Monday, March 14, 2016

Fire TV Stick vs Chromecast 2 vs Roku Streaming Stick For Your TV

Media streaming stick makes media streaming on TV easier or cheaper. Just plug this little device into one of your TV's HDMI ports, and you've stepped into a world of streaming goodness. The popular media streaming in the market has Fire TV Stick, Chromecast 2 and Roku Streaming Stick.



Facing with many choices, you may don’t know which one to choose. So here let’s do a side-by-side comparison of these three top media streaming sticks:

See Also: Roku Stick vs. Roku 4/3 | Roku 4 vs Fire TV (2015) 


  • Chromecast: The original streaming stick, Google’s Chromecast, uses your phone or tablet as the interface and remote, instead of a menu on the TV. It does, however, support a wide array of apps and services directly from your phone.
  • Roku Streaming Stick: Roku’s stick comes with a remote and a TV interface, so it works a lot more like its set-top counterpart. You can’t cast from as many apps natively as you can with a Chromecast, but Roku makes up for this with its remote app for your phone.
  • Amazon Fire TV Stick: Like the Roku, the Fire TV Stick uses a physical remote and a TV menu interface. Amazon also has a remote app, but it’s not as fully featured as the Roku.


Design and Remote Comparison

The Amazon Fire TV Stick and the Roku Streaming Stick sport similar designs – they're compact sticks that plug into your TV's HDMI port. They all resemble old-fashioned USB sticks or mobile internet dongles.

Chromecast 2 takes on a disk shape, and connects to your TV with a short USB chord. This is actually better than the other two in terms of compatibility, as it fits in any TV with an HDMI port, whereas some TVs don't work well with the stick approach.

One thing that's worth pointing out is that all three require external powering, so you'll have to attach a Micro USB cable and plug it into the mains. This does dilute the simplicity factor somewhat, but it's definitely not a deal-breaker.

As the Amazon and Roku units are fairly nondescript, it puts more focus on the design and functionality of the remote. Both come with one, and very decent they are too. We'd always prefer to control something with a physical press rather than a virtual one. As we'll mention shortly, however, a remote wouldn't really suit the Chromecast 2.

Unlike the fully powered Fire TV's remote, the standard controller that comes with the Stick doesn't have any nifty voice-control tech, which is a shame. You can specify one when you come to buy the stick, for an extra 10, or instead use the pretty acceptable app for all your voice-control needs.

Again, the Roku remote loses some of the more 'premium' features of its pricier siblings. There's no headphone jack, for example, but we can't be too bitter at this price point.

Performance and Spec Comparison

Amazon Fire TV has dual-core CPU which is about six times more powerful than the Roku Streaming Stick's single-core equivalent, and its 1GB of RAM is double that of both its rivals. It also boasts 8GB of storage – 32 times more than the piddly 256MB offered in its rivals.

On the Roku Streaming Stick we were met with a much slower interface that often froze, stumbled and seemed to struggle with even the easiest task. Downloading apps always gave us a few seconds of complete inoperability and opening them up took what seemed like a few seconds. In fact it was less, but the slow splash screens made it seem like we were waiting much longer than we should.

Google's Chromecast 2 is harder to compare in terms of speed – it doesn't have an interface you need to navigate and there are no apps to install on the device itself, so it doesn't really need a whole lot of power. The best we can say is that streaming from your phone is nice and quick.

Conclusion

After the comparison, which media streaming stick will you choose? The current front-runner in terms of pure usability is, quite clearly in our eyes, Amazon's Fire TV Stick. It's easily the fastest of the three, which leads to a smooth interface, and there's plenty of accessible content. Yes, there's a definite bias towards the brand's own content, but as that's pretty good anyway we can't complain too much.

Related Software Recommended:

Pavtube Video Converter Ultimate is an all-in-one media solution that can convert H.265, MPEG, WMV, MOV, FLV, 3GP, TS, VOB, M2TS, MKV, AVI, etc to Chromecast 2, Amazon Fire TV Stick and Roku Streaming Stick. It can change your source video to DTS, AC3, AAC, MP3 audio to streaming on TV via media streaming stick. Batch conversion and GPU acceleration are supported.

Pavtube ByteCopy is a Blu-ray/DVD Ripper that helps you rip and convert any copy & region protected Blu-ray/DVD discs, Blu-ray/DVD folder, Blu-ray/DVD ISO, DVD IFO to H.264 MP4 with 5.1/7.1 audio for  Chromecast 2, Amazon Fire TV Stick and Roku Streaming Stick. It also can rip Blu-ray/DVD to lossless MKV with multiple subtitle/audio tracks and all chapter markers and encoded MP4 with multi-track audio. A/V parameters and aspect ratio adjustment are supported. 

