How easy it is to actuall make "back-ups" of your own DVD's with a DVD Burner?

[Mallow]

I heard somewhere that DVD's aren't really that easy to make a copy of? If I were to go out right now, buy a Sony DRU500a and want to make a back-up copy of all my DVD's, would that be reasonably easy or is special software needed? Just like copying, I mean, making a back-up of your own music CD's?

 

[Vegito]

cant, you can burn them into 4.6gig images or etc. but not to another dvd, commerical are dual layer, the laser refocus to read the additional tracks while our regualr dvd burner does not.

 

[ChampionAtTufshop]

you can copy just the movie, but not the extras without losing some dvd quality

 

[Spicedaddy]

DVD Movies are dual-layer 9.4GB, and DVD-R/RW are single-layer 4.7GB, so making 1:1 copies is impossible with 95% of the DVDs out there.

You'll have to either use 2 DVD-R or strip the extras, additional audio tracks, etc. to get them to fit to a single DVD-R. If it still doesn't fit after that, you'd have to reencode using a lower average bitrate.


Considering the price of a DVD-RW drive, quality DVD-R media, and the time it takes to do this, it's really not worth it IMO.

 

[tart666]

I've been able to back up 95% of the movies, no re-encoding. Stripping the extras, extra lang, subs, credits chapter, etc.

 

[AbRASiON]

Just to let people know - dual layer burners are NOT coming and they are NOT easy to create unfortunately (I've been doing a ltitle reading)

These others are definately correct, - either split the extra's to a second DVD (meaning if you click "play movie" on the extra DVD it won't work - and when you click "extra's" on the primary DVD it won't work............)

OR just strip them completely and only burn the menu / movie (or even just the movie) - I (hear) most movies are under 4.7gb but who knows for certain.

Also if you re-encode (a lot of damn work! ) you'd be best aiming for taking the maximum amount of space - like 4.4gb or more to be sure you lose very litttle quality.
It's a shame you can't do 1:1 but that's just how it is unfortunately - they wanted it this way I spose.

 

[Eug]

Originally posted by: Mallow
I heard somewhere that DVD's aren't really that easy to make a copy of? If I were to go out right now, buy a Sony DRU500a and want to make a back-up copy of all my DVD's, would that be reasonably easy or is special software needed? Just like copying, I mean, making a back-up of your own music CD's?

It's a pain in the @ss and not worth the time IMO.

 

[Mallow]

I'm a poor college student so what might not be worth the time of you guys, might in fact be worth the time for me, especially since I have two computers

I have been making "back-ups" of my own DVD's for a while now by making SVCDs and then burning them to CDs. Basically I give diddley squat about the extras. All I want is the menu and the video, I could even do w/o the menu, just the video. So will copying all the ifo and vob files to my harddrive and then burning them to a blank DVD work or would I have to re-encode to a SVCD and then burn that?

I've been into SVCD encoding a while but don't know what y'all mean by stripping the extras or the menu? Do I not need to "strip" anything if I'm only interested in the movie and nothign else? I'm American "backing-up" American DVD's, I personally don't give 2 cents about the subtitles.

tia

 

[Macro2]

If the movie industry would just sell all DVD movies for $10 or less then all this DVD copy stuff would be a moot point.
For that price it's not really worth the hassle of buying a DVD burner and figuring out how to do it.

Mac

 

[AbRASiON]

Originally posted by: Macro2
If the movie industry would just sell all DVD movies for $10 or less then all this DVD copy stuff would be a moot point.
For that price it's not really worth the hassle of buying a DVD burner and figuring out how to do it.

Mac

Sooner or later games will come on DVD.

Also, considering the media is dropping to the sub 2$ US a piece level (if I recall) that's not bad for 4.7gb on one disk, good for mp3's or those cool car crash video's p0rn or whatever the hell you people have been hording data wise...

I recently sold my CDRW as I didn't use it enough, will be getting a dual format DVD burner next year hopefully - in the sub250$ range hopefully too.

 

[Mallow]

bump for a good response to my question?

