is it possible 2 copy 2 dvds at the same time on 1 computer

[jennajamason]

hi. i ahve quite a few backups to make before the 16june as i am going away for 5 weeks to florida(luki me) I know there are better things to do over there but i still wanted to take quite a few dvd's for my portable dvd player to watch by the pool. i dont want to take the originals and have just discoverd all about backup's.
i dont have long and need to copy quite alot of dvds and wont have the time to copy all of them cos of work and other stuff
i have 1 dvd writer an nec 3520
my question is : if i bought another dvd writer also internal would it be possible 2use 1 click copy and dvd shrink to copy 2 dvds at the same time (not make 2 copies of the same disc) will it clog up the cpu and mess up my copies. Are there any down sides to any of this such as wil it decrease the quality and give me skips and jumps or even coasters. I plan 2 use verbitam discs

Thanks alot guys,

[jimmalenko]

Yes, you could do it that way, but keep in mind that with half as much CPU cycles, RAM and transfer speeds across your IDE channels (from your DVD Drives to your hard drive(s) and back), you'll more than likely find that it takes as long (if not longer) to do 2 DVDs this way, as opposed to doing them one after the other. I guess the benefit is that you could set a couple going when you go to work or whatever.

What you could try is ripping a few DVDs to your hard drive first, and then open up a number of DVDShrink sessions. Then set all these to run simultaneously while you're at work. If you were to do, say, 4 DVDs this way, it would take roughly 4 times as long as doing them one after the other, but at least you wouldn't have to be there to swap discs or reconfigure DVDShrink or anything like that.

Of course if you're integrating the burning step into the whole DVDShrink process, then you can only really do 2 at a time if you only have 2 burners.

[pyscrow]

Basically I dont think you can burn different content to different burners at the same time. The software locks out the burners. However the burning is not the issue, generally it is the ripping and shrinking that eats up your time

You would be better suited to get a liteon DVD drive, and use it to rip your DVD's, they are not locked at 2x ripping, and can rip upto 8x, ripping a DVD inbetween 10 and 15 minutes. You are however still stuck with the 30 to 45 minute shrinking time (on high quality settings), if you are only taking your movies away for viewing and can put up with a few artifacts, turn off the deep analysis, that will cut the shrinking time to 10 to 15 minutes, if your burning at 8x, you could then be producing DVD copies at about 40 minute intervals.

Shrinking the resulting rip on another computer/s networked to your computer with your DVD burner. That would cut you down to less than 30 minutes to copy each DVD.

The problem then becomes being disiplined enough to hang around feeding disks and running software for as long as it takes.

[jennajamason]

hi
thanks for the help. the thing i need to cut down time is the compression not the burning.
I think i will use the dvd's when i get home so i dont damage the originals so i wouldnt want to skimp on quality. jamalnko had a good suggestion but still dont understand how that would work, I wouldnt mind burning one while the other writter is compressing if i carnt burn them together but as long as they are both doing something. I really dont want any quality reduction or skips and stuff on the dvd .also guys last question, will i get better quality if i coppy the original or does it make no difference if i copy the copy
thanks guys

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[handyguy]

Why don't you just copy to your HD & play from there? You won't have to use compression, but you can.

[jennajamason]

because im taking the disks on holiday

[ZippyP.]

... will i get better quality if i coppy the original or does it make no difference if i copy the copy

Unlike analog, digital formats can make an exact copy that is identical to the original. You can copy a copy with no loss in quality.

[jennajamason]

makes sense but what happens if the copy has small errors, i am using verbatim but is there a program (not nero) that i can download for free that is going to tell me how well the disk burned and show me a chart of the running time of the dvd with spikes and stuff if there were blips and skips extera, what are these programs generally called so i could do a google search.
thanks

[handyguy]

Try running VERIFY when you make your disks.

[pyscrow]

You can shrink and burn at the same time, ripping and shrinking at the same time may cause some issues depending on CPU speed, whether you have multiple hard drives, the speed of your drives etc etc. You may find your shrinking times blow out.