Opinion: Best way to back up LOTR:The Two Towers?

[Idioteque74]

Sorry, forgot to mention it was the Extended Edition.

I was just wondering what the best way 2 back this up is, I don't want to back up all 4 disks, just the main movie and maybe a few extras. I was just wondering if anyone has done this and if so...how did you do it, and how many discs. I'm shooting for 2 DVD+R's. Thanx very much for any info.

[shelbyGT]

the extended version, I assume?

disc 1 (movie): dvdshrink, movie only, 1 audio track
disc 2 (movie): dvdshrink, movie only, 1 audio track, cut off credits, was left with some MB's left to play with, might be able to add some extras here.

both of these were done at 100% (no) compression, so I suppose you could compress that second disc some and free up even more space.

[Idioteque74]

both of these were done at 100% (no) compression, so I suppose you could compress that second disc some and free up even more space.

Thanx for the input. These fit in DVD Shrink for you with no compression and included only 1 audio track? And that is with no menus I assume?

[petar]

I'm a lazy guy and hate to get up from my sofa in the middle of a movie to swap discs so I backed up both disc 1 and 2 to one DVDR. You can tell there's a loss of quality, more on brownish/grey scenes (when Sam falls in front of the black gate of Mordor, for example) but it's perfectly acceptable on my 29" widescreen. My wife couldn't tell a difference though unless I told her where to look for blockiness.
Trade between confort and quality, I guess.

[waheed]

Back up on 2 discs

Disk 1: keeping menu (for scene selection purposes) and little compression of the movie, keep only one audio track, preferabaly 5.1 Dolby Digital EX. use dvd srink with deep analysis mode.

Disk 2: cut off end credits with dvd shrink re-author mode, use ifoedit to correct the original ifos, then use dvd shink again retaining menu and only one audio track(5.1 DD EX).

i cant tell the difference in quality between the original and backup copy of the discs.

Also use titleset blanker, (an utility i found on www.doom9.org) to strip out the warning screen. the warning screen is located in the second titleset on both disks (VTS_02_1.VOB is the actual vob that contains the warning screen on both disks). Or alternatively, u can replace this vob with a blank vob.

[mikepos]

Thanks for the info guys, I'm backing mine up soon. I always take just the menu, I prefer not to have to go through all the crap to watch the movie. If I want to watch any features I just use the original (I seldom do).

Mike

[shelbyGT]

both of these were done at 100% (no) compression, so I suppose you could compress that second disc some and free up even more space.

Thanx for the input. These fit in DVD Shrink for you with no compression and included only 1 audio track? And that is with no menus I assume?

Correct, I used the reauthor mode, which renders the menu's useless.

[JasonK]

I did this a few months ago with the Ext Version of LOTR 2 using DVD Shrink 3.0b5.

I cut the junk (including menus) & credits out leaving only the movie and the Dolby Digital audio track and english subtitles. Results:

Lord of the Rings Two Towers - Disk 1, 97%, deep analysis, 3.0b5
Lord of the Rings Two Towers - Disk 2, 100%, 3.0b5

[troyvcd1]

Best way is with dvd2dvdr with CCE.

[MysticE]

Download the trial of InterVideo DVD Copy. The best vid quality of the one-click tools, bar none. Leaves Shrink in the dust on long movies.

http://www.intervideo.com/jsp/InterVideoDVDCopy_Profile.jsp

[lordsmurf]

Put all 3 extended versions on the same disc. When it ROTK comes out on DVD, I plan to do this just for fun. It can be done, won't look too terrible either.

[JasonK]

3 Extended version DVDs onto ONE DVD??? That's a shootload of hours to fit on 1 DVD.

I put just one extended version onto a single DVD when Fellowship Ext Edition came out. I used CCE, but I notice some pixel artifacting at times which is annoying. I would hate to image how much worse this would be if it was compressed 3 times as much to fit 2 more extended edition versions onto the same disk. I know some people can overlook it and enjoy the movie, but it always distracts me. Some originals are the same way.

So for Two Towers Ext Ed, I didnt use CCE, but I used DVDshrink to go from 2 DVDs to 2 DVDRs. And at 97%/100% for disk1/disk2, I don't notice any artifacting at all on my large HDTV.

[Idioteque74]

Thanks very much for all the replies folks...it is greatly appreciated.

Think I'll go with DVDShrink and back up the 2 movie disks, on 2 dvd+r's.

[terminator911]

DVD2DVD-R with CCE (Cinema Craft Encoder) rules

1) Main movie... CCE (BEST quality of any program)
2) 2nd Half movie... CCE
3) 3rd disc... DVD Shrink with deep analysis
4) 4th disc... DVD Shrink