Newbie Question: How good is the quality on a DVD backup?

[billharrison]

Hi guys. Been doing divx backups for a number of years now, and am considering doing some DVD backups with my new dvd burner. My question is the following:

Just how good is the video quality on dvd backups? I have a widescreen HDTV and blocking and such is very noticable on my setup. Even some pressed dvds have macroblocking that shows up on my set. So im curious as to how much quality is lost in the conversion? I am planning on only having the movie and 1 soundtrack (either DD5.1 or DTS if its available) on the disc. So just how bad do the encodes turn out?

Does anyone with a HDTV 50" or so do backups care to comment??

Thanks Bill

[muralin]

if u do 2 DVDBackups (using DVDFab) or just decrypt & burn with no additional compression, u wont lose quality.

if u do additional compression, u may lose some quaslity. as we say, its in the eye of the beholder. no standard answer. try and see for yourself.

I have HDTV and I am happy as a clam using DVDShrink for most movies. i do only movies (no extras) and if the movie is over 6 GB, i use DVDFab to split the movie on to 2 DVDRs.

[windtrader]

There are a number of methods and tools to backup DVDs. Each has its advantages and issues. In general, I have found that you can get a very clean backup, one that rivals the original, of nearly every DVD. That is a bold statement but that is what I now experience on a daily basis.

Movies that need no compression will transfer exactly as the source. Those with light compression requirements can be done with the various transcoding methods. And those that need significant compression can be processed by reencoding.

I am fairly critical these days but not a die-hard anal-ist that I used to be :) I playback movies on a 80" wide screen using a front projector, so most visible problems will be clearly seen.

So just how bad do the encodes turn out? I think you will restate this to be "just look how good the encodes turn out". :)

[GooglyBear]

Originally posted by windtrader
There are a number of methods and tools to backup DVDs. Each has its advantages and issues. In general, I have found that you can get a very clean backup, one that rivals the original, of nearly every DVD. That is a bold statement but that is what I now experience on a daily basis.

Movies that need no compression will transfer exactly as the source. Those with light compression requirements can be done with the various transcoding methods. And those that need significant compression can be processed by reencoding.

I am fairly critical these days but not a die-hard anal-ist that I used to be :) I playback movies on a 80" wide screen using a front projector, so most visible problems will be clearly seen.

I think you will restate this to be "just look how good the encodes turn out". :)

so what do you use for backups? dvdshrink? ic? movie only's then? i'd reckon the quality has to be purty good if you watching on a 80" fp

[windtrader]

There are lots of tools and I have tried many of them. I have settled on using DVDShrink, Nero Recode, D2SRoba/DVD2DVD/FACAR/CCE, DVDDecrypter as the main tools. For special things such as dealing with extra subtitles and audio tracks that require more work, I use tools such as Subrip, subtitle workshop, Maestro. IF I need to make simple menus I will use DVD Author or DVD-Lab.

I use IFOEDIT quite a lot to tweak the movies. For example, I burn lots of foreign movies, so I like to ensure the native language track is selected and the English subtitles are started by default. I can do this with IFOEDIT. Often times movies have all the fbi and other crap before starting the movie. I can just skip over these by flipping a few bits using IFOEDIT.

The possiblities are nearly limitless; I'm sure your time and interest is more limited to learn and apply everything. Doom9 is a great site to get educated and find support. Read the guides, FAQ, use search to find stuff. Nearly all information you need to get you going IS here somewhere, so really do read and search before posting.

Good luck.