Best utility for backing up Episode DVDs?

[tjtoed]

I have been extremely successful in backing up my regular DVD, but have a question about backing up Episode DVDs (like Angel and Farscape).

Which utility works the best for backing up Episode DVDs?

(I currently have IC 7 and DVD2One.)

Thanks

[NYPlayer]

IC7 Dvd2one does not do episodics unless you want to use ifoedit and other tools with it.

[vnpn]

IC7 does work on Eps DVD but not all. Like my problem with The Simpsons Season 2 ( First 3 disc work great, last one no luck). Also try DVD95Copy fix my problem but they not allow you to remove the extra so the quality not really good.

[scottvf]

I like backing up episodes by using DVDToolbox to extract each episode into it's own .vob file. Then just use an authoring program that imports .vob files (like ez cd/dvd creator6) then you can create your own customized menu for your episodes.

[KungFuCow]

DVD95Copy is probably the best for episodic DVDs. It allows you to compress the entire DVD equally.

www.dvd95copy.com

[scottvf]

The reason I don't use programs like dvd95 copy, ic, or dvd2one for episodes is I want to have good quality. I have a 65" hd tv and you can really notice a difference when you lower the bitrate that much. I only compress movies if their under 6gb. Otherwize I'll split the movie on 2 dvd's with dvd decrypter and ifo edit v 0.94 then nero to burn. If you have a reg tv 13"-35" then you probably won't notice a difference, but I you plan to get a big screen tv in the future (since hdtv is the future) you might want better quality. (better to think ahead)

[vnpn]

@scottvf

Could you give me more detail what you did with Eps DVd with DVD toolbox, i'm very interest to know how. THanks alot

[cugglemonster]

been lookin for this progam dvdtoolbox where can i find it please ??? got some episode dvd to backup asap

[NYPlayer]

http://www.dvdtoolbox.de/down.htm

[cugglemonster]

thanx for that friend

[Valnar]

I use Gordian Knot with DivX 5.02

I get each episode to be about 360MB and keep the original AC3 track muxed in the AVI. I burn 11 episodes per DVD-R, so my Angel season 1 (and Buffy Season 2 & 3 for that matter) all fit on two DVD-R's.

I use DivX for all TV episodes since I can fit so many on a DVD-R disc.
(I squeezed Buffy Season 1 on a single DVD-R disc).

I know DivX was not brought up in this thread, but I thought I'd add my 2 cents to give you another avenue to think about.

Quality is excellent, but I will say each file is 512x384. To put it closer to 740x480, I would probably need 3 DVD-R's per season, which I didn't want to do.

-Robert

[scottvf]

What I did was rip the whole dvd with dvd decrypter in a folder. I then created subfolders ep1, ep2, ep3, ect for each episode. Then I ran dvdtoolbox and choose the folder where I riped the dvd as Source. It will automatically create a subfolder dvdtoolbox\ as a destination. Then hit Execute button. A new window will come up. On the top left where it says Pick PGC (double click wanted) you will see +dvd. Click on the plus. Then it will have your title (+title 1) click on that plus and it will expand all the PGC's for that title (PGC 1 (00:25:46)) I had up to 8 of them. (8 half hour episodes of all in the family. I then double click on the 1st one. Then you will see all things that you can strip from it. I always strip the subtitles. (I don't use them). Then click on Split/Strip button. I takes anywhere from 5min to 15 min to Split and strip your episode. When It gets done, I minimize dvdtoolbar and look in the folder e:\all in the family\dvdtoolbox\disc1\VIDEO_TS where it created a burnable dvd files. Then I look for the vob file it created for that episode and move it to my ep1 folder. Then continue to do the next on the same way untill all 8 episodes are in their own folder. Then I open Easy CD/DVD Creater 6 and use dvd builder. I add each vob episode file till my dvd is full. Rename each epsode on the menu. then burn. That way you can pick what episode you want to watch from the menu of your dvd.

[scottvf]

Also if you have PowerDVD you can examine .vob files to see what are in them. That's how I found out that 1 1/3 episodes are in each .vob when you first rip them. So dvdtoolbox will create a .vob with only 1 episode in it. If you get a dvd where each .vob file is only 1 epsode then you can skip the dvdtoolbox part. But I doubt if you will find any that way. (I haven't yet)