05-12-2006, 05:33 AM
I bought a nifty new portable DVD player a few months ago. It's just a basic model with a 7" LCD, battery pack, and the AC and DC car adaptor. I mostly bought it so that my son can be distracted during long car rides. I wish these things were around when I was a little boy :(
I've been anticipating our next long roadtrip, which will be a 4-6 hour drive (depending on traffic) in August. I was thinking that I really don't want to bring along all of our commercial DVDs. Since I have a DVD burner, I figured that it wouldn't be a problem to just burn backup copies of my son's favourite movies to DVD-R and put them all in a cheap CD binder. If I lose them, it would be no big deal. It would also save a ton of space because I can fit a bajillion DVD-Rs in a really small pouch.
It turns out that backing up commercial DVDs to DVD-R is not as easy as one might think. I have Nero 7 Ultra, so I figured that this should be a breeze. Nero burns everthing, right? Nope. It wouldn't even begin to allow me to burn copies of the movies I own. Copy protection sucks. Out of all of the features of Nero 7 Ultra, I only have use for Nero Express. What a gigantic waste of money that was.
The other problem with backing up commercial DVDs is that they are almost always dual-layer. I have a dual-layer DVD burner, but the required media is almost impossible to obtain. No local stores stock them, and they are incredibly expensive to purchase online.
I asked a few co-workers what they use to burn backup copies of DVD movies, and they almost universally said "DVD Shrink". I googled it, found a download link, and now I'm in love.
DVD Shrink is now my newest favourite toy. It allows you to strip out unneeded DVD extra features and compresses everything so that you can create a regular single-layer DVD-R backup from a commercial dual-layer DVD. I've only used it with one movie (The Hulk widescreen - my son loves the Hulk), but everything was easy to figure out and it even removed the stupid FBI notice and the forced previews.
I've been anticipating our next long roadtrip, which will be a 4-6 hour drive (depending on traffic) in August. I was thinking that I really don't want to bring along all of our commercial DVDs. Since I have a DVD burner, I figured that it wouldn't be a problem to just burn backup copies of my son's favourite movies to DVD-R and put them all in a cheap CD binder. If I lose them, it would be no big deal. It would also save a ton of space because I can fit a bajillion DVD-Rs in a really small pouch.
It turns out that backing up commercial DVDs to DVD-R is not as easy as one might think. I have Nero 7 Ultra, so I figured that this should be a breeze. Nero burns everthing, right? Nope. It wouldn't even begin to allow me to burn copies of the movies I own. Copy protection sucks. Out of all of the features of Nero 7 Ultra, I only have use for Nero Express. What a gigantic waste of money that was.
The other problem with backing up commercial DVDs is that they are almost always dual-layer. I have a dual-layer DVD burner, but the required media is almost impossible to obtain. No local stores stock them, and they are incredibly expensive to purchase online.
I asked a few co-workers what they use to burn backup copies of DVD movies, and they almost universally said "DVD Shrink". I googled it, found a download link, and now I'm in love.
DVD Shrink is now my newest favourite toy. It allows you to strip out unneeded DVD extra features and compresses everything so that you can create a regular single-layer DVD-R backup from a commercial dual-layer DVD. I've only used it with one movie (The Hulk widescreen - my son loves the Hulk), but everything was easy to figure out and it even removed the stupid FBI notice and the forced previews.