Hi - got hold of a media player with a 500 GB hard drive and want to back up my DVDs on to it - especially the kids stuff as they are fonding of destroying valuable disks.
I have plenty of experience backing up dvds to disk using Decrypter, shrink and Nero but i have been told that ripping them to an external hard drive is a lot easier and they are ripped as film only xVid files or something.
To be honest I don’t have a clue and would appreciate any advice.
Depends on the make and model number of media player you have. Most of them should open ISO images of DVDs so the process would be essentially the same as if you intended to back up on physical DVD. Just copy the de-protected ISO image to the media player.
Some media players will also use DVD-Video folders (VIDEO_TS and AUDIO_TS) so you can use those as well.
Some media players will use MPEG2 files as long as they are less than 2 GB.
If you want the movies smaller, but with definite loss of quality, then you’ll need to convert to XviD or DivX with the audio as MPEG1 Layer III audio. Can do this with freeware applications like Super, FairUse Wizard, AutoGK. The DivX converter suite is OK but you have to pay.
If you list the playback specifications of the media player and its make/model, then perhaps we could give you more specific advice.
Thanks - according to the manual (which most online reviews said was garbage, although the player itself got great reviews) these are the media files supported:
Video: MPEG1/2/MPEG4.XVID.DIVX.VCD.DVD(.mpg;.mpeg;.dat;.avi;.vob;.ifo)
HD file system: FAT32
On the box it is called:
Aqua Plus Multi Media Player Enclosure
Also says it has a one touch back up feature on the box but no mention of this in the manual.
Yes that is often a problem with the manuals. Sometimes the player will actually have a wider compatibility than stated. What make/model is it? Someone else here might have the same one.
With the info so far, it looks like it will recognise DVD folders (the reference to *.IFO and *.VOB). You can just copy the VIDEO_TS folder over to the media player, but put it inside another folder titled as the actual movie name, so you can recognise it from the player menu.
The *.avi is a type of file container that usually stores XviD or DivX conversions, and all the programs I mentioned above will output to an .avi file.
The .mpg is a file type that can signify MPEG1 or MPEG2, so it will probably work with bare MPEG2 files (of which the .VOB files are similar). However with FAT32 file system you will not be able to use bare MPEG2 files over 2 GB.
Thanks for the info - I will get that software and give it a go - I did a search of the forums for ‘aqua plus’ but didn’t find anything.
Actually you did say in the title it was an Aqua plus, sorry…
There’s some basically similar info here at SVP:
Have a more serious problem now - was using it last night - testing out a movie on it - worked fine. As I was about to turn it off smoke started coming out of the thing with a strong electrical smell.
I am presuming this is not a good thing.
I unplugged it etc. When I tried it again it was seemingly working fine but obviously it shouldn’t be smoking like that - I don’t want my kids burning the house down watching ET.
Could this be a badly fitted hard drive or a loose component or is it possibly just some loose solder that burned up? I would have thought that a component burning out would cause the whole thing not to work.
I have searched the internet but can’t find any similar problem so i presume it is not common with these machines.
Sorry to hear that. 
The answer is very simple - electronics should not behave like that. My advice is to not use it again, contact the seller and send it back for a replacement.
yeah - bought it off a work colleague - he will be getting it back