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.

DVD Catalyst 3

Faster, easier and more features than ever before

Watch a DVD on your iPod, iPhone, Pocket PC, Zen, Zune or any other video-capable device with one click.

DVD Catalyst 3 is the most advanced, feature-rich DVD conversion tool on the market today, and besides the standard features found in similar products, it offers numerous industry-first features to make it as easy to use as possible.

Convert DVD to your iPod, your iPhone, Pocket PC, Zen, Zune and more in a breeze. DVD Catalyst is the most advanced, feature-rich DVD conversion tool on the market today, and besides the standard features found in similar products, it offers numerous inductry-unique features to make it as easy to use as possible.

DVD Catalyst enables you to convert your own DVD collection to a format that can be played on a video-capable device that does not normally play DVDs. It creates video files from DVDs that are compatible with many different devices, including Apple’s iPod and iPhone devices, Blackberry, Pocket PC, PSP, XBOX 360, PS3, Zen and Zune.

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.

Because of the extensive DVD collection we have, it’s hard to actually find a movie when you want to watch it. Because I always backup every DVD (at least the ones I enjoy) to a harddrive, it’s easier to just find it on the computer than to spend a few hours digging through DVDs. Because my main portable device for video playback is an iPod Touch, all my movies are encoded in a format that plays on it. To watch these on TV, I used to transfer them to my iPod Nano (3G, which plays the iPod Touch formatted files perfectly), and use the iPod Video (5G) dock to connect it to the TV (never gotten around to get another dock, because you never know what they change in a future model). It works pretty good for watching movies, but I never managed to get a good understanding of the remote for the dock, so watching a few TV episodes is a bit of a pain.

With the NMT, I use an old 100GB laptop harddisk that came from my Dell laptop. I always use 7200rpm drives for computers I work on, so the 5400rpm drive was not doing anything.

The NMT has, strangely, an external sata port that uses internal cables. Hooking up the harddrive to the (included) cable makes it work great, and it even reads NTFS formatted drives (needed for large HD video files).

With this combination, I’ve managed to watch some Battlestar Galactica episodes in HD (720p) format on my 32″ Philips LCD TV, and it looks great. I had some issues with one file, but that was due to corruption in the file itself for some reason. Now all I need with it is a good sound system.

All in all, the EG-M34A is a great purchase for me.

(remember, if you do get one, update the firmware first. It takes a while though, to update, download the update from their website (don’t update through the device itself) and copy both the bin file and the html file to an empty pendrive)

It was about time to replace the old XBOX1 I used for playback of my video file collection. While XBMC worked fine for most videos, due to the limited performance of the XBOX itself (733mhz processor), it was not capable of playback of my iPod Touch optimized video files.

For a while now I have been looking around for an NMT, a Network Media Tank. This is a device that you connect to the TV, and it can play video files from USB devices such as a pen-drive or an external harddisk.  Some have a network connection as well, which enables it to stream video from a computer network share.

The EG-M34A is cheap and offers all I wanted. I have looked at a variety of different brands, models, but this one appeared to be capable of all I need, which is basically play everything I throw at it.

Yesterday, FedEx delivered it, and while the box is quite small, it works as advertised. I had to do a firmware upgrade to enable some newer features, but after that, it played the HD stuff I prepared for it without any problems.

I have not done much else with it, but expect some more info in a few days.

DVD Catalyst 3.82, the next version of DVD Catalyst 3 is currently available in beta form.

While most things are fully functional, there might be some issues.

Whats new:

To clean things up a little, 2 new TABs have been added in Global Settings.

*Boosterpack TAB, containing the settings for turning off boosterpack, as well as room for future options.

*Advanced TAB, containing additional settings that do not really fit in the other tabs, or are for more experienced users.

The Advanced Tab includes the following:

*AVCHD framerate. Some camera files do not report the video information properly, causing severe issues with conversions.
This is used for those files.

*Run before conversion: run a program (or bat file) before the conversion starts.
*Run after conversion: run a program (or bat file) after the conversion is finished.
these are usefull to stop and restart a program that might interfere with the conversion. These options actually run anything. The Browse dialog is set to look for All Files, enabling you to pick whatever you want to run. You could pick a program, but also a wav file or an mp3 to play when conversions are complete. To test-run the file, click on the filename in DVD Catalyst after you selected a file. Note that the execution of the file is NOT monitored by DVD Catalyst. it will not wait for a script to finish.