 

[ElFenix]

theres a piece of commercial software for like $30 that will make dvd backups. i suggest you look into that.

though if you're a poor college student why are you spending $300 on a dvd burner?

 

[AbRASiON]

Originally posted by: ElFenix
theres a piece of commercial software for like $30 that will make dvd backups. i suggest you look into that.

though if you're a poor college student why are you spending $300 on a dvd burner?

Don't beleive that for a second, I'm betting you saw that in a banner ad.

It's not true, it's a re-encoding / SVCD ripping package - the whole point is it backs up a DVD movie into smaller space so in theory it's still what you paid for.
There is NO 1:1 dvd backup method, besides someone using a non standard disk (fluroscant (sp?)) laser / blue laser disks exceeding 9.6 gb
and even then, it would only be played back in a pc / device the drive is hooked up to.

Also, even if you DO backup a DVD to DVD +R or DVD -R I don't know what the odds are of the media playing in a home DVD player / PS/2 / Xbox etc.
(as in the package you burn it with, the blank media you chose, the format of the disk (+R or -R) etc it's all a bit uknown now - much like CD backups were a long long long time ago for the original yellow / red / white / orange book standards where people didn't REALLY know what they were doing...)

There's a web site which has a tonne more information than I can ever give you, I can't recall the url, but I'd know it if I saw it instantly.

Basically right now, the only PROPER use of a DVD burner that you are assured is 4.7gb of data per disk - and POSSIBLY playback in loungeroom DVD standalone units if you are lucky.......

 

[chizow]

Originally posted by: ElFenix
theres a piece of commercial software for like $30 that will make dvd backups. i suggest you look into that.

though if you're a poor college student why are you spending $300 on a dvd burner?

He wants free movies

Chiz

 

[Mallow]

though if you're a poor college student why are you spending $300 on a dvd burner?

Elfenix: Duh, Christmas is right around the corner, lol. I didn't say my parents were poor, just me. -_-

AbRASiON: I know for sure that a SVCD/XVCD/XSVCD will play on my home standalone DVD player, it's the reason I bought the damn thing. I am the proud owner of every single Simpsons episode in VCD format and they all play fine and I have tried DVD+-R/W on my DVD and all play fine, that is in no way an issue.


So basically you have to make a SVCD copy of your own DVD's to back them up? hrm... no one has found a better way? Come on you video junkies... maybe I'll double post this in the video forum :/

 

[microAmp]

Try VCDHelp.com they are conviently down for me, so I don't know if they talk about making DVD backups. But worth a look to see.

 

[AbRASiON]

AbRASiON: I know for sure that a SVCD/XVCD/XSVCD will play on my home standalone DVD player, it's the reason I bought the damn thing. I am the proud owner of every single Simpsons episode in VCD format and they all play fine and I have tried DVD+-R/W on my DVD and all play fine, that is in no way an issue.

an XSVCD / SVCD / XVCD / VCD is traditionally burnt to a standard 640mb / 700mb CDR which 99% of DVD (standalones) can read.
Also that format 99% of home DVD players can decrypt / playback.

I am specifically reffering to a DVD burn on a DVD+R and DVD-R in DVD format, not SVCD.
and no, I'm NOT reffering to a 1.2gb (2 cd) movie which hasn't been split, HAS been re-encoded and burnt to a DVD.

If you burn to a DVD in +R or -R format, it can at times not work as not all DVD (standalones) can play burnt DVD's (NOT burnt CD's)
Sure a fair few can but it is an issue, as well as the +R and -R formatting of the disk as well.

There's a mac digital video forum of some sort where a guy who writes a magazine wrote a huge article on the web about the problems he has mastering "perfect" dvd's for business's / people so that they have the most compatibility.

The standard is no where near as mature as you are claiming or you've mistaken my original comments.

 

[Antisocial Virge]

Originally posted by: AbRASiON

Originally posted by: ElFenix
theres a piece of commercial software for like $30 that will make dvd backups. i suggest you look into that.

though if you're a poor college student why are you spending $300 on a dvd burner?

