Virtual DVD writer

[vcd_user]

I like to write DVD to a virtual drive on my harddrive before writing it to a physical DVD. I am hoping that the write speed is faster and it can save me money on DVDs when the write fails. Dual layer support is preferred. I heard that Alcohol 120 provides many virtual drives. But I am not sure if the virtual drives are just virtual readers. Is there any other software that will do this good and cheap ? Any recommendation is welcome.

[jimmalenko]

IMGBurn can "Build" an ISO file from your VIDEO_TS folder, which you could then mount with something like Daemon Tools for the full DVD effect. Or you could just open the VIDEO_TS folder in something like PowerDVD using the "open DVD file on hard disk drive" method and it should emulate DVD player playback as well.

[vcd_user]

I prefer to see the exact same folders (not creating an image file) wriiten to the virtual drive as the physical drive. This will give me the good feel to start the actual physical write.

[jimmalenko]

You can launch the VIDEO_TS folder in a software DVD Player straight after authoring and it will mimic the behaviour of a settop DVD Player. But that said, a mounted ISO file is exactly the same as putting the burnt DVD into your computer DVD drive ...

[Pinstripes23]

I prefer to see the exact same folders (not creating an image file) wriiten to the virtual drive as the physical drive. This will give me the good feel to start the actual physical write.

Well if your user name is any indication, burning to dvd is different than burning mpeg as vcd/svcd. There are no excess folders added to the dvd unlike vcd/svcd.

[classfour]

I nearly always create an image file for DVD burning - usually to burn with Decryptor, Imgburn or Alcohol depending on how many DVDrs that I want to burn at once - To view the image: I mount it on the virtual drive in alcohol.

[vcd_user]

Thanks for all the responses. BTW, VCD_User has some inidcations on the time I joined the group when DVD writer was a luxury. I did not know tha I can just mount an Image file to Software player until I saw these answers. I'll now create an image file, check it out on the software player before writing the image to disks. That will do what I want.
But I am still interested in if there is any good virtual DVD writer software ?

[jimmalenko]

I'll now create an image file, check it out on the software player before writing the image to disks. That will do what I want.

You can even save yourself a little bit of time and just load your authored VIDEO_TS folder straight into a software player and it will emulate both an image file and/or a disc in the drive.

But I am still interested in if there is any good virtual DVD writer software ?

As above, but in all honesty, the compilation to ISO is pretty elementary and there's not a lot of places to go wrong - hence not really a differentiation between good and bad - as it shouldn't change the structure or picture/audio quality at all - it is simply compiling the VIDEO_TS folder and its contents into the one file. The only reason you really need to use ISO at all is that they are (arguably) easier to archive/store, or your burning software strictly requires it - IMGBurn DVDDecrypter used to, but IMGBurn can now create the ISO from a VIDEO_TS folder for you now.