*SRT subtitle font scale: video files with SRT subtites tend to convert subtitles really small. this fixes that.

*Ask for DVD track selection: Rather that using DVD Catalyst automatic scanning, this will enable you to manually select the tracks you need.
Handy for those DVDs with a lot of tracks, or if you had issues, and restarted DVD Catalyst and remembered which track you need.
Shows playtime of the tracks, and has a preview as well.

*Shutdown DVDCat when done. closes dvdcat when conversion are completed.
*shutdown computer when done. (has been in dvdcat since the beginning) turns off computer when conversions are done.

To play with the beta, use the “Email Us” button in DVD Catalyst 3 to contact us.

DVD Catalyst can read (convert) the following video files and formats:

DVD: Recorded as well as commercial (rental/store bought) DVDs.

DVD ISO: ISO files in a variety of different file formats. (usually backups of DVDs created using other software).

DVD FOLDER: Folders containing VOB and IFO files. (usually backups of DVDs created using other software).

SVCD/VCD: Commonly used in Asia, or backups created from DVD using other software.

MKV: Anime / BRrips etc.

DIVX/XVID/AVI: DVD rips (DVD backups), internet downloads etc.

MPEG1/M1V/MPEG2/M2V/VOB: Recordings (Camera/TV Card), DVD backups etc.

WMV / DVR-MS / VC-1: Windows Media formatted files, Media Center recordings etc.

AVCHD / MTS / M2TS / MT / TS / TP / M2T / M2P/ TRP : HD Camera recordings. Some formats work already, however, better support will be added in 3.82.

OGM : Open-source video format (Anime).

MOD : MPEG2-based video camera recordings.

FLV : Flash Video, video from websites like YouTube.

3GP / 3G2 / AMR / H263 : Cellphone camera recording format.

M4V / MP4 / MPEG4 SP : MPEG 4 Simple Profile, used for some camera recordings.

MOV / MP4 / MPEG4 AVC / H264 / x264 : MPEG4 Advanced Coding Profile, HD video format used in BluRay(rips), HD TV recordings, iPod/PSP optimized files.

And more (most of the ones listed here)

If for some reason DVD Catalyst ignores the files you add, you can use the “Add file(s)” button which lets you bypass the file-extension check. DVD Catalyst will try and access the file as a video file, and if it can do something with it, it will enable it for conversion.

DVD Catalyst can write (create) video files using the following formats:

H264 MP4 : The best-quality video format at this time. Used for all HD content, including Apple iTunes video and BluRay.

h264_ipod : DVD Catalyst h264 format, with specific settings for compatibility with Apple’s devices. It is also the most compatible H264 format, and is playable on most devices that can play H264 video.

h264_ipod_hq : DVD Catalyst h264 format, settings optimized for quality, while retaining compatibility with most devices.

h264_appletv : DVD Catalyst h264 format with specific settings for AppleTV, outdated, use h264_ipod instead.

h264_appletv_hq : DVD Catalyst h264 format with specific settings for AppleTV, outdated, use h264_ipod_hq instead.

h264_5.1 : DVD Catalyst h264 format with 5.1 audio. only for PC playback, not compatible with any known device. (.mov)

h264_5.1_hq : DVD Catalyst h264 format with 5.1 audio. only for PC playback, not compatible with any known device. (.mov)

h264_5.1_mp4 : DVD Catalyst h264 format with 5.1 audio. only for PC playback, not compatible with any known device. (.mp4)

h264_5.1_hq_mp4 : DVD Catalyst h264 format with 5.1 audio. only for PC playback, not compatible with any known device. (.mp4)

h264_xbox : DVD Catalyst h264 format specifically for XBOX360, not compatible with any other device. (.avi)

h264_xbox_hq : DVD Catalyst h264 format specifically for XBOX360, not compatible with any other device. (.avi)

h264_ps3 : DVD Catalyst h264 format specifically for Sony PS3, not compatible with any other device. (.avi)

h264_ps3_hq : DVD Catalyst h264 format specifically for Sony PS3, not compatible with any other device. (.avi)

h264_psp : DVD Catalyst h264 format specifically for Sony PSP, not compatible with any other device. (firmware 3.10+)

h264_psp_hq : DVD Catalyst h264 format specifically for Sony PSP, not compatible with any other device. (firmware 3.10+)

h264_psp2 : DVD Catalyst h264 format specifically for Sony PSP, not compatible with any other device. (firmware 2.00+) This format is very picky in file naming, folder location on the PSP, and is not recommended for use at all. Upgrade your PSP, and use the other format for better quality.