Don't beleive that for a second, I'm betting you saw that in a banner ad.

It's not true, it's a re-encoding / SVCD ripping package - the whole point is it backs up a DVD movie into smaller space so in theory it's still what you paid for.
There is NO 1:1 dvd backup method, besides someone using a non standard disk (fluroscant (sp?)) laser / blue laser disks exceeding 9.6 gb
and even then, it would only be played back in a pc / device the drive is hooked up to.

Also, even if you DO backup a DVD to DVD +R or DVD -R I don't know what the odds are of the media playing in a home DVD player / PS/2 / Xbox etc.
(as in the package you burn it with, the blank media you chose, the format of the disk (+R or -R) etc it's all a bit uknown now - much like CD backups were a long long long time ago for the original yellow / red / white / orange book standards where people didn't REALLY know what they were doing...)

There's a web site which has a tonne more information than I can ever give you, I can't recall the url, but I'd know it if I saw it instantly.

Basically right now, the only PROPER use of a DVD burner that you are assured is 4.7gb of data per disk - and POSSIBLY playback in loungeroom DVD standalone units if you are lucky.......

Actually it is true. There are several pieces of software that will back up a DVD really easy, Only prob is that it splits it over 2 disks and does not re-encode.
The page you were probably thinking about is either doom9 or vcdhelp

 

[Shagga]

Originally posted by: ElFenix
theres a piece of commercial software for like $30 that will make dvd backups. i suggest you look into that.

though if you're a poor college student why are you spending $300 on a dvd burner?

Yeah there is, it's called "DVD Movie Copy" and it's the worst piece of ruubbish i have had the misfortune of owning. There is also another one called "DVDXCopy", that is just as bad from what I gather. There is another one called "DVDCloner" but I don't know if it's any good. It supports DVD-R/RW media and not DVD+R/RW.

What I'm saying is there is lots of DVD Back-up software out there but I'm afraid that they are no good IMO. You can of course do what a few of the guyz in this thread have said. Use DVD Ripper to extract the movie and Sound Track from the DVD and strip out the menu's, extras, different languages, subtitles etc, hopefully it will be under 4.5/4.3Gig then use something like "SpruceUP" to create the resultant VOB Files. You can then burn it to DVD5 media.

It ain't really worth it. Go to the cinema, if you like it, then buy it on DVD when it comes out. Trust me...

 

[Antisocial Virge]

Originally posted by: Shagga

Originally posted by: ElFenix
theres a piece of commercial software for like $30 that will make dvd backups. i suggest you look into that.

though if you're a poor college student why are you spending $300 on a dvd burner?

Yeah there is, it's called "DVD Movie Copy" and it's the worst piece of ruubbish i have had the misfortune of owning. There is also another one called "DVDXCopy", that is just as bad from what I gather. There is another one called "DVDCloner" but I don't know if it's any good. It supports DVD-R/RW media and not DVD+R/RW.

What I'm saying is there is lots of DVD Back-up software out there but I'm afraid that they are no good IMO. You can of course do what a few of the guyz in this thread have said. Use DVD Ripper to extract the movie and Sound Track from the DVD and strip out the menu's, extras, different languages, subtitles etc, hopefully it will be under 4.5/4.3Gig then use something like "SpruceUP" to create the resultant VOB Files. You can then burn it to DVD5 media.

It ain't really worth it. Go to the cinema, if you like it, then buy it on DVD when it comes out. Trust me...

Other ones are dvd2dvdr and DVDsplit. Dvdsplit was made by Derrow(sp?) the same guy who wrote Infoedit but he is now working for the guys making dvdxcopy so DVDsplit has been buried. I do it the CCE way but I think DVD2DVDr will actually re-encode the movie. I have it but never even installed it yet.

It supports DVD-R/RW media and not DVD+R/RW

I wonder what the media has to do with the compatibility of the software. It should make no difference.

 

[AbRASiON]

What I'm saying is there is lots of DVD Back-up software out there but I'm afraid that they are no good IMO.

