DVD Catalyst - A Must Have for movies

**Shepx13** · 07-01-2012, 06:06 PM

For anyone not familiar with it, DVD Catalyst is a rockin' conversion program. You can use it to rip DVD's, or convert BluRay's after ripping. They always stay on top of new phones and tablets being released, and update the program with really good-looking and easy to use presets. Plus, they don't take up huge space. (About 1.5 gb on my settings)

I have got a few movies on my G3, and they look amazing. Especially How to Train Your Dragon and X-men: First Class. In the middle of putting Iron Man on right now

Love the screen on my G3. Can't say enough good things about it!

**rivencap** · 07-01-2012, 06:24 PM

Yes, it's a great program! I've been using it for years. Made all my movies for my BlackBerry, now of course remade all of my movies for android.

-needed to for sound and screen size/resolution...

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**tlo07** · 07-01-2012, 08:32 PM

Has it been updated to include the gs3 already or are you using a profile for a different phone?

**Shepx13** · 07-01-2012, 09:58 PM

Originally Posted by tlo07

Has it been updated to include the gs3 already or are you using a profile for a different phone?

It's already got a G3 profile. He's ridiculously fast with his updates

**tlo07** · 07-04-2012, 11:18 AM

Yes- I updated mine and now I see the GS3 setting Does the "fast" GS3 setting mean it converts faster but will be at a lower quality?

**Shepx13** · 07-04-2012, 03:58 PM

Originally Posted by tlo07

Yes- I updated mine and now I see the GS3 setting Does the "fast" GS3 setting mean it converts faster but will be at a lower quality?

Yes. I use hqxt with a manual crf setting of 22

**20blks** · 07-04-2012, 10:14 PM

So its worth the $10?

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**pdl2mtl90** · 07-05-2012, 09:59 AM

Very worth it. Been using it for years with my various Blackberries and most recently for my kids' Kindle Fires. Just updated today to version 4.2 in anticipation of my new S3.

**20blks** · 07-05-2012, 11:40 AM

I just found the cd I had for Dvd Catalyst. It's from 2005, lol. I guess I'll get the update

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**dvdcatalyst** · 07-09-2012, 04:32 PM

Originally Posted by shepx2

For anyone not familiar with it, DVD Catalyst is a rockin' conversion program. You can use it to rip DVD's, or convert BluRay's after ripping. They always stay on top of new phones and tablets being released, and update the program with really good-looking and easy to use presets. Plus, they don't take up huge space. (About 1.5 gb on my settings)

I have got a few movies on my G3, and they look amazing. Especially How to Train Your Dragon and X-men: First Class. In the middle of putting Iron Man on right now

Love the screen on my G3. Can't say enough good things about it!

Thank you shepx2

I'm glad you enjoy using it.

Originally Posted by 20blks

I just found the cd I had for Dvd Catalyst. It's from 2005, lol. I guess I'll get the update

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2005, that brings back memories

That was around the time of the PocketPC, and around the time I just changed the name of the application due to being flooded with support questions from similar-named apps.

If you move from v1 (2005) to v4, you are in for a treat.

**20blks** · 07-09-2012, 05:07 PM

Originally Posted by dvdcatalyst

Thank you shepx2

I'm glad you enjoy using it.

2005, that brings back memories

That was around the time of the PocketPC, and around the time I just changed the name of the application due to being flooded with support questions from similar-named apps.

If you move from v1 (2005) to v4, you are in for a treat.

Would I have to purchase it?

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**dvdcatalyst** · 07-10-2012, 01:42 PM

Originally Posted by 20blks

Would I have to purchase it?

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Can you forward your order confirmation, or at least email me with the email address you used for purchase.

(email: my username here at gmail.com

**gr8johnson** · 07-10-2012, 06:57 PM

I was pretty excited about the program. No mac version. That sucks.

**amheck** · 07-18-2012, 12:38 PM

Hey guys, I was doing a little reading and this seems to be a pretty nice program. I'm thinking about buying the full version.

I did have a question, though. While I have an S3, I also plan on getting the Nexus 7 and possibly even a (gasp) Ipad. Also, I think it'd be nice to have a reduced file-size copy of the movie to put on my laptop when traveling.

Is there a profile that will put the movie in a good resolution and setting that'd work on various devices like that? So I just have to run it thru DVD Catalyst once?

**jeffreii** · 07-18-2012, 12:46 PM

720p (1280 x 720) is a pretty standard resolution. It's the exact resolution used by the S3 and pretty close to that of the Nexus 7 (1280 x 800). You'd just have some very small black bars on the sides.

The iPad on the other hand is a larger screen and resolution but 720p should still look pretty good on it.

So yeah, go with 720p encoding and you should be good!

**amheck** · 07-18-2012, 12:54 PM

thanks jeffreii. that sounds easy enough.

**20blks** · 07-18-2012, 09:19 PM

Originally Posted by amheck

Hey guys, I was doing a little reading and this seems to be a pretty nice program. I'm thinking about buying the full version.

I did have a question, though. While I have an S3, I also plan on getting the Nexus 7 and possibly even a (gasp) Ipad. Also, I think it'd be nice to have a reduced file-size copy of the movie to put on my laptop when traveling.

Is there a profile that will put the movie in a good resolution and setting that'd work on various devices like that? So I just have to run it thru DVD Catalyst once?

Great app. I highly recommend it

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**amheck** · 07-21-2012, 09:39 AM

Do you guys know what might be the best 720p settings to use in the VIdeo PLayer Device drop down menus?

I did select 720p in the first box, but then it wants me to chose a device in the 2nd box. Does the 2nd box matter? Am I on the right track?

