Software to get home movies off DVD and Burn DVDs

[Angel835]

Hi, I'm super new to the whole burn your own DVD thing. I'm looking for a simple, free (cause I don't know how long I'm going to have the patience to do this) program to brun my own DVD's.
I also need a program that will copy DVD's because the only copy I have of my wedding video is on a DVD and I'd like a digital copy to play around with.
If a simple, free program can do both I'll be super happy but two different ones would be fine too

[aedipuss]

dvds are just data discs. if it's a burned disc there is no copy protection so just open the disc with explorer and copy/paste the video_ts and audio_ts folder to your hard drive. to make a copy use the free imgburn in build mode, drag those folders into it and click burn.

[Angel835]

I keep getting error messages when I try to do that. Of course I closed the window after two failed attempts to try it and never thought to write down my error. The DVD I'm trying to copy was made at a photo store, if that makes any difference.

The program imgburn, does it allow you to create menus and such too?

[jman98]

It's unlikely but not impossible that the DVD has some kind of copy protection on it. It may be just that you are doing something wrong. aedipuss' instructions are correct but for a newbie they are also somewhat easy for you to botch. Try this guide instead:
http://forum.imgburn.com/index.php?showtopic=1778
This creates an ISO file to your hard drive. You can then burn it to as many discs as you want. Here's how to burn an ISO:
http://neosmart.net/wiki/display/G/Burning+ISO+Images+with+ImgBurn

If your photographer put some kind of home brew copy protection on the disc, these steps won't work. Come back and post a photo or two of your errors so we can suggest an alternative.

[Angel835]

That looks like it could be promising...I like pictures to help guide me! I will work on downloading imgburn and doing that in the days to come.
Hope it works and I hope I won't be back complaining about this problem, but on to bigger and more frustrating things!

[Angel835]

I'm back!!
I downloaded imgburn, and at 90% I got an error message that said the following:
Cannot Read From File "filename"
Reason: Data Error (cyclic redundancy check)

I'm starting to think that I might not be cut out for this kind of thing!

[gonwk]

Hi Angel835,

Reason: Data Error (cyclic redundancy check) means the "Source" that ImgBurn is trying to read from has some problems ...

If Source is a Hard Drive ... run Disk Scan to see if your Hard Drive is shot ... or some problems in some sectors ...

If Source is from your DVD ... then you might have scratches on your DVD Floppy ... which you need to carefully buff out ...

G!