Agreed - for the most part, they suck

You can of course do what a few of the guyz in this thread have said. Use DVD Ripper to extract the movie and Sound Track from the DVD and strip out the menu's, extras, different languages, subtitles etc, hopefully it will be under 4.5/4.3Gig then use something like "SpruceUP" to create the resultant VOB Files. You can then burn it to DVD5 media.

In my eyes this is the best method of backing up a movie - even for "non pirating purposes" it's a good way of backing up movies you don't want to damage or don't want to lend to friends- ASSUMING they fit.

I wonder if they will offer overburning of say 5.2gb or so in the nex few years?
Mmmmmmmm

 

[Shagga]

Originally posted by: Antisocial-Virge

Originally posted by: Shagga

Originally posted by: ElFenix
theres a piece of commercial software for like $30 that will make dvd backups. i suggest you look into that.

though if you're a poor college student why are you spending $300 on a dvd burner?

Yeah there is, it's called "DVD Movie Copy" and it's the worst piece of ruubbish i have had the misfortune of owning. There is also another one called "DVDXCopy", that is just as bad from what I gather. There is another one called "DVDCloner" but I don't know if it's any good. It supports DVD-R/RW media and not DVD+R/RW.

What I'm saying is there is lots of DVD Back-up software out there but I'm afraid that they are no good IMO. You can of course do what a few of the guyz in this thread have said. Use DVD Ripper to extract the movie and Sound Track from the DVD and strip out the menu's, extras, different languages, subtitles etc, hopefully it will be under 4.5/4.3Gig then use something like "SpruceUP" to create the resultant VOB Files. You can then burn it to DVD5 media.

It ain't really worth it. Go to the cinema, if you like it, then buy it on DVD when it comes out. Trust me...

Other ones are dvd2dvdr and DVDsplit. Dvdsplit was made by Derrow(sp?) the same guy who wrote Infoedit but he is now working for the guys making dvdxcopy so DVDsplit has been buried. I do it the CCE way but I think DVD2DVDr will actually re-encode the movie. I have it but never even installed it yet.

It supports DVD-R/RW media and not DVD+R/RW

I wonder what the media has to do with the compatibility of the software. It should make no difference.

Dunno.

Take a look here But your right i suppose...

 

[Mallow]

Forum of People reporting DVD-+R/W compatability for my burner

I guess all I will end up doing is ripping to SVCD and burning those files (usually < 2gigs) onto a single DVD disc. It's better than my current method of multi-discs. Hell, I wanted good quality on Gladiator and it took 4 cdz.

 

[Eug]

Originally posted by: Mallow
I'm a poor college student so what might not be worth the time of you guys, might in fact be worth the time for me, especially since I have two computers

I have been making "back-ups" of my own DVD's for a while now by making SVCDs and then burning them to CDs. Basically I give diddley squat about the extras. All I want is the menu and the video, I could even do w/o the menu, just the video. So will copying all the ifo and vob files to my harddrive and then burning them to a blank DVD work or would I have to re-encode to a SVCD and then burn that?

I've been into SVCD encoding a while but don't know what y'all mean by stripping the extras or the menu? Do I not need to "strip" anything if I'm only interested in the movie and nothign else? I'm American "backing-up" American DVD's, I personally don't give 2 cents about the subtitles.

tia

Hmm... I've got a DVD burner in my desktop, a DVD burner in my laptop, and a standalone DVD burner in my home theater system. To be quite frank, I still see almost no point in backing up commercial DVDs that I already own (unless they're rare and hard to replace).

If you're really serious about backups, consider just buying a 250 GB hard drive. You could fit around 35 DVDs on one of those, and you wouldn't have to worry about all the wasted time doing the backups, and the storage of the discs.

 

[Mallow]

geez, Eug, I thought it was fairly clear by the mood of the posts that "backing-up" DVD's applies not only to backing my own DVD's that I own but also theoretically backing-up rented or borrowed DVD's for education reasons and then I would destroy them of course. I just want to see if it can be done.