First, I hope this is the right forum for this...sice it requires a computer and software.
Second, what I want to do should be legal...since I’m not selling them.

Now on to business.

Ok, so the other day I let my neighbor borrow my Braveheart DVD...that's my favorite DVD in my collection by the way...but I'm a nice guy, so I let him borrow it. A full week later, I finally get it back as he was moving out of his apartment. I took it home and put it back on my DVD rack. A few days later I wanted to watch it, so I popped it in to my DVD drive. My computer could read it. So I took it out to see if there was a smudge, or something else that might be on the disk...there was a HUGE, deep scratch, that only could have been intentionally put there! I was so pissed off, and the bastard who did it moved to a different city, so I was shi* out of luck.

Anyway, after I vented my anger to my g/f I went out and bought a new copy of it.

Now to my question...
To make sure none of that kind of crap happens to me again, how do I make a back up copy of my DVDs? Making backup copies of my music and game CDs was easy enough, but DVDs are proving to be a little harder. From what I've heard, I'd have to break the movie in to two or more disks, or copy the entire thing to my computer first and convert it to a lesser quality video format for it to fit on one disk.

So how do I do it, what it the best program to do it with, and what is the best video format to use to squeeze everything on to one disk (i.e. DivX, VCCD, ect.)? :rolling:

I presume you're talking about backing it up to regular CDs, not DVDs? In such a case you'd need to rip the movie first to get it down to a smaller size. DivX and Xvid are the two most popular formats for doing it on regular CDs, and in most cases you can fit a regular movie on 2 CDs nicely. Fitting it on one regular CD is possible, but the quality usually suffers with such RIPs, so if you're making it for yourself, you might as well make a decent 2 CD rip.

I know there are programs out there that make this pretty easy, but I've never done it myself so I can't give you any names off-hand, but if no one else knows, I can look them up. ;)

I assumed that he was talking about DVD to DVD myself - you would need a huge number of CDs to do a straight DVD-CD rip. On the other hand you typically have to either use 2 blank DVDs or cut back on quality/language tracks/extras to do a DVD-DVD rip. Blank DVDs currently can't hold as much data as you typically get on a commercial DVD.

I have never done DVD rips myself but my brother does them all the time so I will ask him what software he uses. He has one package that rips DVDs that is so easy that even my father is able to use it.

There are programs like Alcohol 120%, CloneDVD, and such. I have used CloneCD and it was pretty good, so since CloneDVD is from the same company you should try that first. If you have two drives, you could copy a DVD directly to another one, but if not; make a disc-image first and then use a program like Nero to burn it. You can get CloneDVD from www.slysoft.com (http://www.slysoft.com) and Nero Burning ROM from www.nero.com (http://www.nero.com) . Just remember that they both are shareware. ;)

I presume you're talking about backing it up to regular CDs, not DVDs? Actually Tal, either or. I'm planning on getting Plextor's new DVD Burner soon anyway.

Blank DVDs currently can't hold as much data as you typically get on a commercial DVD.
Yeah, I know...dual layer technology and all...just rember, blue laser technology is right around the corner.

Wirhe, I know about CloneCd, because I have it...but I didn't know anything about a CloneDVD! I'll go check that out right now. :rolling:

DVD Shrink is free and wonderful. It uses your nero or whatever in the background and will backup the DVD and then burn it onto a blank DVD

I spoke to my brother and he recommends DVD Shrink too. It is the software that he set up for my dad to use. He says that it is very easy to use and does a pretty good job.

Do a google search for "Doom9 DVD", and you'll find the site you're looking for.

I think I use a combination of Smart Ripper and DVDx. Smart Ripper decodes the DVD .VOB's, and copies them to your hard disk; so there's 4.7 to 9.8gig, right there. I do that so if I make a mistake or my machine locks-up, I don't have to keep the DVD in the drive, spinning. The encoding process usually takes a significant amount of time, and it's better to have the disk spinning for 10 minutes than +2 hours.

Then you have to encode that movie (if you choose to; you CAN burn it to DVD or split it up into 2 DVD's if it's a dual-layer disk [a.k.a. DVD-9]). DVDx is a good encoder simply because it has so many different optimizations (MMX, SSE2, 3dNOW) built-in the encoder, it's very quick. I can't remember if it's multithreaded or not; I don't think so, but the newest version might very well be. Anyways, if you're trying to get it down to 700meg (one CD), then you'll want to pick an MPEG4 codec. Divx, Xvid, WMV, MOV. I prefer Xvid, but to each their own. Pretty much everyone uses MP3 for the audio, but you can use MP2 or AC3, if that's your thing. You can even use a plugin for OGG or something whacky like FLAC or plain PCM.

Then pick a bit rate for the video, based on it's lengthn; there are programs to do it for you, but I prefer a manual approach. For example, if it's a 90min video, then you have to divide 700meg by 90min. That boils down to 7.7meg per min, or 128kibibytes per second. Oh, ouch; your sound might take 20K/s, so that would leave you with ~100K/s of video. For MPEG4 "DVD" quality, you need 130K/s of video at the bare minimum. At 100K/s, you'd absolutely want to do a 2-pass VBR encode, if not 3 or 4 passes; generally speaking, VBR will always manage to come under the "specified" bit rate, so you can choose 130K/s and you'll still have enough room for MP3 audio.

Each pass takes an amount of time; on an AMD XP2600 machine, set for high quality motion searching, it takes around 7 hours per pass. If you have a AMD64 2.2ghz machine, it will take as little as 2 hours; that SSE2 really makes a huge different, as does the low latency. Multipass VBR's usually only make a 50% run through the movie, and base the quanitizer off that, so it doesn't take the full time that a single pass would.

Like I said, "Doom9 DVD" has everything you need. Guides, programs, forums, examples, explainations, links, screenshots. Everything.



[Tal, I'm going off your "precedent" on this one particular thread.]

@ej...my brain hurts now. All that stuff about bit rates and dividing MBs by min confuses me... :rolling:

Ha, if you were to get my brother talking he would go on like that too, until you tell him to just give you something simple then he would roll his eyes and give you a "baby's program" - like DVD Shrink. :)

If the DVD isn't right-protected (most are), simply copying the files as they are off the DVD onto a hard disc is a backup. You can then write them back to a DVD and lo! you have copied the DVD.

If the DVD is protected, you have two options. First is rip the DVD as the others have already suggested. Not a very good idea, because rips will degrade the quality of the image, no matter how good the re-encoding is. The second option would be to get a software that removes the protection, then copies the DVD WITHOUT decoding then re-encoding. The end result is a DVD that is identical in all respects to the original, minus the protection. This is obviously better because you have zero loss in image quality, and the entire process is much faster (no re-encoding). I know this software exists - an aquaintance of mine uses it. If this is what you decide to go for, let me know so I can go dig up the thing's name.

I mentioned the one-to-one copy, up above. Smart Ripper pulls it off, and then you have to split the .IFO so that half the .VOB's are on one disk, and half on the other. I've never bothered doing it, since I've a player that will play MPEG4 video; 4.7gig of MPEG4 is fair quality, mate.

The Google Search (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=doom9+dvd&btnG=Google+Search)