How to copy a DVD?

[simakun]

I've got a 2.5 hr home-made video recorded on a DVD. Does anyone know how I can make a copy of it? Can I do it on my home computer (I've got easy CD creator but not sure how to use it)? what else do I need? Or should I goto a professional? Any recommendations of places or people? thanks for any and all advice!

[Mikie]

You need a DVD burner and a DVD copying program. Easy cd creator will not work because the program will need to be 'authored'. In lay terms it will need a program that can set it up to be read by a dvd player. There are specific programs that do just this. Give me a moment and I'll get you some links.

[jcooper]

Ah the beauty of owning a Mac, one click and its done

But if you're a PC owner just search Copy DVDs and Google will run loads of links.

If you end up being stuck I can do it for you if you supply a DVDR

[Mikie]

DVD Xcopy http://www.dvd-x-copy.co.uk/

DVD Shrink http://www.dvdshrink.org/#

[sayx]

What I do for my DVD’s is first rip them from the cd to hard drive with SmartRipper.exe then separate the files with MpegUtils.exe if needed then I encode them in to divx file format with FlaskMpeg. It took me 20 or so tries before I got good rips that would play on my computer that is hooked to my TV. If you have an older/slower computer it can take you up to 24-30 hours to do this (PIII 800). 4-5 hours on my P4 2.8. you will loss quality but hay my son is not complaining about his muumi’s being a little low quality. You can then burn it to CD. Another way is to rip it as VCD and use your normal cd burner and play it in most newer DVD players.

Dave

[jwesthues]

Ah the beauty of owning a Mac, one click and its done

A fellow Mac owner... good to know that there are a few of us out there. Just to expose some of my technical incompetence with computers, how do you do that? I didn't think you could do that with iDVD. Is it just copying the files over? That can't be it.

- Jukka

[simakun]

thanks for the advice everyone. i looked at a few sites thru google and the ones Mikie suggested. i am kinda reluctant to spend that much on the required DVD to DVD software cos this is a one-off thing and i probably won't ever need to copy stuff again. that and i don't even have a credit card. the freeware offered by dvdshrink was interesting but i was repeatedly barred from downloading it. It provided software for copying DVD to CD which they call a "back-up" as opposed to burning. what's the difference? the footage i need copied occupies the entire DVDR (4.7GB) so can it fit onto 700MB without loss of quality? does anyone have any other suggestions? is there like a shop i can goto for something like this?thanks once again for any and all help.

[sayx]

ya you can copy the dvd to more then one cd and not loss much quility at all but you would have to filp cds in your dvd player or on the computer

[jcooper]

simakun as I said if you need a DVD burned I can do it for you. You can PM me and we can sort it out from there. As long as its a normal family video and not a "Family Video" if you know what I mean.

Yeah Jukka, well to copy a DVD theres loads of tools to basically copy a legal DVD and fit it on DVDR. But for simakuns need you basically copy the DVD, use the comman mount or the GUI tool sizzle and then use disk copy, to copy the mount to DVD. But for sure good to hear theres more than Linux users in Finland, maybe these commodity computing lords may learn something and find that KDE and GTK suck and look at OS X instead.

[simakun]

thanks for the offer jcooper. i held off awhile cos i was a little reluctant to trouble you. fortunately, a friend of mine said that he has the equipment to do it and he also lives in the next building so there is a happy ending after all. thanks for everyone's advice.