MPEG4 SP : Less demanding video format (older devices)

mpeg4_ipod : Most compatible MPEG4 SP format, compatible with most devices that can handle MPEG4-SP. Used in “Fast” profiles for Apple iPod / iPhone / Apple TV due to better performance on older computers. Less quality though.

mpeg4_psp : DVD Catalyst MPEG4 format specifically for Sony PSP, not compatible with any other device. (firmware 1.00+) This format is very picky in file naming, folder location on the PSP, and is not recommended for use at all. Upgrade your PSP, and use the other format for better quality.

amv_mp2 : specific video format for cheap Asian mp4 video players. (.amv)

Audio MP3 : Converts any DVD or video file to an MP3 audio file. (.mp3)

flv_mp3 : Creates video files in Flash Video format, compatible with internet websites and flv players.

H263 / 3GP / 3GP2 : Low quality video format for processor-limited devices (cellphones)

3gp1_aac: basic 3gp video file, compatible with most cellphones such as Nokia and Motorola (.3gp)

3gp1_aac_mp4: 3gp video file with .mp4 file extension used for Sansa Connect.

3gp1_amr-nb: basic 3gp video file, most compatible with anything that can play 3gp files (.3gp)

3gp1_amr-wb: variation of the above, using slightly modified settings, not used.

3gp2_aac: 3gp2 video file format(.3g2), not used.

AVI / MPEG4 ASP

msmpeg4_mp3 : basic AVI video file, requires no codec install on computers that have Windows Media Player 7 or higher installed. Used by DVD Catalyst for inbetween file for some video formats.

divx_mp3 : divx encoded avi file, optimized for Nokia Internet Tablets

divx4_mp3 : divx4 video file format, used for some older Epson, Blackberry and Creative Zen models.

divx4_copy : divx4 video format with the original audio left untouched. Not used.

divx5_mp3 : divx5 video file format, compatible with any device capable of (Certified) DIVX playback.

divx5_copy : divx5 video format with the original audio left untouched. Used for some HQ profiles.

divx5_mp3_cam : special conversion format, recommended to be used for low quality conversions, such as cellphone recordings to another format. Using any other format with these kinds of files might fail conversions.

divx5_mp3_palm : special conversion format specifically intended for use with older PalmOS devices.

xvid_mp3 : opensource version of DIVX, compareable to divx5_mp3.

xvid_mp3_sansa : xvid format with specific settings for the Sansa Fuse.

xvid_mp2 : xvid video format with mp2 audio, usable for some older devices. Not used by DVD Catalyst at this time.

xvid_copy : xvid video format with the original audio left untouched. Used for some HQ profiles.

MPEG / MPG

mpeg2_mp2 : Standard MPEG2 video format with MP2 audio

mpeg2_mp2_hq : Standard MPEG2 video format with MP2 audio with additional quality settings enabled

mpeg2_copy : Standard MPEG2 video format with original source audio

mpeg2_mp2_hq : Standard MPEG2 video format with original source audio with additional quality settings enabled

and more

The time of renting VHS tapes is over. No longer do we need to rewind the tapes to be able to watch a movie, or pay a fee at the rental store because we forgot to rewind it when we were finished watching the movie. Technology has given us DVD and Bluray, disc-based systems that vaguely remind us of the “good old days”. However, the one thing still left with these formats is that we have to change discs when done, or to watch another movie.

Here is where devices such as HTPC and Media Center PC’s come in. These devices are full-blown computers, usually in a small or stylish design, created to match stereo equipment so they do not look out of place. These devices enable you to access movies stored on the device, in an amount only limited by the size of the build-in harddisk. With just the remote, you can skip through movies just like with DVDs and VHS tapes, but, the main advantage is that you never have to leave your seat to pick the next movie. Just select it and watch another one.

These computers have evolved over the years into devices such as DVR’s (TiVo) and more recently into “Media Tanks” such as the Apple TV, Popcorn Hour and the Western Digital HD Media Player.

