Fast DVD Copy: A DVD Backup Solution for Mac

[galactica]

yea ill say!

its probably the fact that i have a HD flat tv. that and the dvd i did preview was 7.9 gigs on the rip (which is pretty large in terms of dvd.)

Im only knocking the app because of its instability to start, its poor quality when compared to the 3 step process, and its not "fast" for it being termed Fast DVD Copy

took over 80 min just to get to the beginning of the burn process
on the three step method it only takes 30-40 min to get to the burning.

as for the price, heck if they can get people to pay 99$ then more power to them, they are good buisness people

[old-man]

compare to same dvd processed with mac the ripper, dvd2one and then toast, and there is no comparison to the quality of the latter process

Galactica,
Does this mean you now perfer MacTheRipper over DVDBackup?

... Old-Man

[MacTraderBoy]

So why don't you guys come up with an all in one app? I am not saying that sarcastically, I mean it. You guys did a good job with MacTheRipper, why not more?

[deadsierra]

So why don't you guys come up with an all in one app? I am not saying that sarcastically, I mean it. You guys did a good job with MacTheRipper, why not more?

Because its often better to focus on doing one thing well. I do have plans of helping to design a free DVD compressor and burner, but seeing I can't code, we all know how well THAT is going. (God damn lazy friends)

[WiseWeasel]

And of course, you want it all to be free, and to work as well as the 3 apps used currently... Do you realize how much work that is? There's no incentive to make a free DVD shrinker or a free burning tool, as those can be charged for legally. A DVD ripper, on the other hand, is a risky proposition, legally speaking, and to charge for one would be inviting lawsuits. Why would someone go through all the trouble of making a free DVD shrinker when they could charge for it? Same goes for the burning component. If you spend all the effort making a reliable solution for those problems, you're going to want to charge for it. For what DVD2OneX does, I feel its entirely worth its price. Same goes for Toast. The effort required to make equivalent solutions is nothing to sneeze at, and worth real money. The effort required to make DVD rippers is also significant, but you can't charge for those, so you understand that you're doing it for the community from the start (except for Lupin, the creator of DVDBackup, who apparently got confused, and now wants to charge for future updates). Simply put, there's no incentive to make the whole solution free, especially since you can get good money for the latter two parts of the 3-step process. The skill required to make something like that doesn't come cheap. I say, be thankful you've got some good rippers with RCE removal for free, and use what's best for the job for the other parts of the problem. What might be possible is a solution to automate the use of MTR, DTOX and Toast, but it would be a bitch to get anywhere near as customizable as the manual process, and there are bugs with AppleScript UI scripting that prevent us from accessing the audio track options in DTOX.

[MacTraderBoy]

I wasn't looking for free. I would gladly pay for an app that really worked. Not $100, but that isn't because I wouldn't think it wasn't worth $100, just couldn't afford more than $50. I bought Toast used for $50 because it worked better than the free stuff. I would do the same for an all in one ripper.

[AntnyMD]

I wouldnt encourage any developer to go down the all-in-one, press-one-button route. For starters, people should not be that lazy! The other thing though is, where else in your life can you push one button and things happen automatically?

And where will it end?

Do you want to push the power button on your Mac and end up with a fully copied DVD at the end? Who/what will insert the source DVD?

Do you want to click a button and burn a fully copied DVD at the end? Which piece of software is going to purchase the blank DVD and insert it in your machine?

Folks, there is no such thing as a one-step process, so let it go. Be thankful for what you've got. When I bought my current laptop in 2002, the best/only ripper for Mac, period, was Yade on OS 9. Far more sophisticated rippers had been available for Windows since at least 1998.

You dont even have to re-encode things anymore! I suffered through 2 days of encodes using M.Pack just to get a VCD!

Give Mac OS X developers a break and stop demanding things that just dont make sense right now.

[deadsierra]

I wouldnt encourage any developer to go down the all-in-one, press-one-button route. For starters, people should not be that lazy! The other thing though is, where else in your life can you push one button and things happen automatically?

And where will it end?

Do you want to push the power button on your Mac and end up with a fully copied DVD at the end? Who/what will insert the source DVD?

Do you want to click a button and burn a fully copied DVD at the end? Which piece of software is going to purchase the blank DVD and insert it in your machine?

Folks, there is no such thing as a one-step process, so let it go. Be thankful for what you've got. When I bought my current laptop in 2002, the best/only ripper for Mac, period, was Yade on OS 9. Far more sophisticated rippers had been available for Windows since at least 1998.

You dont even have to re-encode things anymore! I suffered through 2 days of encodes using M.Pack just to get a VCD!

Give Mac OS X developers a break and stop demanding things that just dont make sense right now.

The slippery slope argument is often a logical fallacy. This is one of those cases.

