need help backing up my dvds.

[sscottsa315]

i recently purchased a new hp dv7t 7000 quad edition laptop. everytime i use dvdfab or dvd decrypter to back up my dvd to hdd, then dvd shrink will not recognize my bdrw drive so i cant burn it to disc, it just wont give me the option to burn to disc. i havent backed up anything in years but i never had a problem with my old laptop using windows xp. i have windows 7 home edition. i even installed nero burning rom 10 since dvd shrink said i needed nero burning rom. the new dvdfab only lets you backup for 30 days and thats it. dvd decrypter usually works ok. does anyone recommend any new free programs to rip and burn with windows 7? i need to back up alot of my movies before my kids ruin the original copies. i havent really copied anything about 3 years but i didnt think i was that rusty or doing something wrong.

[jman98]

There are no free rippers any more. Well, there is one that rips and makes MKV files, but I don't remember its name and it's not updated as regularly as the commercial ones are.

DVD Decrypter and DVDShrink haven't been updated for years and won't be updated again, but for different reasons I won't go into. DVDs in the past few years by Sony and Disney and a few other studios can't be ripped by them. You can pay for DVDFab you know. Paid versions get updates.

DVDShrink may simply not work under Win 7. If so, ti's the "hasn't been updated" thing. Actually DVDShrink can work with ImgBurn (see below) but you'll have to look up instructions on doing that.

ImgBurn is free burning software and highly recommended here. You don't need Nero. It's burning only software. It's by the guy who wrote DVD Decrypter. He's not allowed to write rippers any more, which is part of the long story about why DVD Decrypter isn't updated any more.

[fritzi93]

dvd shrink will not recognize my bdrw drive so i cant burn it to disc...

Is it any wonder that DVDShrink doesn't recognize your drive? Development stopped before there were any BD burners.

At any rate, the conclusion you've drawn (that you therefore can't burn it) is flatly wrong.

Use ImgBurn and select burn files/folders to disc. Copy your folder(s) to the compilation pane. Burn it. ImgBurn will select the correct file system settings for you. Same when you do a BDR.

[Kerry56]

DVDFab HD Decrypter still exists, and still works to decrypt your dvds after the trial for the main part of DVDFab expires. But it lags on updates, and it will not compress after the trial. Look at DVDFab's site and you'll see it prominently displayed on the FRONT PAGE.

DVDShrink works in both Windows 7 and Windows 8. It works with my blu ray burners just fine. The latest one is from last year and is a Pioneer 207MBK. As a decryption program however, DVDShrink is hopelessly outdated. And I believe there are some problems when trying to use Shrink with 3tb and larger hard drives.

For best results when compressing dvds, you should use the free version of DVD Rebuilder. But you'll need to start with unencrypted dvds.

MakeMKV is the program that will rip dvds for free into mkv files. If necessary, you can put the mkv files back into dvd-video format with no loss of quality by re-authoring the movie. AVStoDVD will accept the mkv files as input and will give you a dvd-video as output without re-encoding anything. You will lose the original menus and extras. AVStoDVD can also compress the mkv file to fit a DVD-5 if you need to, but of course, it will be re-encoding to do that. Quality should be the same as from DVD Rebuilder.

Burn to disc using ImgBurn, as you've already been advised.