. If you have a username such as “Nancy’s computer” the video folder would be something like “C:\Users\Nancy’s computer\Videos”

Because not all devices can handle all characters in a filename, DVD Catalyst uses a filter to rename the files to make them compatible. This caused the ‘ in the foldername to be renamed as well, resulting in a non-existing folder where the conversion would store the file, and thus the conversion crashes.

Lastly,

We still receive emails from people who experience virus messages from DVD Catalyst or even that DVD Catalyst is missing from their computer. While this has been fixed a few releases ago, not everyone who uses DVD Catalyst updates to every new version released (if it isn’t broke, dont fix it), people still run into these issues.

The reason why this is happening is because we used a program to “wrap” DVD Catalyst into a protection application. This application puts a layer around the program it protects, and gives it capabilities of making it expire after a certain time (trial version), and it also compresses the program, making it smaller to download. Unfortunately, for some reason, some virus scanners (Norton, McAffee) found that any program wrapped with this one particular application was infected. Even though the application was clean, it resembled a small portion of code of a virus, and rather than actually scanning the file completely, these virus scanners just mark it as being infected (thats how they get their speed)

While we tried communicating with various Antivirus companies, as well as the developers of this particular application, they all force us to install and purchase their products or updates before providing any assistance. With some they require the install of one of their trial versions, but due to the complexity of getting rid of it afterwards we offered a few different options instead, all which got ignored.

So, as a result, we are no longer using the “wrapper” application, and unfortunately, we had to modify the trial version into a conversion-limited (20% of each movie/video) rather than the 7-14 day limitation we have used for 5 years.

DVD Catalyst 3 always gets scanned upon release by www.virustotal.com, a website that scans files for virusses using 40 of the top antivirus applications.

The Proposal features a nice version of Sony’s ARCCOS protection system, and of course causes DVD programs to trip. To make The Proposal work in DVD Catalyst 3, you will need to do the following:

Start DVD Catalyst without the DVD in the drive.

Go into Global Settings > Advanced, and enable the “Ask for DVD track selection”.

Insert the DVD, and after the 99 tracks have been “found” by DVD Catalyst, it will bring up a selectionbox (thanks to the above setting). In there, select the first track.

DVD Catalyst will scan just the one track, and from there continue as usual.

Based on specs found on http://www.gsmarena.com/samsung_s8000_jet-2835.php

edit:

Unfortunately, the JET is a little picky in screen resolution. While it does have an 800×480 screen resolution, it can not handle this as a video file resolution. Use 720×480.

Screensize as well as supported video formats are identical.

http://www.gsmarena.com/sony_ericsson_xperia_x2-2926.php

I would suggest to use the Sony Ericsson > SE Xperia X1a setting. These settings match the video specifications for the Xperia X2.