[destreaga]

I have a reader drive (original that came with G4) and a relatively new DVR106. What I don't like is how it opens the writer drive asking a blank. I left one in it for obvious reasons.And I don't like how it kicks out the DVD when its done, I come home and my idiot bulldog is standing there mesmerized by the tray being open. He probably was there for hours. And its slow......really slow.

I would also like to add that I really like using the current king of the hill MTR with DVD2oneX and Toast. I'm not locked into one process with the flexiblity they provide.

[WiseWeasel]

If you can figure out how to use MTR, DVD2OneX and Toast, and get a working DVD-R movie, then Fast DVD Copy is not for you, obviously. Hell, if you can find this site and actually post a comment, Fast DVD Copy is not for you. I think it can only be recommended to complete newbies with no hope of learning those tools, and a lot of disposable income.

[AntnyMD]

The slippery slope argument is often a logical fallacy. This is one of those cases.

Every now and then, people need a reality check.

[motherwell]

I think it can only be recommended to complete newbies with no hope of learning those tools, and a lot of disposable income.

exactly. I was going to give the app to my father and older brother who both have powerbooks, but don't really want to deal with 3 apps. But it doesn't work.............so there's nothing to see here people, move along.

[MacTraderBoy]

Ok, how about an app that doesn't do the burning, just the ripping and compressing? MTR with compression capabilities. Then I could still use Toast

[deadsierra]

The slippery slope argument is often a logical fallacy. This is one of those cases.

Every now and then, people need a reality check.

What is this "reality" you speak of?

[Nederbeat]

I wanted to add my few cents about Fast Dvd Copy as i have been trying it extensively for a few days now and people on this thread seem to be dismissing it too quickly. This is a really great program for certain things. First of all the trick with finding the temp Video_ts file and then burning that in toast works like a charm. Where I burned with fast dvd the resulting dvd didnt play in a few of my players. When burning the temp file in toast it plays in every one of them. From what i can see the program uses the same thing as the Dvdremaster downsizer in that in does a totally new compression albeit a lot quicker. I tried the program on only dvds which had a 7+ gig size and in which i wanted the entire dvd and not just parts of it. The difference btw fast dvd copy and using the triad of mtr or dvdbackup and dvd2one and toast is no comparison. Dvds done with fast copy look phenomenal and i have a 50'" wide flat. The differences are extremely minimal. Plus i have not had one coaster nor did it fail with any dvd I attempted to backup. I would say if you want to backup a full dvd and its over 6 gigs or a dvd where the film is spread out over 6 gigs or more i would use dvd fast copy. Anything less you could use dvd2one and get about the same results. So yeah i agree the program is way too expensve and with the method above it is more than one click but check out for yourself the results for a large sized dvd and you will see the quality is unmatched by some of the other programs.

[phillip9]

In the above post:
"First of all the trick with finding the temp Video_ts file and then burning that in toast works like a charm."

How do you gain access to the temporary VIDEO_TS file that is created? Where is it?

[galactica]

Hell, if you can find this site and actually post a comment, Fast DVD Copy is not for you.

here here....

[Nederbeat]

In the above post:
"First of all the trick with finding the temp Video_ts file and then burning that in toast works like a charm."

How do you gain access to the temporary VIDEO_TS file that is created? Where is it?

Its really easy to find....After the ripping and downsizing is done the app asks for a blank DVD to be inserted. Just let it wait.
Switch to the Finder and use the "Go to" menu -> "Go to folder". Just put in "/private/tmp" and you will see a folder called VIDEO_TS. Drag that file onto your desktop, create an AUDIO_TS file and burn in toast as you would the same after using dvd2one
Dont forget to quit fast dvd copy after you drag the file out and before you put a blank in to burn with toast.

[Nederbeat]

Hell, if you can find this site and actually post a comment, Fast DVD Copy is not for you.

here here....

Well i can find this site and post a comment and i know how to use plenty of other programs and i still stand by my previous comments. Fast Dvd Copy in CERTAIN CASES works like a charm and the results are better than using mtr or dvdbackup and dvd2one.
Note the person in the original quote above is one of the people behind MTR so take that for what it is.
No disrespect as i think MTR as well is a wonderful program and im glad to have it and i use it often.
There is room for more than one program though and ill use any combination to get the best results possible.

[phillip9]

Thank you Nederbeat!

[WiseWeasel]

Note the person in the original quote above is one of the people behind MTR so take that for what it is.

