DVD Backup Software
Wednesday, April 13th, 2005 - 11:25am
Ok so I finally decide to backup some of my more watched DVD's due to some tragic DVD loss. I discovered that a couple of my DVD's were cracked from my time in Iraq. Well last year I bought DVD X Copy Platinum from 321studios. Well apparently they were sued out of business - guess their product works. Anyhow - I go to install it (never had done this before) when I get an error and of course they are out of business and none of their numbers or websites etc... work anymore. I found some international support link and have submitted a request for activation, but havent heard anything yet. Any suggestions on software that will allow me to backup my DVD's and if possible my Xbox games although I am more concerned about my DVD's... It needs to be legal and I dont care if it stamps backup all over the menu as long as I can watch my movie... Thanks.
- Spy
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DVD Shrink
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i was about to suggest the same thing
good program, if all you want to do is be able to backup your DVDs... actually... just plain good program.
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Great thanks - anybody know why DVD Shrink and some other programs I have googles can exist and this DVD X got hammered out of existence? I am curious about why this product when others exist out there...
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It broke the CSS Encryption, hence violated the DMCA, hence sued out of business.
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A buddy of mine has the DVD Xcopy stuff, I know he reinstalled a month or so ago. I''ll check to see how he got it installed.
Do you ever walk alone like a drifter in the dark?
More like it was easy to use and got popular. All DVD backup utilities break the CSS encryption.
If you wanna be legal just hand over your wallet to the MPAA member corporations, as they''ve got the laws pretty tightly sewn up. You have no practical rights when it comes to encrypted media, so you''ll have to get over it or buy new DVDs every time they get scratched or use programs like DVD Shrink.
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It depends on what kind of back-up you''re referring to. If you''re talking about a straight DVD copy, then yes, that would violate the DMCA. There''s software though that simply records the video and audio streams and then encodes it in some format of your choice.
That does sound like circumventing the encryption (or copy protection mechanism, if you will) in some way, but the software is available over here and is being sold legally. Whereas programs like CloneCD or CloneDVD fell victim to our DMCA-alike.
Oh, I didn''t know, like grabs it from the framebuffer after a DVD player decrypts it? Neat.
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Yeah, but then it''s Digital -> Analog -> Digital, so you''ve got fidelity loss. It''s not a backup, it''s a poor copy.
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See ""analog hole""
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So what does DVD shrink do then - is there a loss of quality when it makes a copy? Is that software legal? is there software out there that will let me rip individual episodes of a episode based DVD that I own like Band of Brothers so that I may pull it to my PSP?
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DVD Shrink coupled with DVDecrypter will break CSS. DVD Decrypter does not take advantage of the analog hole but instead reprocesses the mpeg-2 video that DVDs are encoded with.
EDIT: Yes, DVD Shrink can pull video streams selectively from the originals. What I''m not sure about is the output formats. All I''ve used it for is to copy DVDs to DVD+-R.
For transferring to different formats, you would most likely have to use a different program. I would recommend Virtual Dub if you''re going to re-encode your DVDs into different formats.
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it compresses the video according to how much space is available, but you have a 100% copy if you want.
you should be able to do it with DVD Shrink in the editing? mode, haven''t used it in a while. If the DVD has the episodes separated into titles then yes, if it is all in one then, I got no clue.
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You can have 100% copy if you have either a
a) older DVD release that is below 4.7gb (example: first release of 5th Element)
b) dual-layer recorder with dual layer media (9.4gb)
The whole purpose of DVDShrink is that it can quickly reencode a DVD and discard some parts you don''t want (i.e. French audiostreams or stupid trailers) so that the movie can fit into 4.7gb single-layer media. This causes some quality loss but it is usually nothing that you will notice on a television set.
Do they make commercially available 9.4 GB recorders and the DVD''s to be used or is that the realm of the manufacturer - ie the ones who produce commercial DVD''s?
