How does fluxdvd work?

July 27, 2007 9:41 AM

fluxdvd is a technology used by CinemaNow which enables download of DVDs by reducing the DVD size to <2GB. Does anyone know how this technology works (beyond "the disc is recompressed") or have experience of using it?
posted by forallmankind to Computers & Internet (4 answers total)

My answer is just a fancier version of "the disc is recompressed", but what the heck... From their FAQ:

To archive the DVD like quality and the original DVD sound, fluxDVD utilizes full resolution H.264 high profile video encoding and original Dolby AC-3 sound.

In simplified terms, they're using the newer (and presumably better) MPEG 4 to compress and ship the video to you. Standard DVDs use MPEG 2 compression. In theory, this allows them to ship video with similar quality but in a much smaller file.

(Of course they're probably transcoding from the MPEG 2 file off of the DVD, not the original uncompressed source, so the quality cannot help but be worse. But perhaps not by much. And if you re-burn the video to a "real" DVD, that's another transcoding step, and another loss of quality.)
posted by IvyMike at 10:01 AM on July 27, 2007

they're just doing the exact same thing that the internet video piracy scene has been doing for almost a decade.
posted by neckro23 at 10:08 AM on July 27, 2007 [1 favorite]

Keep in mind, the original DVD is only 3 or 4 gigs anyway. So they're not exactly cutting it down much.
posted by effugas at 10:59 AM on July 27, 2007

What DVD's are you burning, effugas? Most of my DVD's clock in at 6-7 GB. It's only when they get crammed onto single-layer media that they squeeze them into <4 .7 gb. br>
I only have a couple of bargain DVDs from the "old days" (with no extra features or that crappy, non-anamorphic widescreen that doesn't use all 425 lines) that take up less that 5 GB.
posted by Crosius at 11:09 AM on July 27, 2007