What does that have to do with anything? MTR is freeware, so it's not like it's to our advantage to talk it up. In fact, it's just more work for us answering support emails. What I was saying, was that from all the reports here, it seemed that FastDVDCopy doesn't work too well, failing on a lot of DVDs. Maybe you've had good luck, or maybe the people having problems did something wrong, but it's obviously not working well for a lot of people, and hence not worth $100 to me, or a lot of others, and I personally can only recommend it to people who can't figure out the 3 app method. Obviously, the 3 apps are going to give you a lot more control, and are more reliable, so if you can figure them out, then I can't imagine why you would use something like FDC. DVD2OneX will give you at least as much quality as FDC shrinking, and is much more customizable. If you don't care enough to taylor each rip to best compress each individual DVD, including ditching 4x3 versions on discs with both screen formats, or doing a film-only backup when the quality is too degraded by full disc mode, all without starting over at the rip stage every time, then FDC is fine. For those that don't care about the control, or don't want to learn, then FDC is ideal, when it works. It's still about $30-40 too much though.

[deadsierra]

Note the person in the original quote above is one of the people behind MTR so take that for what it is.

What does that have to do with anything? MTR is freeware, so it's not like it's to our advantage to talk it up.

I think theres more to it than that. In fact, unless there are serious issues with MtR or DFC, there should be absolutely no difference in the ripping portion of this whole thing. Except that DFC probably can't do RCE. Then, we hear that DFC frequently makes bad copies, while Toast ones work flawlessly. That leaves us with one step, Compression, which I won't deal with, because I don't care anymore. Oh, and Mac The Ripper is a cooler name. I always use products with a cooler name.

[WiseWeasel]

Oh, and Mac The Ripper is a cooler name. I always use products with a cooler name.

Rofl . . . BEST PHILOSOPHY EVAR!!!!!!!!!

[Nederbeat]

Wise weasel again i meant no disrespect. I love MTR. I do know how to use the 3 Step method and use it plenty of times. Again, from my orig post, I believe that FDC in CERTAIN CASES yields better results than from the 3 step method. As an example...i wanted to backup a copy of the movie Stoked. The disc was 7+gigs and i wanted pretty much the whole disc minus a few things. When i used Dvd2onex to get all the parts i wanted it came out blocky and looked very bad. When i used FDC to copy the entire disc it looked great. The loss was minimal. It was pretty startling how much better it looked from the dvd2one copy. The compression methods used by both programs is not the same. From what i can see, FDC discards the orig compression and creates a new one while Dvd2one only increases the compression of the original.
As for the price, yes it is way way too high and frankly once the dual layer dvd recorders become available and not astronomically expensive this whole convo on which is a better program will probably become a moot point.

[WiseWeasel]

DVDRemaster can also be substituted for DVD2OneX...

[geezerbuttz]

Nederbeat... please feel free to pay your $99 and not use an application thats free.MTR has NEVER been over promoted , and has NEVER been described as something it is not....Lets look at this shall we....

10,000 downloads of version tracker....around 20 reported disk rip failures.... not bad for a free app.

Do The Math ( if your out of junior school ).

[galactica]

10,000 downloads of version tracker..

and thats just version tracker!
look at all of us in here.....
heck ive even seen it talked about on apple discussions under some of the DVD forms they have!

[Nederbeat]

Nederbeat... please feel free to pay your $99 and not use an application thats free.MTR has NEVER been over promoted , and has NEVER been described as something it is not....Lets look at this shall we....

10,000 downloads of version tracker....around 20 reported disk rip failures.... not bad for a free app.

Do The Math ( if your out of junior school ).

Am I out of junior school??? Possibly i should be asking you that cause apparently you cannot read correctly. I clearly stated in my previous posts that

1)Fast Dvd Copy is way too expensive
2)MTR is a wonderful program which I use often and am very thankful it is free.

All I was responding to was all the dismissive posts about FDC's lack of quality. I dont agree with that. It is 2 diff things to comment about an applications quality and its cost. IMO, its cost sucks, its quality in CERTAIN CASES is unmatched.

No need to get heated

[geezerbuttz]

the answer is obvious as to wether i am out of school.....

I wrote MTR , what did you last write

{ apart from......

10 PRINT "HELLO"
20 GOTO 10


}
lol[/img]

BTW if i can't read ... you can't write.... DON'T is spelt this way just for starters.

cause is not a word.. it's because...

[Nederbeat]

the answer is obvious as to wether i am out of school.....

I wrote MTR , what did you last write

{ apart from......

10 PRINT "HELLO"
20 GOTO 10


}
lol[/img]

BTW if i can't read ... you can't write.... DON'T is spelt this way !!!!! just for starters.

Ahhhhahaha is that how bad you are feeling that you had to stoop to correcting a typo. Is ok man, I won't get into a battle with you over typo's. Nor will I get into a pissing match over what you do and what i do. No need. Feel free to consider yourself king of the hill. Did not mean to get you all bent out of shape about your program. I love it and congrats and thank you for writing it. I will continue to use it as well as any other program that will yield the best quality like FDC in certain cases.