Hi gang, got this new super-duper computer, dell dimension platinum.
Anyway, was thinking about making some back-ups of some of my dvds..
well, I checked out an excellent site where I can read about all the options available: http://www.afterdawn.com lots of software reviews there, the works.
But it’s you good, fine people that I trust.
So, if anyone wants to speak up on this topic, be my guest.
thanks guys (meaning girls too, but guys in this conotation is genderless, 
)
Okay Amar, here goes.
Firstly, reality: Store-bought DVDs are generally dual-layer 9GB (ish) disks, chocfull of ‘special features’ (mostly pants). They’re also region-coded and encrypted (so the cartels can make mucho dinero).
Now, DVD burners fitted in PCs are single-layer 4GB (ish) devices (as are the blank disks you need to go in 'em).
More reality: You can’t fit 9GB of stuff onto a 4GB disk. So it’s physically impossible to do a straight “disk to disk” copy of a store-bought DVD onto a blank DVD.
Most software that claims to be able to do this actually doesn’t.
In order to make a “backup” copy of a movie from a store-bought DVD you need to do a number of things:
Unencrypt and copy the raw DVD movie files (VOBS, they’re called) to your hard drive.
Compress the raw VOBS so that they’ll fit on a 4GB blank disk. (this results in loss of video quality, but it still looks good).
Burn the now-compressed VOBS onto a blank disk using software that complies with the DVD standards (which effectively creates a ‘proper’ DVD playable in standalone players).
More reality:
In just the way that the movie cartels came up with sh*te like Macrovision copy protection and Region Coding to screw the likes of us all out of as much money as possible, so the DVD burner manufacturers came up with a Cunning Plan…
Some burners will burn some disks but not others. Some players will play some disks but not others…
Blank DVDs come in two main flavours: DVD +R and DVD -R. Then there are the re-writable disks, +RW and -RW.
Some burners will only burn to +R, some will only burn to -R. Some will burn both. Likewise players.
There’s more. Burner manufacturers do deals with blank disk manufacturers. Presumably, if the disk manufacturer coughs up the dough, then the burner will permit his disk to be burned. If not, it won’t burn.
Which means, my swiss doodster, that although you might have a burner that burns +R disks, you could buy a shedload of +R blank disks and find that they are “not compatible” with your burner, because the disk mfr didn’t pay his protection money to the burner maker…
So, even if you use a program like DVDDecrypter to ‘rip’ the movie VOBS off your store-bought CD to your hard drive, and even if you use a program like DVD2ONE to recompress the VOBS to fit onto a blank 4GB disk, and then use Nero 6 to burn a new DVD-compliant disk, there are a host of things which might p*ss you right off.
Oh, and things like subtitles? They’re in a different stream on the DVD. So if you were to say, use such programs as those mentioned about to make a backup copy of say, LOTR special extended edition, you’ll find it really annoying when Arwen and Aragorn start speaking Elvish and the bl**dy subtitles don’t appear. Hypothetically speaking of course.
The other thing you have to be really careful of is to select the correct audio stream too… otherwise the ‘backup’ you make may have the excruciatingly irritating “director’s commentary” bollocks for a sound-track instead of the actual movie 
None of which of course has never happened to me. I’m speaking hypothetically using my DV expertise and extrapolating from… stuff I read somewhere that happened to someone else…
Amar
Gary is pretty much right on the money. If it sounds like a confusing array of choices and things to think about, well, that’s the state of DVD burning today 
However, Rarely are there 9gb of data on a movie..a lot of data is taken up with extra features and stuff…When I’m making an archival backup, I end up with something around the 5-6gb mark, and that shrinks even more when you compress audio. Unless you’re using a HDTV hooked to your DVD, you won’t notice much quality loss, since a regular TV is something around the neighborhood of 72dpi.
thanks guys…knew I could count on you. But…which programm should I get?
DVDshrink is free, then there are quite a few ranging from 30 to 100bucks.