**jeffreii** · 07-21-2012, 02:00 PM

Originally Posted by amheck

Do you guys know what might be the best 720p settings to use in the VIdeo PLayer Device drop down menus?

I did select 720p in the first box, but then it wants me to chose a device in the 2nd box. Does the 2nd box matter? Am I on the right track?

Choose Android in the first box and Galaxy S3 in the second box. Try it out and see what you think. There are Galaxy S3 HQ options as well, which increase the bit rate. If you click on power user in the bottom right you can see exactly what settings each option has - but all Galaxy S3 templates use 1280 x 720 resolution.

The main things you can play around with here, if you choose (but it's ok to use the templates and leave these) are:

Video quality (bitrate): This is how much data/space is used to represent the movie. The higher the bitrate, the higher the quality and file size. There are definitely diminishing returns here. I think the 1000 bitrate that you get by default with the Galaxy S3 template is kind of low but will work for animations and videos with little action. If I'm converting an action movie I will bump this up to 2000. If space weren't an issue you could go a lot higher. Many of the 720p and 1080p videos I have use bitrates from 5000-10000 to get maximum quality.

Video mode: The options here are 1 pass or 2 pass. All you need to know is that if you choose 2 pass it will slightly increase the quality (without increasing file size) but the conversion will take up to twice as long.

Sound quality: This is the bitrate of the audio. Back in the day when mp3 first got popular, people were quite happy with 128 audio. Now the preference is often 320 for listening to music. Honestly it's up to you but 128 will work - I will probably use 192 as a compromise. The higher number/quality you choose, the bigger the file size. Since the audio portion of a video is a lot smaller in size than the video itself, increasing/decreasing audio quality has a much smaller effect on your final file size than changing the video bitrate.

Hope this helps - trying to keep it very basic! The main goal here is usually to achieve the highest quality without using too much space on your device. 720p is a nice quality resolution for a phone but because the screen is so small (compared to TVs) the imperfections are much less noticeable. That's why I want 5000+ bitrate for watching on a TV and yet 1000-2000 will work fine on the phone, even at the same resolution.

Trial and error is good here - use a template and see what you get quality wise - then tweak the settings and see what the new result is...all while paying attention to the file size.

If you want to learn more here's a guide from the app developer with S III specific info:

For a more in depth guide about DVD catalyst see here:

**20blks** · 07-21-2012, 05:50 PM

^^^^^ Very good post

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**dvdcatalyst** · 07-24-2012, 05:58 PM

Originally Posted by jeffreii

Choose Android in the first box and Galaxy S3 in the second box. Try it out and see what you think. There are Galaxy S3 HQ options as well, which increase the bit rate. If you click on power user in the bottom right you can see exactly what settings each option has - but all Galaxy S3 templates use 1280 x 720 resolution.

Thank you jeffreii,

My personal recommendation for settings are the HQXT profiles. Originally I added those to eliminate the need of worrying about bitrate for different conversion sources (DVD, HD MKV's etc).

If you select the Galaxy S3 HQXT profile, it enables a setting called "CRF", which will automatically adjust the video bitrate during conversion to whatever is needed to achieve a certain quality (sort of like 2-pass, but without the 2 passes). By default, it is set to 24, which provides a good quality at a reasonable file size, if you want "mint" quality, enable "Power User" mode, and in "Modify" change it to 20.

With those settings, it is basically set it and forget it. No need to change the quality settings anymore, because it automatically adjusts to what is needed.

The advantage of this over a fixed bitrate is that with a fixed setting, there are quality differences between slow and fast scenes. Slower scenes (romance) don't need as much bits to get a perfect quality, but for faster scenes (explosions, car chases etc) a lot more is needed. With the HQXT profile, it adjusts this to whatever is needed, so your entire movie will have the same quality throughout.

Ever since I implemented it, I have not been using anything else myself.

**RVelle** · 07-28-2012, 12:13 AM

Just have to say DVD Catalyst is great, just purchased it about 10 min ago, movie is kicking along right now for my 2-day old S3.....

**Razelus** · 07-28-2012, 12:34 AM

I've had the program for more than a week now and wanted to ask you once you're done encoding a few things to see if u notice during a scene where the movie or program pans across if u notice a jerky type motion that doesn't seem fluid. I've encoded a number of programs and in almost all the scenes I've seen this same type of jerky motion. Maybe my settings are off a bit or something but I've even used recommendations from the post above u and still notice the same thing. For the moment I've reverted back to handbrake and have not seen or noticed the same type of issue I described above. Please let me know your results because I'm curious if it's my settings or user error. Thanks.

**vzwty** · 07-28-2012, 12:38 AM

I recently purchased this and its well worth the 10 bucks. I've been converting movies for my Nexus 7 mostly. Great program!

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**dvdcatalyst** · 07-28-2012, 02:21 PM

Originally Posted by LzarEus

I've had the program for more than a week now and wanted to ask you once you're done encoding a few things to see if u notice during a scene where the movie or program pans across if u notice a jerky type motion that doesn't seem fluid. I've encoded a number of programs and in almost all the scenes I've seen this same type of jerky motion. Maybe my settings are off a bit or something but I've even used recommendations from the post above u and still notice the same thing. For the moment I've reverted back to handbrake and have not seen or noticed the same type of issue I described above. Please let me know your results because I'm curious if it's my settings or user error. Thanks.

Hi,

thank you for using DVD Catalyst.

Please try this:

enable "Power User" (bottom right, next to the facebook/g+ buttons)
go into GLobal Settings (top left underneath the cat-eyes)
look for the "tweaks" tab (right side)
then uncheck "inverse telecine (DVD)"