For all these devices, HTPC, Media Center PC and Media Tanks, the one question remains on how to get video content on there. The Apple TV connects to the iTunes store as well as an iTunes installation on your computer, a DVR gets it’s content from either TV (recordings) or services such as Amazon UnBox (rental). Recently, even the XBOX360 received a major update enabling it to stream Netflix movies. However for the non-branded devices, getting content is more troublesome.

This is where DVD Catalyst comes in. While in it’s early days it was designed to create video files for portable devices, with the newer versions, it is more than capable to fill up your media jukebox device with video content at great quality.

Here is how to get started.

Step 1. Video format.

The most important thing is to figure out what video formats your device supports. For full-blown HTPCs or Media Center systems, it usually does not matter. Because these devices are just your standard computer in a different box, you can always install some codecs to be able to play the video files you have. For the Media Tank devices, it’s a little different. These devices usually have their own operating system or firmware, and depending on what formats the manufacturer decided to provide support for, you will have to choose the format you need.

So, to make sure you pick the right format, visit either the website of the product you have, or look in the manual.

Below a list of common formats, in order of quality. The first format mentioned will provide the best possible quality, however, it will also convert slower.

MPEG4 AVC / H264 / x264. These formats are pretty much the same, but some companies use one term, other companies use the other term. This format is currently the video format with the best possible quality and compression, and is used for all of Apple’s iTunes video content, as well as Bluray, HD-DVD. Files in this format usually have the .MP4 file extension.

MPEG4 SP / DIVX / XVID. While there are differences, these formats are nearly the same in quality vs compression ratio. MPEG4 SP usually has .MP4 as a file extension, while DIVX / XVID have .AVI as a file extension. DIVX can also have .DIVX as a file extension, but more often than not it’s .AVI.

MPEG2. This is the format used for DVDs

MPEG1. This is the first MPEG version, and is used for VideoCD as well as video content on very limited devices.

For best quality, use the above order to determine the best choice for your device. MKV, a format growing in popularity, can contain different kinds of video formats, mainly H264 and XVID, but it is not limited to these. Devices that support MKV can usually play any other video format as well.

Step 2. Limitations to the settings.

Depending on the kind of device you use, there are of course limitations to what it can handle. Some devices support up to 1080i video, while other devices can barely handle 480i (Standard Definition, DVD) or 720i. In addition, the playback experience is also limited to the quality settings themselves. While most devices can handle 1500Kbps video or 5000kbps video, not all of them do. All of this information can be found in the specifications of your device, either online or in the manual. If you are using a computer (HTPC or Media Center) please keep in mind that the processor speed of the computer affects playback performance as well. Especially with H264/AVC/x264 video, a lot of processing power is needed for playback, and if you are using an older computer for playback (or an Intel Atom/Celeron-based system) you might experience issues during playback.

Step 3. DVD Catalyst 3 Settings

With the above information, we can set up DVD Catalyst to do the conversions.

Basically pick any format in DVD Catalyst 3, and click on “Modify”

Screen size: set this to the maximum of what your video player device can handle, or if your TV is smaller, use the screen resolution of your TV. DVD Catalyst does not “upscale” the video to that size, however, it is safer to set the resolution this way to avoid any playback issues.

Video format: pick the format determined in step 1.

For H264/AVC video, select “H264_IPOD” in the dropdown. This format is the most compatible. The other formats are for specific devices (such as PSP, XBOX) and are non-standard.

For DIVX you should select “DIVX5_MP3″. While DIVX is currently on version 7, most devices do not use any additional features it has to offer, or are not compatible. DIVX5 always works. If your device supports surround sound / DTC / AC3, you can select “DIVX5_COPY” for DVD conversions. This will keep the audio unmodified, retaining it’s multi-speaker setup.

For XVID you should select “XVID_MP3″.  If your device supports surround sound / DTC / AC3, you can select “XVID_COPY” for DVD conversions. This will keep the audio unmodified, retaining it’s multi-speaker setup.

For MPEG4 (SP) select “MPEG4_IPOD”

For MPEG2 you should select MPEG2_MP2″.  If your device supports surround sound / DTC / AC3, you can select “MPEG2_COPY” for DVD conversions. This will keep the audio unmodified, retaining it’s multi-speaker setup.

For MPEG1 you should select MPEG1_MP2″.  If your device supports surround sound / DTC / AC3, you can select “MPEG1_COPY” for DVD conversions. This will keep the audio unmodified, retaining it’s multi-speaker setup.

While H264 is the best video format, it might be more desirable to pick DIVX or XVID instead due to it’s capability of retaining the surround sound audio format.

