Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Technical Help and How To's DVD RW?

On my laptop their is DVD Rw which blank cd's work with this? I have a few Dvds that I would like to make copies of so if they get starched I don't have to worry about tryig to hunt them up again. I have a few Disney ones that they don't sell anymore.

I've only ever copied Cd's is coping a Dvd harder? I have Windows Vista so if anyone has pointers on how to do this let me know.

I think all DVD, CD writable, DVD-RWs and CD-RWs can be written using your laptop DVD-RAM.

The latest Windows versions support CD/DVD writing without any other external software requirements. Otherwise you may have to use some Burning software for CD/DVD such as Nero or INCD.

Copying DVDs is not hard; just similar to CDs except for larger size availability, provided whatever software you use is compatible with your hardware and your software had DVD writing option.

If your file size exceeds 700 MB (most full length videos of Disney's have 750 MB file size) then you may have to use a DVD of 4.7 GB in which case, you can store more than four full length files or you may have to partition the files using some software (which I wouldn't advice)

I hope my answers are relevant to what to asked and of some help... because I'm almost asleep right now!

You may find that the DVDs are protected against copying, in which case you'll need software to bypass the protection. I've found DVD Shrink to be pretty good, but you'll also need a DVD writing program on the PC - it works well with Nero, don't know about other programs.

http://www.dvdshrink.org/

Oh, yes, I forgot! There are these things like dongles which prevent a DVD from being copied but if you are able to copy the contents of your DVD to your hard-disk then there's no problem.

All you've to do is copy the contents of your source CD/DVD in your system hard-disk and remove the disk,
get a blank CD/DVD, put it in your drive, add the file(s) you require using the Windows wizard or software and burn it!

Same as CD!

So I just need get get Dvd Rw's. Is it easy to delete the movies after I burn them?

Before buying disks I'd strongly suggest deciding if you want to make permanent copies, or disks that you can eventually erase, and checking exactly what your drive can do.

Rewritable DVDs, which you can record and erase over and over again, are sold as DVD+RW or DVD-RW
the plus or minus refers to exactly how the disk is made, and most modern drives can use both types without any hassle, but some older drives will only work with one type.

Similarly, non-rewritable DVDs are DVD+R or DVD-R; you can record on them once but you can't erase or reuse them.

There's an additional type called Double Layer, which has twice the capacity, but you need a drive that can use it; again, most drives made in the past couple of years should be able to use them, older ones can't. My experience with them has not been good, and I can't honestly recommend them.

You were talking about making long-term copies of films, so I suspect that you don't actually want rewriteable disks - permanent copies on DVD+R or DVD-R will cost about half as much, less if you buy the disks in bulk. For example, in Britain I can get the write-once disks for around 12p (25 cents) if I buy 25 or more, I'd expect them to be cheaper in the USA. The rewriteable ones start at
27p (55 cents). The R types have the same capacity as RW, the only difference is that you can only record on them once.

I wish it was that easy, but it isn't. Almost all commercially-distributed DVDs are protected by encryption, and if you copy the files from one disk to another without removing the protection they just won't work. This is a multi-billion dollar industry, and they go to extraordinary lengths to make sure that you can't just copy disks and give them to your friends. That's what software like DVD Shrink is for - essentially, it cracks the encryption - which can sometimes take an hour or more - and makes files that will work when they're written to another disk.

DVD Decrypter and DVD Shrink work together for me. I'm doing the same - making copies of kids DVDs as they are hard on them and my 2yo has recently broken a couple. Use Decrypter to copy to your HD then Shrink to reformat it or something like that and then tell it to burn with Decrypter [just close Decrypter first] and then it will do it automatically. A TV show DVD [like Friends or LC] will take about an hour or hour and a half to do. 5 min or so to set it up at the beginning, click, 30m or so later, close Decrypter and open Shrink, 5m or so to set up Shrink, then another 45 or so for that to run so it's not like you actually have to be there the whole time. Doing other stuff while running it will slow it down [having 'preview' on during Shrink is fun but will slow it down as well]. I don't recommend doing anything else during the actual burning process. I would imagine a movie would be a bit faster to do.
Carol

If you have Nero installed DVD Shrink can do the whole process by itself - you tell it to back up a DVD, it decrypts the files and copies them to hard disk, then it gets Nero to burn the DVD. It also removes region coding.

I agree with this - for this usage you don't need DVD-RWs. You can easily get a 50-pack for $10. Cheaper, if you look for a sale. Check the write-speed, though (8x, 16x, etc) higher is faster (quicker burning), but if the discs are faster than your drive, then they will only burn as fast as your drive.

Ah - see I don't have Nero. Or I used to on an old computer but no clue where the disk is and I don't think it was the 'upgrade' or whatever.

I bought a 100 pack of DVDs at Sam's for $30 last week - $20 cheaper than I bought 100 for last fall.
Carol

I used to use DVDShrink and DVD Decrypter for those times when DVDShrink would just crash, which was often. Unfortunately, neither is updated anymore so they won't work on any of the more recent encryption schemes.

DVDFab Decrypter is a great product that you can get for free. It'll take a DVD9 (dual layer) and shrink it down to DVD5 (single layer) size and store it as an image. The paid version will back it up to a DVD+/-R/W all in one step. With the free one, you can use any software that supports burning images, such as Nero. The biggest advantage is that DVDFab is constantly being updated, sometimes several times a month, which can be important since Sony seems to release a new ArCOS encryption almost every other movie.

It's also far more stable than DVDShrink.

I use it often since I prefer to store backups on a server rather than on a disk.

For my media server, I usually use a Mac program called Handbrake for turning my DVDs into video.

Thanks for the tip - haven't run into any problems with DVDshrink, but I've been avoiding Sony's DVDs and CDs since the rootkit fiasco.