Money Saving Tips: There is a bundle software promotion to help you save money:
ByteCopy($42) + Video Converter Ultimate($65) = Only $79.9, Save $27.1 

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Friday, March 11, 2016

Thursday, March 10, 2016

How to Play Blu-Ray BDMV folder with VLC?

VLC maybe is the most popular media player software, which can run on Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, etc. Its official site claims that the 2.0 and later version support Blu-ray media playback with some extra operations. But strangely, some people will have troubles in playing Bluray BDMV folder in VLC:

“I have a Blu-Ray folder and I've tried opening the BDMV file in it with VLC but it doesn't open it properly, displaying a menu and all that Jazz. Instead, it seems it just parses that file to play everything inside it willy nilly, choking on JAR files and other stuff.”

If you can’t play Bluray BDMV folder in VLC, you should make sure you use the "open BDMV folder" function in the open panel, and you need to choose the upper folder which contains the bdmv folder (with VLC 2.1.3). Still failing? Maybe because VLC bluray support is still rather experimental. And your Blu-ray producer just make it harder to play its discs.

Or, you can try to rip your Bluray BDMV folder to VLC supported digital format like MP4, MKV, etc with a Blu-ray RipperPavtube ByteCopy is a nice choice. It can rip and convert any copy & region protected Blu-ray, Blu-ray BDMV folder to VLC supported MP4, MKV, MOV, WMV, etc with excellent video quality and fast speed. 

It also can convert DVD, DVD IFO/ISO to VLC supported MP4, MKV, etc with original video quality. It allows you to adjust video/audio codec, resolution, bitrate, channel, frame rate, display aspect ratio and deinterlacing video, rotate video, add/extract subtitle to Blu-ray/DVD video, add watermark, trim/crop video. 

Free download and install:
          

Other Download:
- Pavtube old official address: http://www.pavtube.cn/bytecopy/
- Cnet Download: http://download.cnet.com/Pavtube-ByteCopy/3000-7970_4-76158512.html
How to convert Bluray BDMV folder to VLC?

Step 1: Load Bluray BDMV files 

Click “File” to load Bluray BDMV folder to Pavtube BDMV to VLC converter. Or you can simply drag and drop the Bluray BDMV folder to the app. You can see all the chapter added will be listed. The main title will be automatically detected to convert. But if also can select certain chapter to convert.

Tip: 
1. At the bottom of the chapter list, you can choose desired subtitle/audio track in “Subtitle” and “Audio” box. You even can keep forced subtitle
2. You can preview the video on the right window and take a snapshot of your loved scene.



Step 2: Choose MP4 for VLC

Click the “Format” bar to get the drop-down menu and you can get “HD Video -> H.264 HD Video (*.mp4)” as the best output format for playing in VLC.



If the default A/V settings cannot fit your needs, you can click “Settings” button to custom the output video and audio settings by yourself. But if you are not good at it, you’d better use the default parameters, they will ensure you a good balance between file size and image quality basically.

Step 3: Start to convert Bluray BDMV to VLC

Press the “Convert” button on the bottom-right corner of this Bluray BDMV to VLC Video Converter to start doing video conversion. The larger the Bluray BDMV folders are, the more conversion time should be taken.

After converted Bluray BDMV to MP4, then you can add it to VLC to play now.

if you want to convert VOB to VLC, MKV to VLC, AVI to VLC, WMV to VLC, ISO to VLC, Blu-ray to VLC, DVD to VLC, etc, you can use Pavtube Video Converter Ultimate. There is a bundle software promotion which can help you save money when you want to purchase these two apps:
ByteCopy($42) + Video Converter Ultimate($65) = Only $79.9, Save $27.1 

Src: http://techmovieshare.blogspot.com/2016/03/play-bdmv-with-vlc.html

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Friday, March 4, 2016

Can You Play DVD Series on PC in Episodes?

A TV show lasting 8 seasons is likely to make you give up because you don’t believe yourself that you can take 2 hours everyday to watch the episodes. That may be the reason why TV Series DVD becomes popular, like the bloody TV show Hannibal. When you get a TV Series DVD, you perhaps play the TV Series DVD video on PC with DVD drive. 



