What to use to first backup complete dvd to hdd , burn later?

Newbie Forum
#1

Hi cdfreaks team, its been such a long time (years) since I’ve been here - with work at the hospital, I have been “so out of touch” with what the newest trends and methods are - so, I know you all have helped me before, I hope you might be able to assist me once more -

I have many original dvds that I would like backed up for safe keeping in case something happens to them… I have my compal hel-80 notebook with a generic built in dual layer 8x dvd+r/w drive.

I wanted to know from your experience, what I should get either freeware or purchase to do these 3 things :

  1. copy my original dvd to my built in hard drive from my built in dvd-drive exactly as is with all features

  2. burn the backup (from step 1) from my hard drive at a later time (days/weeks) to a blank dvd+r

  3. ability to play dvd on my laptop and a stand alone dvd-player

I appologize for not looking through the forum properly - much of what I saw via search was for instant backup/rip and press to blank dvd.

ok thank you very much for your patience and help!

:slight_smile:

#2

DVDFab HD Decrypter is the way to go IMO, then Shrink if you need to compress to DVD-5 disc,and of course IMGBurn to burn it…
All steps can be processed separately and at later times…best method I know for free IMO…

#3

To do a complete backup to the hard drive you’ll need an up to date ripper/decryption program. There is one free one left that fits that description, called DVDFab HD Decrypter. Found here: http://www.dvdfab.com/free.htm

Trying to fit an entire movie, with extras, menus, subtitles, foreign language streams, etc., means you will have to compress it a considerable amount to fit onto a single layer dvd-r. You can use a program like DVDShrink, but any transcoder will produce poor results when you have to use a lot of compression. It would be better to use a full encoding program for this. I suggest getting the free version of DVDRebuilder and using the HC encoder that is included. An encoder will take a lot longer than a transcoder like Shrink or Nero Recode, but the results will be much better.

An alternative is to back up the movie onto dual layer disks. The vast majority of commercial dvds will fit onto an 8.5gb dual layer blank disk, but the dual layer disks are much more expensive and the only ones I recommend are +R DL made by Verbatim. Look on the container and make sure the ones you buy are made in Singapore, as the Indian made versions seem to be less reliable.

Compatibility of media with your stand alone is something I can’t predict. Most burned disks work well with modern players. Some players are picky. You’ll just have to find this out for yourself. I do recommend getting good media, either 8x Taiyo Yuden you can buy online or Verbatim brand found in most local shops.

The big question mark is the quality of your burner. And finding compatible media for an 8x burner these days. If you can find 8x Verbatim locally, use them. But you may have to buy Taiyo Yuden 8x online from somewhere like rima.com or supermediastore.com.

#4

cool guys thanks for those tips - I would have been frustrated finding that info out nowadays with so much free and paid software competition!

luckily, thanks to visiting here in the past and checking out the bargain basement - i stocked up on a few hundred TY fuji dvd+r’s from best buy (wasn’t too badly priced as to how cheap they can be if you look around) I had some good results from my old plextor (shared some of those posts in the past) here… my burner handles 4x burns pretty well, anything more and it becomes buffer un stable…

  • apart from DVDFab and DVD Rebuilder being freeware - are there any paid software that can do this as well, possibly with better (quicker, not so sure) results?

  • lastly, what times should I expect for step 1 and 2 individually? I have included my specs below… I’m sure there’s a variety of factors (i.e. complexity and size of the original dvd, how well defragmented and healthy the processing hard drive, health of dvd-drive itself…etc) let’s say for a single layer original dvd… just so that I have a rough idea -

my laptop specs :

Compal HEL 80
15.4" widescreen 1680x1050 matte
Intel core 2 duo 2 @ 2 Ghz
100gb SATA 7200 rpm hdd
1 gb DDR2 memory
256mb nvidia geforce 7600 go
supermulti 8x dl dvd+/-r (slimtype) - I am not sure what brand this is :frowning:

OS : Dual Boot > Ubuntu 7.10 + Windows XP Pro

Ok, thanks for all the help cdfreaks! :slight_smile:

#5

If you want to look at an all-in-one program, DVDFab Platinum or DVDFab Gold might fit your needs. These are the commercial products of DVDFab, and use the same ripping/decryption engine as the free version. Both use transcoders, and will not match the quality of DVDRebuilder/encoding programs on movies that require a lot of compression. There are some extra options that come with the program, but I personally haven’t seen many benefits over the free programs that are available, other than convenience. Lots of people around here like these programs though, and they are recommended quite often.

DVDShrink should be able to compress a movie in less than 45 minutes, depending on the size of the movie, and if you use Deep Analysis (Recommended!!). I rarely use transcoders anymore, only for a trivial amount of compression, and then only for the main movie, so my processing times with Shrink are much shorter. Somewhere in the 15-25 minute range.

Reencoding with HC in DVDRebuilder will take at least an hour and a half and probably more than 2hrs if you do the entire disk. Speed depends on the encoder you use and your cpu.

As an example, I use a fairly slow encoder called ProCoder within DVDRebuilder Pro. Using the highest quality settings, and backing up only the main movie, it usually takes me between an hour and an hour and a half to reencode. My system is a Core2 Duo, 2.7ghz, 2gb ram.

I also recommend output as an ISO and burning with a free burning program called ImgBurn. t0nee1 mentioned it earlier. You can set up Rebuilder to use ImgBurn automatically if you want.