What is the absolute Easiest DVD copying program?

[joeAgain------]

I'm not knowledgable in DVD copying at all. But have a fast computer and a DVD-R burner. I want to copy it onto only one DVD disk.

I know there are quite a few programs out there to make a copy of a DVD.

But which one is the absolute Easiest for a newbie to accomplish the task(without "manually" going thru a bunch of steps...)

Are there any?

(I'm considering Pinnacle's InstantCD/DVD, or InstantCopy...are there any Easier than that?)

[AarontheRipper]

There are three main parts to making backups of DVD's. 1. Ripping the DVD to your hard drive. 2. Compressing, or reencoding so that it will fit on a DVD-R. 3. Burning.

To complete step one, most people use DVDDecrypter, or Smartripper. Very easy. DVDShrink does steps one and two together. The simplest options for #2 are Instantcopy 7, DVD2One, and DVDShrink. They require little computer knowledge, and as I said before, DVDShrink will do steps 1 & 2. Finally, to burn most people use Nero, or RecordMax. It is possible to do everything you need without spending a cent on software. The ripping programs are freeware, as is DVDShrink, and you can burn using 2 freeware tools: DVDDecrypter and Imgtools. There are guides to these programs all over the website.

[mkelley]

So why does anyone buy DVDXCopy?

I was considering buying it to backup my DVDs, particularly my series DVDs (like STTNG, which is so expensive a series that I really *have* to back up my investment). I was considering paying $99 for XCopy and I have been reading *all* the threads here and still see no consensus about these things.

I'm really comfortable creating my own DVDs with my authoring programs (for transferring my VHS tapes onto DVD) and I use Record Now to burn, but Xcopy seems like it handles the seemingly difficult task of splitting up these DVD9s into two 5's like no other program. Is it really foolish to spend the money?

[Bob W]

DVDX Copy Xpress is a no brainer, make one or two clicks and come back an hour later and the backup is done.

[Will Hay]

Smartripper to rip, DVD2One to encode and RecordNowMax to burn, easy.
Very easy.
Very very easy and perfect results (unless you're a geek with a 95" plasma friggin' screen, a magnifying glass and too much time on your hands).
Will

[SLICK RICK]

Im with Silky, only I use DVDDecrypter, DVD2ONE, and Nero Express. Total time= 1 1/2 hours

[AarontheRipper]

No way in hell I will spend the extra $100 dollars just for a tiny bit of added convenience. I can understand why some people, who's time is super valuable, could justify such a decision, but as a poor grad student, I will continue using my freeware programs.

[mkelley]

Yes, but I was thinking I needed to spend the $100 in order to do episode disks (which are really the one ones I want to back up -- I can always buy another copy of a movie, but paying $120 for ONE set of STTNG I want to make sure I protect my investment -- I can't just buy one disk of that set that my grandson ruins).

Here's what it says in the FAQ of this very forum:

Is there an easy way to copy episode disk? (like TV box sets)
Episode disk can get a little complicated. Some have luck using DVDXCOPY (commercial software) while some Episode disk will not work at all with it. Once again there are many answers, and no perfect one yet. Episode disk can be a little complicated, so you might want to be more familiar with standard DVDs before you try to dive in.

So are you people saying here that I shouldn't buy DVDXCopy but just use the freeware tools and I'll be okay? I don't mind having the episodes on more than one disk (IOW, I'd actually prefer that I split them up into smaller episode disks and preserve the quality) but I don't want to spend a lifetime doing this. Anyone got an idea?

[Will Hay]

DVD2One is fine for my dvd's with multi-epsiodes, although I have noticed a quality drop but hey, these are over three hours long so what do I expect?
I get what I expect, and I'm bloody happy with it!
My TV is only 25"
Will

[housepig]

I have to throw my hat in the ring alongside Silky - DVD Decrypter, DVD2One and Nero are my tools of choice. I've had no problem backing up multi-episode discs to one disc with DVD2One, and I don't notice the quality drop - my tv is only 27". (the only movie I've really noticed any issues with was Apocalypse Now, and even there, it was some very subtle pixelation in a few scenes....)

I think the whole attraction in DVD X Copy is that for some people, that will be the first software that worked easily for them, so they become evangelists for that software...

[vric]

I use IFOedit + DVD2one.. sometime Instant copy for big movie (that need near 50% compression)

The best way is not the easyest, but will become easy if you take the time to learn it !

[joeAgain------]

Guys, Guys...hey, Time out(Please).

I appreciate the recommendations for all the 3 step freeware processes.

But please, can we come back to my initial request?

As easy as it is for you guys, I'm still looking for a program that will do it all(One software program)and put it onto One DVD disk(even if the DVD I want to copy is over 4.7Gig....which I think most are)

I guess it's between DVD X Copy...and Pinnacle's Instant Copy(or maybe IntantCD/DVD) Are there any others?

Which is easiest of those two? (are there any others that will do the whole job in the same software program with minimum "instructions" from me?)

[AarontheRipper]

If you want to split them up onto different discs without losing any quality, all you really need is IfoEdit (assuming that each episode is its own vob set). Its a bit trickier to learn than some of the other programs, but does the job, and it's free.

[joeAgain------]

No, I want to end up with only One DVD-R disk(even if the quality is slightly less than the original)

[Vejita-sama]

There's time, quaility and cost. And generally speaking you can never get all three at once. Somethings got to give:

DVD Shrink - fast, so-so to good quaility, free

DVD2ONE - fast, so-so to good quaility, money

IC - slow, best quaility of the DVD9 to DVD 5 programs, more money

When people start saying things like 'cost doesn't matter' my reply is to buy the DVD (or if a backup buy anohter one). But cost always matter. I personally think that all the transcoders purpose pretty poor quaility output, but most people think they do an ok (to even excellent job). It's a personal choice, there is no best program.

