CloneDVD issue

[Mike_A]

I have a question for those of you who are experts in CloneDVD.

I've ripped an entire DVD using DVD Decryptor onto my hard drive. The DVD is a DVD5 so it can fit onto a DVD+R blank disc. When I use the "CloneDVD" feature, the program will take approximately 5-10 minutes "processing" the video and then creating DVD files. (The video is not really being processed though because the log says that the "Target size is sufficient, transcoder disabled".) After this process is done, the DVD is then burned.

However, when I use the "Write existing data" feature, the program goes directly to the burning, skipping the processing entirely.

Both options produce exactly the same result. Menus and subtitles are preserved and the picture quality is the same. So finally my question to you experts is what is the difference between these features? Obviously the processing in the "CloneDVD" feature need not be done. What's going on?

[Mike_A]

Forgot to mention:

I'm using a laptop computer running Microsoft Windows XP Professional and CloneDVD 2.4.3.1

[pg55555]

CloneDVD has actually 3 modes

1) Copy DVD Titles
2) Clone DVD
3) Write Existing Data

The two first can compress the data before writing it to the disk, in order to assure they fit your target (by default the 4.38 G of DVD-5, but it can be changed), but the can also re-author the DVD. The difference I found is that in 1) Copy DVD Titles, by default only the main picture Title and no menus are selected. You have to manualy select the other titles or menus you want in your backup; while in 2) Clone DVD all the titles and menus are preselected by default and you have to deselect those titles you do not want.

So, the option 2) Clone DVD first step is to compress and re-author your source to a Temp directory before burning. Even when you do not need compression (and so the transcoding is disabled), it does this step in order to do the re-authoring process

Of course, in your case, as there is not need for compression, and as you have let all the titles and menus selected, the option 2) produces similar output to option 3) Write Existing Data, which burns directly the movie data from a VIDEO_TS directory, which have to be already compressed and authored.

Pablo

[Mike_A]

Pablo, thanks for the response.

It just seems odd that CloneDVD would do ANY processing at all if the target size is sufficient. However, it probably does this due to the re-authoring ability that the first two options present. Thanks again.