Anyone own DVD PROFESSIONAL software? (1 Viewer)

I keep receiving email spam about this product, which is alledged to be able to copy DVD's onto standard CD discs without compression, which are then playable on regular DVD players. Is this possible? I have many VHS recordings I have made which I have up to this point had to record onto DVD-R's with my Panasonic DMR-E20, but there is a certain amount of compression, plus the DVD-R blanks (decent ones, anyway) are pretty expensive. Does anyone have experience with the DVD-PROFESSIONAL software (for a mere $39.95) that supposedly permits copies onto CD-R's with NO LOSS IN QUALITY, and without the need for a DVD burner? Please advise.

Short answer: no.

Longer answer: you can't do all the things they claim simultaneously. DVDs, especially dual-layer ones which are common nowadays, have much more content than a CD. So they simply don't fit without recompression. You can recompress, and lose quality, but still have it playable in many/some DVD players. That's a VCD or some variant. You can recompress with a better codec, but DVD players will not play those discs.

In your particular case, DVD is overkill for VHS. You might be satisfied with making SVCDs of VHS. It's a standard, and if you're lucky, your DVD player supports them (Panasonics and Toshibas generally don't, though).

//Ken

Always bear in mind GIGO (garbage in/garbage out). Without extensive corrective efforts, the final quality of the recording will never be better than the original. That considered, there are two formats that save the additional expense of blank dvd's and dvd burner: Video CD (VCD) or SVCD, an extrapolation of the VHS-SVHS terminology, with the same relationship to quality. VCD will give VHS quality recordings on a CD-R. SVCD will give approximately SVHS quality recordings on a CD-R. As Ken metioned though, not all players will play SVCD's and both require compression at such a rate that original DVD quality cannot be maintained.

It's a matter of simple math: A DVD can store 4.7GB of information, a CD only 700MB. When it comes to VHS transfers a acceptable level of quality should be maintainable in transfers to CD utilizing the VCD scheme. It certainly won't hurt to record to SVCD but again it will really depend on whether they are compatible your player. As far as software goes there are a number of software solutions out there that should be easy to find.