Video Quality: This depends greatly on the selected video format, as well as the kind of video content you are converting. The kbps values mentioned provide reasonable quality, but quality can always be better. Quality depends on numerous things, including the kind of movie, as well as your own perception. Do note that with conversion, there will always be some quality loss, regardless of what program you use. Also the device that you use to play the files will have great impact on the quality as well.

DVDs. DVDs have a screen size of 720×480 (480i) . Even if you have set the screen size in DVD Catalyst to something higher, DVD Catalyst does not “upscale” by default (your video player does that) the screen size will be similar to that of the DVD. For H264 as a video format, you can get a good quality on about 1200kbps. If you use DIVX or XVID, you can use 1500kbps / 2000kbps to achieve the same quality, for MPEG2 it will be around 4000kbps, while for MPEG1 it will be more like 6000kbps.

HD content (Bluray rips, downloaded TV episodes in HD) This depends greatly on the screen size. for 1080i files (1920×1080) converted to the same size, I would suggest to tripple (x3) the values mentioned above. For 720i (1280×720) conversions on the same size, I would multiply the mentioned values by 1.5.

1-pass or 2-pass. This can greatly improve quality, however, it is dangerous as well. 2-pass conversions use a variable quality setting. For slow-changing scenes, the conversion will use a lower quality setting, while for fast changing scenes, the conversion will use a higher quality setting. The overall quality will be a lot better, but, if there is a fast scene, or a scene with a lot of changes (a simple ocean view with clattering waves) the quality can exceed the maximum the player can handle. When you view the movie, at these points, the movie appears to freeze or slow down a lot. If you view the same scenes on a file converted with 1-pass, you might see some artifacts, but at least the movie doesn’t freeze.

Audio Quality. This also depends on the device capabilities. If you use one of the _COPY profiles, because it does not modify the audio in any way, any changes (including volume) will not have any effect. Only the language selection will be used.

DVD Catalyst 3 has a few profiles already set up that can be used for these conversions. The Western Digital profiles will work just fine, or, you can pick the TiVo > to MPEG profiles as a base as well.

For all conversions, try a few small clips using your settings first to see how things look and play. Once you have found the settings you like, you can save them to a new profile, ready for quick selection whenever needed.

Note: the issues mentioned above (freezing on 2-pass for example) apply to ALL software that can be used to fill up your video jukebox, not just DVD Catalyst.

Build 3.84

Convert DVD to your iPod, your iPhone, Pocket PC, Zen, Zune and more in a breeze. DVD Catalyst is the most advanced, feature-rich DVD conversion tool on the market today, and besides the standard features found in similar products, it offers numerous inductry-unique features to make it as easy to use as possible.

DVD Catalyst enables you to convert your own DVD collection to a format that can be played on a video-capable device that does not normally play DVDs. It creates video files from DVDs that are compatible with many different devices, including Apple’s iPod and iPhone devices, Blackberry, Pocket PC, PSP, XBOX 360, PS3, Zen and Zune.

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

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

*Scan DVDs. This will have DVD Catalyst scan your DVD drives for actual DVDs. By default, DVD Catalyst does this by itself. Unless you disabled this in Global Settings, there is no need to manually do this.

*Add files. This will open a file dialog enabling you to select individual video files to add to the conversion.

*Add folders. This will open a folder dialog enabling you to select folders containing video files to add to the conversion.

DVD Catalyst 3 supports Drag & Drop to quickly and easily add files to the conversion. Just drag files and/or  folders onto the program, and DVD Catalyst will sort out what it can handle, and add it to the selection queue.

*Automatic Movie / Episode recognition. If this is enabled, DVD Catalyst will filter through the found DVD content after scanning, and if it thinks it’s a movie DVD, it will enable just the Movie track for conversion, and if it thinks it’s a TV episode DVD, it will enable only the individual episodes. While it works with most DVDs, due to the enormous amount of different ways DVDs are organized, it is not 100% full-proof. To enable tracks for conversion that are wrongfully disabled, just click on the track, and checkmark the “enable for conversion” option.

*Minimum playtime for DVD selections. Most of the users of DVD Catalyst use it to convert movies and TV episodes. Because of this, DVD Catalyst uses this option as a filter to eliminate most trailers and special features from appearing in the conversion queue. If you are converting an “Adult Swim” DVD, it is likely that episodes will not appear, due to the play length of shows like ATHF and Robot Chicken only being 5 minutes or so. Or, if you want to include special features and such with your converted files, change the value of this to something like 1 minute.

