dvd burning

[denilson]

What's better to buy if i want to copy dvd movies from movie rental stores - a stand alone dvd burner or a dvd-rw drive for my computer. Or is it not possible to burn dvds from movie rental places because of encrypted dvd copy protection software

 

[Bob Wills]

Standalone burner: simple to use, basically no learning curve, but likely loss of quality

Computer burner: more of a learning curve, but extremely flexible and powerful

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[MeaHorn]

I pretty sure that it's impossible to copy a DVD with a stand-alone burner.

I use my 4x Sony +/- burner and DVD XCopy Platinum to make my backups.

 

[UTinBigD]

easier in the long run with a computer dvd burner. You might want to wait for the new duel layer burners. These would allow one to put a full 9.6GB of data on one disk, just like the commercial DVDs do. What this means is you would not have to use any video compression to get the movie to fit on a DVD-R.

The downside is that the blank disks may well cost over $10 a piece, so you would be better off just buying the DVD.

 

[CaboWabo]

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[TEXAS1026]

i use DVD Shrink 3.0 to copy the disk to my hardrive then burn it with Nero.

DVD Shrink allows you to get the full DVD (menus and extras included) down to the size that will allow it to fit on a blank DVD.

 

[ghost]

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[MeaHorn]

Actually, I do use it to backup my kids DVD movies. Those little buggers can do some nasty **** to a DVD.

But my burner has made a 'copy' or two...

 

[RayDog]

Most US commercial DVD's are two layer, and will not fit on a single layer DVD without re-encoding, or shrinking as the earlier poster said. I don't have a 2-layer burner yet, so I don't know if they will dierectly "backup" your DVDs.

A lot of cheaper DVDs, particularly foreign made, old classics, and porn are single layer and can be copied with no problems.

I recomend geting a internal computer DVD-R burner, and a Hauppage WinTVPVR250 or similar card with onboard MPEG2 encoder hardware. Then you can copy pretty much any video source. You may still need a macrovision decoder to watch some videos and DVDs on your computer. I have one by Sima.

 

[MeaHorn]

DVD Xcopy re-encodes it and it looks as good as the original. Usually you have to cut out some of the menus and other extra ****, but that's fine by me. I've copied many dual layered disks and always had good success.

DVDShrink can do the same (and for free), but I thought the re-encoded video quality wasn't as good as DVD Xcopy. I've heard that you can get filters that help quite a bit though.

Also, DVD Xcopy was forced out of business by the MPAA, so if you want a copy of that you'll have to look on ebay or your local file sharing service.

 

[denilson]

based on the replies it seems like a computer burner is the way to go.

 

[LosIllini]

Definitely get a computer dvd burner- and a good dvd-rom drive as a reader (you don't need it- but, the price isn't that much). Then you can backup dvd's 'on the fly'.

Plextor is a premium brand- however, Liteon is good- and a lot cheaper. Look at dvdrhelp.com or cdfreaks.com for reviews/ rec's. Newegg.com is a great place to order from- once you figure out what you want.

Good luck.

 

[wherzwaldo]

The Link

I've had mine for almost two months. Lots of burns, zero coasters with Nero. Doubtful you could find a better price.