Distributing A DVD Over The Internet

[Elton]

I have a DVD here (a tackle catalogue) that needs to be available to download...all 5 gig of it!

 

A couple of questions:

 

1. There appears to be two folders on it - AUDIO_TS and VIDEO_TS - the audio one seems empty and the video one seems to have the files in it. Would that be right?

 

2. Where could I host such a file (and how)? The bandwidth usage would kill my own servers.

 

TIA,

 

Elton

[corydoras]

I have a DVD here (a tackle catalogue) that needs to be available to download...all 5 gig of it!

 

A couple of questions:

 

1. There appears to be two folders on it - AUDIO_TS and VIDEO_TS - the audio one seems empty and the video one seems to have the files in it. Would that be right?

 

2. Where could I host such a file (and how)? The bandwidth usage would kill my own servers.

 

TIA,

 

Elton

Make an ISO file from it and distribute it over bittorrent. Then people will only need to download the torrent file from your site (a tiny little text file). The file actual file has to be on a computer connected to the internet and running a bittorrent client.

 

It does mean that those who want to download it would need to know how to use bittorrent.

 

Whatever you do you need to make an iso file. just zipping up the files in the VIDEO_TS files will not do.

[yorkio]

It does mean that those who want to download it would need to know how to use bittorrent.

 

Not to mention having a couple of days at their disposal for a torrent of that size. And unless you can persuade everyone who needs it to download it at the same time, you'll be relying on people to stay connected to keep the torrent open for latecomers.

 

I must admit, I'd be be asking why on earth a tackle catalogue needs to be in a DVD video disc format?

[Elton]

I'm asking the same. It's got demonstration video clips in and the like.

 

I'm wondering if I can just 'grab' sections and make them into .wmv files? That would make a lot more sense to me, but how hard is it to do?

[yorkio]

I'm wondering if I can just 'grab' sections and make them into .wmv files? That would make a lot more sense to me, but how hard is it to do?

 

It's pretty straightforward on a Mac, so I'm sure it wouldn't represent too much of a challenge on a PC either. No idea what software you'd need, although I'm sure someone will.

[Elton]

Cheers, Yorkio (and corydoras).

 

Any advice on how easy this would be from anyone?

[PDB]

A DVD ripper is what's required, somthing like http://www.magicdvdripper.com/ although Google brings up a load more. They can be a bit hit and miss so you may have to try a couple.

[Dave-C]

You could use dvd shrink which is free to download, and you can specify how small you want the file and which bits to use. It will also let you save as an iso but that would mean requiring another programme such as image burner. join a torrent site like http://www.demonoid.com and read the faq page and it will tell you how to turn it into a torrent. A file file of that size will probably require zipping into 15mb files and even if you turn it into a torent you will have to leave your pc connected to the intrnet as the people downloading it will be downloading from your pc through the torrent. Most service providers no matter the spped of your connection only allow slow uplaods so until plenty of people have the complete file they must remain connected and uploading file to enable greater download speeds. The more people share it the faster the download speed.

You could aslo use a file converter to convert to avi format which would probably reduce it to around 700mb, but the torrent rules will remain the same.

On the dvd the audio is usually empty and all files will be stored in the other folder.