*De-interlace. This removes “jagged lines from videos during conversion, at a price of conversion speed. More info can be found here.

*DVD as VOBs. A very special option, intended originally for some The Teaching Company DVDs, but can be used for other functions as well. Rather then to convert a DVD on a “per track” basis, this will convert the individual files separately. This option works with unprotected DVDs only.

*Nicer subtitles. This tells DVD Catalyst to use a different way of accessing the DVD when converting, which is less compatible, but offers nicer looking subtitles.

My eeePC 900HD came equipped with a basic 3-cell battery, which, when I put it through it’s first movie, is not capable to play a 2 1/2 hour movie on a single charge. Because of this, I’ve been putting some thought on what affects batterylife during playback, and how the viewing experience can be enhanced.

*Brightness: One of the first, most logical things to keep in mind is the screen brightness. The brighter the screen is set, the more power it drains, and as a result, the battery drain is quite significant. Reducing the brightness will increase battery life significantly.

*Networking: a wireless networking connection takes power to establish and maintain a connection, and continiously puts strain on the battery as well. Turning it off while watching a movie will save battery life tremendously.

*Drive activity: the location of where you have the movie, or if there are programs running in the background. A harddrive or a cd/dvd drive all have moving parts, and when used for video playback they will be continuously be running to be able to run the movie. A Solid State disk, or even a flash card will reduce power useage due to the lack of moving parts.

The above is quite obvious, however, what many people do not realize is that the format of the video makes a huge impact as well.

H264/AVC Video is very processor-demanding. Some of the lower-end systems might even have issues playing video files in this format properly, and on all portable systems available at this time, the processor will need to run at full-speed to be able to keep a fluent playback. On portable devices, such as Apple’s iPod and iPhone devices, some newer Windows Mobile devices, and the upcoming Netbooks with Nvidia chips in them feature hardware acceleration for this video format, which reduces the strain on the processor enough to eliminate the need to run at full speed.

DIVX AVI is less processor demanding, but depending on the version used (DIVX5/DIVX6/DIVX7), there is a difference. DIVX6 and 7 include additional features to improve quality, which also increases processor demand. The DIVX codec options also include quality enhancement filters, such as “deblocking” and “deinterlace” which also put additional strain on the processor, keeping it running at full speed.

XVID AVI is a bit less straining on the processor than DIVX, but the Windows installer (Koepie’s version) does include various options for quality enhancement that are enabled by default.

MPEG1 MPEG2 is considerably less processor demanding than any of the other formats. Even very old computers (Pentium 1, 166Mhz) are capable  of playback of these files, but due to the bigger file size of these files, the hard drive speed comes in to play.

Windows Media WMV Depending on the format itself (VC1, WMV9, WMV8, WMV7) the processor requirements differ greatly. VC1 is used for HD video content, and while it offers great quality, the processor useage is quite high as well. WMV9, the non-HD variant of VC1 is less demanding on the processor, while maintaining a good quality. WMV8 uses less than WMV9, and WMV7 uses less than WMV8.

H263 3GP This format is specifically designed for Cellphones, and requires very little processor power, but results in terible quality on bigger screens.

The way the files are created plays a big difference in performance requirements. Due to its initial design for “portable” devices, DVD Catalyst does not use any real “advanced” options (cabac,quantisizers, degaus etc) for it’s normal conversions. While the “HQ” profiles do use some of them, the default profiles are optimized for sped and compatibility, resulting in faster conversions at good quality. For playback this also assists in battery-life. A basic rule that can be used is that the faster the conversion completes, the less battery-power it will use. This rule does not really apply to people who use the latest systems with the CoreI8 50Ghz 32-core processors, but for the average computer user it is a fairly safe indication.

Besides the compression format itself, the other difference between these is that to maintain the same quality the file-size is directly affected. The higher the processor requirement, the smaller the resulting file can be while maintaining the same visual quality. With the same screen size resolution settings, a H264/AVC video file can be about half the size of an XVID file of the same quality, and an MPEG2 file will be about 4x as big as an XVID file on the same visual quality.

