How do I get started with DVD backup

[JoshW]

Hey everyone, I'm a Noob to DVD back up, I had copied DVD's to SVCD using the guides and software here and have come up with great results, I got a new rig and it came with a DVD burner so I'm trying to get started on backing up DVD's to DVDR...Can you guys please point me to some guides/software/reading material on the subject and your suggestions.. I have read some things and I guess my first question is, are most commercial DVDs in the -9 format (dual layered) and is it possible to copy these over on to two disks and still retain the 5.1 DD or DTS sound? Again any information would be great, thanks alot.. Josh

[exobyte]

One does not get a rig. One builds it.

[exobyte]

Try DVD Shrink

[Kedirekin]

Most disks are DVD9.

You can use DVDShrink to copy a DVD9 on to two disk, sort of. Most often the approach is:
- disk 1: re-author - movie only
- disk 2: full disk - movie shrunk to still frames, no audio

The only drawback is, if you try this approach on disks with special features in the movie (button over video, like Follow the White Rabbit mode on Matrix, or multi-angle), you loose a lot - re-author doesn't carry these things over. You also loose the menus on the movie, but you can still get to the audio and subtitles using the appropriate buttons on the remote.

You can also use DVDFab to split the disk, but (at least with the old free version) that ends up creating a flipper, and the limitations above apply on disk 2.

An approach that is more work, but gives you more control, is to use a stripping program (like DVDStripper, DVDReMake or even IfoEdit if you're willing to work hard enough) to create the two disks. This lets you create, for example, a disk with the movie and the menus, and another disk with the extras and the menus. If you use DVDReMake, you can even hide menu buttons that don't apply (DVDReMake isn't free though).

[TheSeeker]

DVD-Rebuilder now supports Button over video and is still in beta but is looking amazingly promising. It uses the cce engine to encode, so you get better quality than pretty much any transcoder. But it takes a while longer. If the dvd you want to backup to a dvd-r is just barely over 4.5 gbs. then use a transcoder like InstantCopy 8. otherwise use a re encoder like dvd-rebuilder.