Anyone familiar with or uses Instant Copy - PLEASE READ!!

[nickelzy]

From what I've read and researched, it seems that a lot of folks believe that InstantCopy produces better quality copies than DVD Shrink, so I decided to give it a try. However what I don't understand (and I've read the manual but can't find anything that helps me with this) is when it finishes, it saves my files as .Pdi files. For example, I just copied the movie Chocolat, and it saved the following files on my hard drive:

Chocolat
Chocolat.Pdi01
Chocolat.Pdi02
Chocolat.Pdi03
Chocolat.Pdi04

The first file - "Chocoloat" from above is listed as an InstantDrive.Document

So now what do I do? How do I copy these files on my DVD? When I use CopyToDVD, the program won't acknowledge the files. I don't understand what to do now! What am I missing or doing wrong?

[BobK]

The pdi files are a disk image. There are several ways you can burn it to DVD. One is to use Instant Copy, open the pdi file (the first one), then select the burner you want to write to and click 'Start'.

If you have IC 8 you there's also an option to install a virtual drive- then you create the pdi file(s) on the virtual drive, open any burn program and go to the virtual drive- select the files and burn.

> What am I missing?

Probably most of what's in the instruction manual that comes with Instant Copy.

[Vanderlow]

Also DVDdecrypter has the ability to burn a pdi file and this a tool called pdi2iso (I think thats it) that will take about 4 mins to convert to ISO.

[nickelzy]

Vanderlow - Thanks for the tip regarding dvd decrypter - that worked fine!

One other thing, Bob wrote:

"If you have IC 8 you there's also an option to install a virtual drive- then you create the pdi file(s) on the virtual drive, open any burn program and go to the virtual drive- select the files and burn."

One question - Why would you want to or need to install a virtual drive? Again, I've looked in the instruction manual and I don't see anything that explains what a virtual drive is and why you would want to install one.

[dafreak]

virtual drives allow you to mount disk images and play from your hd.

so say I have a movie on my hd that is in iso format.
i can mount that iso file on to the virtual drive and play it as if i've inserted the disk into a dvd-rom drive.

[nickelzy]

Oh, I see. Thanks for the explanation!