But when your PC is too old or you have stored too many things on PC, it’s probably a little bit noisy when you directly play TV Series DVD on PC with internal DVD drive. And a TV Series DVD video is normally at least 4 hours even longer. When you play the TV Series DVD on PC with the physical DVD disc, your disc is easy to get scratched. So as your TV Series DVD video is too long or you want a quiet environment to enjoy your TV Series DVD video on PC, I suggest you to rip TV series DVD's to PC in order to watch them without the DVD disc and DVD drive.

In all likelihood, any commercial TV Series DVD will be copy protected. So when you would like to rip an entire TV Series DVD disc set and convert the episodes to individual MP4 files for your Windows Media Play on PC, you need a DVD Ripper (Learn DVD Ripper vs. DVD Copier). Today we’ll take a look at how to setup and batch process an entire TV Series DVD set on PC using PavtubeDVDAid (See other choices)and the H.264 codec.

Pavtube DVDAid can remove DVD copy protection on TV Series DVD and then convert TV Series DVD to seperate MP4, WMV episodes to play on PC with WMP. Of course, it also can rip TV Series DVD to MOV episodes to iTunes then you can enjoy the TV Series DVD on iPhone 5se, iPad Air 3. It can keep original video quality but if you need to compress the TV Series DVD size, you can adjust video resolution and bitrate to get smaller size.

For Mac users, pls use Pavtube DVDAid for Mac

Free download and install:
          

Other Download:
- Pavtube old official address: http://www.pavtube.cn/dvd_ripper/
- Cnet Download: http://download.cnet.com/Pavtube-DVDAid/3000-7970_4-76158510.html

How to rip TV Series DVD to PC in separate episodes?

Step 1: Load TV Series DVD

Launch the program and add the TV Series DVD you want to rip by clicking the “Load from Disc” icon on the main interface. Select the Title dropdown list and inspect the listings. You’ll see a group of titles and durations. And the whole main title of the TV Series DVD has been ticked automatically. You should find a group of titles with running times that match the approximate running time of a single episode in the series.

In our example, we are converting a series of one hour shows, so we have two titles running close to an hour. For a broadcast TV program it will be more like 40-45 minutes for an hour show and 20 minutes or so for a half hour program. You may want to refer to the original DVD if you aren’t sure of the number of episodes per disc and running times. You can ignore any additional smaller clip. They are likely to be intros and extras. Select the first title you’d like to add from the dropdown list.



Step 2: Choose outptu format

Click “Format”, you can find many video formats in the dropdown list, you can choose the one you need like “H.264 HD Video(*.mp4)” from “HD Video” option.



Tip: Click “Settings”then a new window will pop up. Here, you can adjust A/V parameters and adjust the video size on your own. You can preview the output video parameters and size in the chart. 



Step 3: Start to rip TV Series DVD to PC

Hit the “Convert” button to rip TV Series DVD to PC in MP4 format. Just wait a moment and then you can output the videos including all chapters of the episode you needed.

After ripped TV Series DVD to PC, then you can enjoy the TV Series DVD video on PC with WMP without DVD disc and DVD drive.

Src: http://techmovieshare.blogspot.com/2016/02/rip-tv-series-dvd-to-pc.html

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Monday, February 29, 2016

Rip BD/DVD for TV Preserving Original Video in Good Condition

Are you also a person that like to enjoy your Blu-ray/DVD movies on TV without using Blu-ray/DVD player? If so, this article will useful to you.

“I would like to rip a DVD and some Blurays on to Mac then onto a external usb drive to play them on my TV. Is there a software that will help me to do so?”

Why Rip BD/DVD for TV?

Ripping your Blu-ray/DVD discs to TV can make you enjoy the movies on TV from computer with HDMI cable even you don’t have an external Blu-ray/DVD player. 

Converting your BD/DVD movies to TV supported formats then transferring them to external hard drive allow you stream Blu-ray/DVD movies on TV via USB port without using the discs again. 

Making a copy of Blu-ray/DVD in TV playable format not only can let you watch movies on TV, but also can protect your discs to prevent them from destroying and scrtaching. Putting the ripped DVD/BD movies in TV compatible format to external hard drive can have you carry them with you. Then no matter you will go on a business trip or a family trip, you can insert your external hard drive to TV in hotel or car TV to enjoy your loved Blu-ray/DVD movies.

Best BD/DVD to TV Converter to rip BD/DVD for TV

After searched on the web for the DVD/BD to TV converter, you can find thousands of results, but not all of them can really help you rip and convert BD/DVD to TV, you need to polish your eyes to distinguish which one is the good one that you need.