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My DVD burner is dual-layer, most people don''t use dual layer because the media is substantially more expensive.
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What type of DVD burner do you have Zedian?
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Its an nec 2510a but it doesn''t look like they sell it anymore.
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Plextor and Sony both make good ones.
personally hardware wise i would recommend the plextor, but the Sony comes with Nero. I like Nero a lot more than Roxios ""U makum da DVD fer dumeez"", but went with the Plextor anyway.
you purchase the drives for around$100 (after rebates) if you shop around a bit
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OK, I got in touch with my friend with DVD Xcopy. He used it prior to them going out of business so his validates with no problems on reinstall. He said he has a friend that is similar to you that did NOT install it prior to the lawsuit and could also not use it.
Browsing DVD Xcopy''s forums though it says you should be able to go here (the ''international'' site) and get activated.
Hope this helps.
If it''s any consolation my buddy says it works for less and less DVDs as time goes on.
Do you ever walk alone like a drifter in the dark?
It''s already been said, but I''ve never been known to shy away from getting my needless $0.02 in...
DVD SHRINK is the man... yes, use it. Love it. It works great. It''s free. I have a 4x DVD burner on my laptop, and it takes about 17 minutes to compress/burn a dvd (in conjunction with NERO).
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Thanks for the help - I have had success with both Shring and DVD X copy now - I had to find a ""nefarious"" solution, but it now works
.
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Arise! Welcome to the 64 bit generation!
I've been a big supporter of DVD Shrink for many years now, even donated a few times in the past. Unfortunately I seems like DVD Shrink does not officially support Vista 64, or Vista 32 for that matter. Am I wrong and overlooked something? Don't see it listed as an OS option on their website.
Anyone out there using DVD Shrink in Vista 64? If not, how about some recommendations for stable 64 bit compatible DVD backup software.
EDIT: Found this thread using the search function and didn't realize it was in the Everything Else section. Is this the right section or should this thread belong in Tech?
I use the Slysoft products these days and haven't had any issues on any of my x64 Vista boxes.
Do you ever walk alone like a drifter in the dark?
I've been using DVDShrink on Vista Ultimate 64 bit edition for a couple months now with no issues at all.
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I believe the best DVD copy software right now is DVDFab.
Not to hijack the thread, but since the question seems to have been answered pretty definitively...
There was a thread a while back about home theater PC's or something with recommendations for software that would allow a person to archive all their DVD's on an HT rig with a lot of storage, and then just pick the movies from a menu and watch them from the PC.
I can't find that thread. Does anybody remember what I'm talking about? I want to do that now with my DVD's since storage has gotten so cheap, but I can't remember what the heck the software was.
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The setup that I use includes the following:
Vista Machine with Windows Media Center
4 - 1 TB SATA drives
I use my 360 as a the media center extender (or you could puchase a different extender if you don't have a 360).
I use the MyMovies and MyTV plugins for Media Center. Both of these use MySQL on the PC for database storage of indexing for the movies and TV shows.
MyTV looks something like this:
MyMovies looks something like this:
I was able to easily rip all of my existing DVDs using DVDShrink down fully uncompressed to not lose any picture quality and keep 5.1 sound quality.
I take all of my TV show captures @ 720p and reencode them as WMV-HD files keeping the awesome picture quality and 5.1 sound as well.
I'm currently working on HDDVD and Blu-ray backups as well.
It is amazing being able to flip through a menu to a certain show, find a season you want, find the episode, read the description if you want, and hit play to have immediate streaming without any menus or warnings.
I love it.
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How are you getting the extenders to see and play the ripped DVDs? I have a page for a .dll to download and a script to make symlinks to the .vob files as .avis so the extender can play them (the file extensions in that sentence may be off I'm going by memory) but have been scared to do too much with plugins as the stability factor is an important one for the wife happiness finger>butt action.
Do you ever walk alone like a drifter in the dark?