IMHO: If quaility is your main concern IC. If time then just use DVD Shrink as it's free (or DVD2One if you got some extra cash lying around).

[jtoolman2000]

Oh common! NOONE really pays for any of thiss stuff! They get it from the file sharing sites. How any common person claim to have used 6-8 different progs just to see what they do, and don't tell they are using the DEMOs. I just laugh!!!

[patsym1]

The easiest and the best is what I call the two step programme DVDXCOPY XPRESS its so easy ?



Regards Patsym1

[Doggiedaddy]

Here it goes again, the "I want it easy and free" crowd heard from.

One step Backup method= buy another copy at Costco or any other discount chain. DVD B/U is not done to be the simplest possible answer, for that just by another copy when and if yours goes bad. People who complain about how hard or expensive it is and want just one free, brainless way to copy DVD crack me up, when a new copy is under 20.00/US. You should do this because you want to learn about what makes a DVD and/or experiment with a challenging new piece of software. If not just buy the fricking thing [BUY ANOTHER COPY] that’s easy as hell !!!!!!!!!!!!!

PS. I also get a kick put of people that say CCE or even IC7 takes to long and are willing to comprise, accepting the lower quality generated by DVD2one and others for an hour or two of processor time. I can only surmise they must not have ever done a full back up, old school, when it takes 24 hours or so.

Oh Well
jm2c
Dd

[Raen]

Other than DVDXcopy there really isn't an 'all-in-one' tool. And DvDxCopy makes exact copies which means if it's over 4.7 gig thn you have to use more then one disk

The reason why most products don't rip the movie for you is because the possible lawsuits raised against them. You really have to use a seperate program to rip the dvd to your harddrive, the good news is that they are free to use since anyone attempting to sell them would probably get sued(dvdxcopy is currently in a lawsuit against 7 movie studios).

However once you rip it to your harddrive then its fairgame for copying programs. DvD2one is the easiest by a longshot and takes less then 20 minutes to make a new copy under 4.7 gig. But it doesn't burn. Once its the files ae made you need a burning utility like nero. Its all real easy. Any begginer can figure it out. ITs basically 3 steps. Rip to Harddrive, convert to smaller files, burn to dvd.

Instant Copy can burn it. However Instant Copy actually re-encodes the film rather than Transcodes. This results in better quality but also takes alot longer(2-2 and halfhours on my p4-3ghz, 1gig of ram) You still have to rip the movei with a seperate program but onve you do it can re-encode and burn without any other software and is really easy to use(basically select the directory the movei was ripped to and hit next, wait 2 hours and its done)

DvDshrink actually doesnt require you to rip to HD first. However its still in beta and has some bugs, and from my experience suffers from alot of flaws. Some of them being--really crappy transcoding, the auto-setting scan to make it small enough to fit one a single dvd-r usually is either to large for one or so much smaller tha quality is sacrificed. I tried using it on the Sixth Sense and it gave me 4 compression levels to pick from. the First 3 were too large and the last one was 3.8 gig. I burned it just for a test and looked like crap. You can manually play with the settings for each video one movie to try to make it fit better but even when I did that and it said it was 4.35 gigs(you can really only burn 4.36 gigs on a dvd) it came out to 4.54 gigs and was too large for the disk. If you're looking for easy with acceptable qualities.. it might be a good idea to wait for dvdshrink to work out all the bigs. I'd personally go with IC7 if you want fulldisk with menu's. Or if you want just the movie only use dvd2one. You get improved quality when you just do movie only as it has more room to work with when you take out all the extra's and menus and languages, etc

[patsym1]

You don't have to rip the movie using DVDXCOPY XPRESS. DVDXCOPY is a completely different programme. Express does everything in 2 steps, I can safely guarentee once you use this programme you wont use anything else.



Regards Patsym1

[mkelley]

Here it goes again, the "I want it easy and free" crowd heard from.

One step Backup method= buy another copy at Costco or any other discount chain. DVD B/U is not done to be the simplest possible answer, for that just by another copy when and if yours goes bad. People who complain about how hard or expensive it is and want just one free, brainless way to copy DVD crack me up, when a new copy is under 20.00/US. You should do this because you want to learn about what makes a DVD and/or experiment with a challenging new piece of software. If not just buy the fricking thing [BUY ANOTHER COPY] that’s easy as hell !!!!!!!!!!!!!

I would agree with you if I could just buy one disk -- I spent $120 for each season of STTNG and if my grandson thinks disk 3 of season 4 makes an excellent frisbee I'm not out $20 -- I'm out $120.

Quite honestly, I don't know why anyone *would* want to back up their other DVDs -- I have hundreds and don't think twice about them. But since you can't buy just one DVD of any series (that I know of) it's really a whole different ballgame, as you're then talking about a minimum of a $50 investment (and obviously, *much* much higher in some cases).

But I don't mind taking a little time and effort to do this to protect my investment -- it's worth me spending some hours to protect what amounts to nearly $1K. I've played a little now with some of the tools and think I can accomplish what I want with the free ones. But I wouldn't hesitate to spend $100 if that's what it takes for the peace of mind I'll get (some of you youngsters don't know what a madhouse it is when your four grandsons, none of whom are old enough for preschool, all come to visit at once :>)