I don’t mind shelling out the 100bucks, but…will it work…? hmmm
I shall evaluate DVDshrink over the weekend and let you know my findings old chap.
hey, that’s great gary, my thanks. one more question, my dvd player is fairly old, pioneer DV-606D, it won’t even read CD-R. Will it read the backups of my DVDs?
It’ll play DVDs and VCDs. It may be able to play a DVDr from you burner, but the only real way to find out is trial and error.
A friend of mine has an older player which won’t accept anything but store-bought DVDs.
I’m in the same boat. My dvd player won’t read CD-r, and it won’t even read VCD. I got DVD+R because I read it had the best compatibility for old DVD’s, and it works on mine.
If you are willing to spring for the cost of a DVD+R disk (about a buck and a half, I think) I’ll be happy to burn a small test and send it to ya, and then you’d know about DVD+R at least.
And meditate on the fact that somebody had to go to jail so you could do that. It’s very unlikely that the new formats coming down the pipeline will be amenable to digital copy. The era of digital copy is over, at least for now. Enjoy your unprotected music CDs while you have them! They are archaeological evidence of an era when computing was open and friendly.
Dvd Shrink works quite well. I have used it in the past. Most DVDs you can get all of it without compressing it to bad. Some however you cannot. If you just want to make backups of the movies to watch it will work fine as you can strip out all the menus and what not if you need to.
wanderer, sounds good, only, I live in swizterland…might be kind of a hassle? wadya think?
Oh yeah, I forgot
Well, the USPS says I can get the entire thing off to you for $5.50 US, which includes the cost of the DVD
Actually they didn’t. The movie/DVD cartel took the software developer to court for copyright infringement, but the court found in favour of the defendant. He had developed the software to make archival copies of his DVDs for his own personal use, and there was no evidence at all that he was subsequently selling or otherwise distributing the archival copies he made.
More, it was proven that DVDs (and CDs) in spite of the manufacturers claims, have finite shelf-lives. Indeed, it was argued that the dyes used in the disks may have been chosen deliberately for “planned obsolescence”…in other words, that the mfrs knew the disks would decay within a matter of years, obliging purchasers to buy another copy! This wasn’t “proven” though.
The cartel argued that a person who buys a DVD or CD is merely purchasing a “license to watch or listen to the content”, and therefore has no ownership at all. The court righteously decided that it was therefore perfectly legitimate for the license-holder to make archival copies to maintain that “license” in perpetuity, especially given the fact that the disk’s contents would degrade over time, rendering the product useless.
But you’re right, Glauber, the cartels are desperate to find a way of implementing Digital Rights Management which can’t be circumvented, and an awful lot of people are diisgusted that M$ are playing along with them (of course M$ stand to make more boatloads of wonga too). So the spectre of only being able to watch or listen to material online on a “pay per view” basis is not far away…
Did you know that not only are DVDs region-coded, but so is the DVD rom drive in your PC? Worse, Billy-Boy did a deal with the cartels to implement region-coding in the Windows operating system too…so that after a finite number of disk region changes, the OS as well as the rom drive locks you to that region? Another example of the cartels screwing users… Imagine… you aunty in Australia sends you a DVD for your birthday but you can’t watch it because Bill Gates did a deal with the entertainment cartel!! Well, but of course some very clever people have found ways of circumventing too. More power to their elbows, I say.
Amar, DVDshrink works very well, and is the right price 
thank you wanderer, think Ill just try it out here, will get myself some DVDs, don’t know which yet although, (-R, +R Rw…?) and see what happens. But thanks alot for your offer.
-RW and/or +RW are great for data backup, and for storing stuff like MP3s (you can get a shedload of audio albums in MP3 format on a 4.7gig DVD RW). But be careful where DVD movies are concerned…some DVD players (even the new ones) squinny about playing an RW disk.
Plus, RWs are more expensive than -R or +R. I use the few RW disks I have for data backup, my MP3 collection, digital photo albums etc, and stick to R’s for movie work.
right gary, rw are rewritalbe if I understand correctly. i wouldn’t want to use those anyhow for dvd-backups. So it’s either -R or +R which I need. If I have the possibilty of using both (which I don’t know..) can one say that one of the two is better for DVD-backups?