Here, I suggest Pavtube BDMagic, with fast running speed and reliable operation. For TV users, this Blu-ray/DVD Ripper can remove the copy protection on Blu-ray/DVD movies then convert them to TV supported MP4, WMV, MOV, etc format and optimzed preset preserving original video in good condition. It can copy and convert the normal DVDs, CSS protected DVDs, commercial DVDs, Sony ArccOS DVDs, all region 1-6 DVDs and any commercial Blu-ray disc, folder, ISOand so on to the right video formats like AVI, MKV, FLV, MP4 and so on that your TV can support playing.

What's more, if you have some other devices like iPad Air 3, iPad mini 4, iPhone 6S/6S Plus, Galaxy Tab S, Amazon Kindle Fire HDX, Surface Pro 4, PS4, PS3, Xbox, NAS, HDD, etc. the best Blu-ray/DVD Ripper also has them as its output choice, which means you can also convert BD/DVD videos to them to play DVD/BD videos on them or via them.

Free download and install: 
          

Other Download:
- Pavtube old official address: http://www.pavtube.cn/blu-ray-ripper/
- Cnet Download: http://download.cnet.com/Pavtube-BDMagic/3000-7970_4-75922877.html

Steps to rip DVD/BD for TV preserving original video quality in good contdition

Step 1: Import DVD/BD movies by clicking “Load from disc” button to search for the right video from your computer hard drive to this app. 



Step 2: Choose optimized video format for HDTV playback. Here we recommend MP4 as output format which is the best for all HD TV. Or you can choose the optimized preser from TVs profile according to your TV brand.

 

Tip: If necessary, click “Settings” to set profile presets as you desire. Parameters like video codec, resolution, bitrate, frame rate, audio channels, and more are allowed to reset in order to achieve a better DVD/BD playback on HDTV. 

Step 3: Hit on the “Convert” icon and DVD/BD to TV conversion begins. 

When the conversion completes, you just need to transfer converted DVD/BD movie to USB drive, and then you can play these DVD/BD movies on HD TV in good quality without using discs.

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Thursday, February 25, 2016

How to Add External English Subtitle to "Son of Saul"?

2016 Oscar Best Foreign Language Film nomination provides movie fans with many wonderful foreign movies. And "Son of Saul" is one of these Best Foreign Language Film nomination movies which is worth watching. While, many people will find that the subtitles in Son of Saul are German, French, Russian, Hungarian, Polish, Greek, etc. You probably can not understand these foreign subtitles, so adding external English subtitle to Son of Saul is necessary. Here is a guide for you to add external English subtitle to "Son of Saul".

Part One: Brief Introduction on "Son of Saul"

“Son of Saul” begins with a long, unbroken shot of mesmerizing intricacy. The year is 1944 at the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. Saul Auslander (Géza Röhrig), a member of the camp’s Sonderkommando—prisoners forced to help the Nazis exterminate Jews, thereby delaying their own deaths for a few months—walks toward the camera from far off in the woods before finally coming into focus in the center of the frame. From there, Hungarian director and co-writer László Nemes follows Saul as he goes about his daily work herding new arrivals toward the undressing room and into the gas chamber. They’d been promised hot meals and well-paying jobs, something Saul has heard countless times before. Clearly, none of that is in store for these people.

Part Two: Find Proper English Subtitle

Where to find and download subtitles?

Here are several famous and reliable subtitle websites for you to get the subtitles you want for Son of Saul:

http://www.moviesubtitles.org/ 
http://subscene.com/ 
http://www.subtitles.hr/

Part Three: Add External English Subtitle to "Son of Saul"

After downloading the desirable English subtitle for "Son of Saul", another problem you need to encounter is how to insert English subtitle to "Son of Saul". Well, Pavtube Video Converter for Windows > (Review) is what you need. It can add SRT/ASS/SSA subtitles to "Son of Saul". Besides, it also can convert your "Son of Saul" video format from Blu-ray folder, DVD folder, MKV, AVI, MOV, VOB etc to a more compatible MP4 format for playing on iPhone, iPad mini, Galaxy Note, laptop, TV etc, so that you can enjoy "Son of Saul" anywhere and anytime.

Steps to Add External English Subtitle to "Son of Saul"

Step 1. Load "Son of Saul"

Run Pavtube Video Converter and import "Son of Saul" to it by clicking the “File”  icon. You can also directly drag and drop the files to the app.



PS. The program allows you to batch convert your movies to save your much time.