While the file-size would theoretically be an additional battery drain, most video player applications actually “stream” the file from the harddrive. They continuously read from the file to direct it to the screen. So in most cases, it does not matter if the file is big or small, because the drive that actually contains the video file is still used during the whole time you are watching the movie. To eliminate this, a video player application would need to have a memorybuffer that would load a portion of the movie, and then stop accessing the drive until it hits a certain percentage in the buffer so it can load the new data again. In this case, the file size does make a difference, because the bigger the file, the more times the buffer needs to be filled. at a buffer of 64MB, if we have an MPEG2 movie of 4GB in size, or a 3GP movie of 120MB in size, the difference is considerably. The 3GP movie will only need to fill the buffer twice, once every hour if we are talking about a 2 hour movie, while the MPEG2 movie will have to fill the buffer 64 times, or about once every 2 minutes.

In trying to get a way to watch TV and Movies on my Dell Axim, I ~Finally~ found DVD Catalyst! I was a skeptic and downloaded a trial version. Very obvious to me were: the well-earned 5-star rating, a program that works with just a few clicks, and ~top~ honors for it’s developer. I e-mailed a question to Mitch (the developer), and, in a matter of 10 minutes, I had an answer. One may need to download a couple of extra free software files, but they are not big, complicated, geeky files. It is a refreshing event when one deals with a product that is built by a developer with a sense of integrity and attention to customer support.

I’ve never tried to convert a DVD to mobile device format before, and although at first I found the user-interface of this program a tad confusing, the customer support provided by this developer is nothing short of ASTONISHING. On a SUNDAY NIGHT, mind you, I received a response to my email(s) within _minutes_!! And not just a terse, businesslike reply, but a friendly, detailed and absolutely helpful one that led me to my goal of sucessfully converting a DVD for use on my Palm Treo 700w. THIS IS WHAT CUSTOMER SERVICE IS ALL ABOUT. Cheers!

DVD Catalyst setting “Handheld PC DIVX” and TCPMP v0.71 work great together on the HP Ipaq 4705. Support responded within hours. Movies convert to less than 150mb.

I’ve tried ‘em all, and this program has the best compression – files half the size of its competitors’ equivalent resolutions (no tearing, either), that look great even on a fullscreen PC. Did I mention it’s half the price, too? Their support is phenomenal and, while the transfer method may seem a little old-fashioned, it produces unparalleled results (and relatively quickly, compared to other, more “professional” converters). Plenty of options for the beginner or pro user and a great interface make this my new best friend. Way to go, guys!

GREAT PRODUCT. Only issue I had with it was I didnt know what I was doing at first! I did 3 movies last night and each took about 70 mins to put on my hard drive and 5 to put on my PPC!My largest file was 170mb’’s. I”m still learning how to do the movies in chapters but thats no biggie becuase you can just slide the progress bar to where you left off. This is a MUST HAVE for PPC owners.

I purchased this software to allow me to watch DVD titles on my iPAQ while ”on the go”. I”m very happy to report that this software works flawlessly – an excellent value. Installation is very simple & easy. Once installed the software is VERY flexible in that it supports encoding in multiple formats & at various quality levels so you can easily balance the quality with the final file size. I”ve converted more that 20 DVDs to date & at 200MB for a hour-and-a-half long movie using the DIVX encoder, I ca fit several complete movies on my 1GB SD card. I even converts existing video files – very handy. After trying several of the popular similar utilities, this one seemed to be the simplest to implement & use while offering more that enough flexibility for the future. Basically, try the free trial, then buy the full version.

A few months ago I made the decision to donate my laptop to charity because I thought I could use my IPAQ 6315 for everything my laptop could do. It was almost a dream come true. The internet, Bluetooth, WiFi and general usefulness of 6315 (after ROM update of course) has been fantastic but with one notable exception: the inability to reliably convert DVD’s into a format that would work on my IPAQ. My dream of watching movies on my IPAQ was fading fast! I ran the gamut of different simple to use DVD to PPC programs (not specifying a particular program) but they shared a common theme: they did not work. Several I tried would crash or get tripped up by a slightly scratched disk and take most of the night to convert a 1.5 hour movie. While some other programs had a decent interface and seemed simple enough to use that did not dull the frustration I was feeling after waking up to find out the conversion failed for no apparent reason. I was beginning to regret my decision to get rid of my laptop and divorce myself of watching movies while I am gone on a trip, that is, until I tried PocketDVD 1.1!

Note, this review is for PocketDVD, the predecessor of DVD Catalyst