Media

Paul would like to rip DVDs and then put it on a 128GB thumbdrive so that his kids don't trash his DVDs. Leo says that's a great idea and you can use both Handbrake and VLC Media Client to do it. But how does he convert a DVD that's PAL? Leo says that the DVD is probably region coded to prevent you from watching a DVD from another country here in the US. The first time you play the DVD, it sets the Region code. But there are DVD players that don't do it. There's also a few back doors that respond to a certain number of remote button presses to unlock them.

Rolland wants to make hard drive copies of his DVDs. Leo says you need two programs ... Handbrake (which does the re-encoding) and VLC Media Client (which does the playback to bypass the copy protection). If you want the full thing. Image Burn is very popular for Windows. If you're on Mac, then Disco. The chatroom says DVDFab.CN is another option. But Leo says that's probably illegal, technically.

Charles has a thousand MP3s and he has multiple copies of all the songs, which is annoying. Leo says that in the iTunes settings, he can tell it to manage his music. But since he already has an iTunes folder with duplicates, Leo recommends taking it off his hard drive (to a thumb drive) and then restart iTunes and select the option to let iTunes manage his music. Then he won't have to deal with duplicates. iTunes is a terrible program for syncing music, especially in Windows.

Lynn has a bunch of old VHS home movies. How can she convert them so she can watch them? Leo says that the best way these days is to go to a service, like Scan Cafe. They have professional equipment and can color correct. When factoring in the equipment she would need to do it herself; the VCR, the cables, the analog to digital converter to get it into the computer, and the time, she may as well just pay Scan Cafe to do it.