Step 2: Set output format(Optional)

Click on "Format' icon to open the window. Follow "H.264 HD Video(*.mp4)" under "HD Video" as the most compatible output file format for all your devices to play.



Step 3: Add External English Subtitle to "Son of Saul"

Click the "Subtitle" tab in "Video Editor" window, check "Enable", then you will be able to add external SRT/ASS/SSA subtitle files to the video as hard subtitles. (Difference between soft subtitles and hard subtitles)



Kindly note: Pavtube Video Converter Ultimate only supports SRT/ASS/SSA subtitles, and make sure that the subtitle file and "Son of Saul" file are kept in the same folder sharing the same name.

Step 3: Start to convert

Go back to the main UI and click “Convert” to start inserting English SRT/ASS/SSA subtitles to "Son of Saul".

Now, transfer Son of Saul with English subtitle to any device you want for watching anywhere and anytime.

Learn >> How to Extract Subtitle from Blu-ray/DVD movies?

Hot news: Now, to thanks for your continuous support, Pavtube Official Website and Pavtube Facebook are now holding the biggest sale for this 88th Academy Awards with fantastic 50% off discounts and giveaway. Pay less to get powerful Blu-ray/DVD/Video Converter to build your own home media center on this week of Feb.22~Feb.29 2016!

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Monday, February 22, 2016

Watch Oscars 2016 Movies Freely with Pavtube

Movies teach you how to live differently with others. Of course, the movies talking here are some inspiring ones. Academy Award gives you some this kind best movies each year. This year, the 88th Academy Award also brings us plenty of wonderful movies, like The Revenant, The Martian, Spotlight, Brooklyn, etc.



Some movies are not only deserve to watch, but also worth collecting the Blu-ray/DVD version so that you can review them someday later to re-experience the warm and touch. But silver discs are easy to scratch and destroy then turn your expensive Blu-ray/DVD discs to gloried coaster. Therefore, many people choose to backup their Blu-ray/DVD to NASCloud StorageMedia Server  and other DLNA-enabled centralized location or some External Hard Drive so that they can put the Blu-ray/DVD away. 

Another problem is that your poratble devices, like iPhone 6S, iPad Pro, etc can’t play your downloaded Oscar movies. For example, since some of these Oscars 2016 Nominations best movies are available on YouTube, Vudu, Google Play, etc, when you download them from this and that torrent sites, it is likely to can’t play the movie you download for the format incompatibility issue.

As a compete movie fan, you are perhaps unwilling to miss these fantastic Oscar 2016 Nominations. But how to play disc-based and unsupported 2016 Oscar-wining movies on Samsung S7, iPhone 5se, LG G5, Huawei Mate 8, etc? Or how to stream Blu-ray/DVD The Revenant, The Martian, etc Oscars movies on Samsung/LG/Panasonic/Sony 4K/LED TV without using Blu-ray/DVD discs? Pavtube gives you the solution to all the above problems with its top-selling video programs. 

1.Pavtube Video Converter Ultimate for Win/Mac:         Review   Free Download for Win/Mac   50% Discount Purchase for Win/Mac

Key features: These two video programs are designed to transcode various video files such as MP4, MKV, Tivo, AVCHD 4K MTS/M2TS/M2T/TS, etc to video formats which are not only supported by TV/PC/Tablet/iPad, but also are accepted by NLEs like FCP X, iMovie. The most remarkable feature of these video converters is to allows you customize your own movie by adjusting A/V parameters, aspect ratio and trimming/cropping videos. 

2. Pavtube ByteCopy for Win/Mac:  Review   Free Download for Win/Mac  50% Discount Purchase for Win/Mac

Key features: An Efficient, Safe, Fast, Easy-to-use Blu-ray DVD converter and convert movies to MKV/MP4/MOV with multiple audio tracks and subtitles

3. Pavtube BDMagic for Win/Mac:  Review     Free Download for Win/Mac       50% Discount Purchase for Win/Mac

Key features: Copy BD/DVD with original structure, and convert 2D/3D Blu-rays and standard DVD for watching with fast speed and wonderful quality.

4. Pavtube DVDAid Win/Mac::  Review     Free Download for Win/Mac   50% Discount Purchase for Win/Mac

Key features: Powerful abilities to remove DVD protection, convert DVD to any video and audio format, and edit DVD to create personal movie.

If you have any problem to buy or use Pavtube, pls feel free to contact support@pavtube.com ,  macsupport@pavtube.com 

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