Copy Unprotected DVD

[Jonj1611]

Hi,

I have a movie I made of my daughter's play complete with chapters and I want to copy it to another dvd to send to my parents.

I am right in assuming that all I need to do is copy the dvd to the hard drive, then burn the files to a blank dvd? And that will still play in a regular dvd player?

I know it sounds basic but just wondering if its toooooo simple lol

[Biscuit]

Thats correct. My favourite software for this kind of job is IMG Burn. Its free and pretty straight forward to use. Never failed me

[Jonj1611]

Ah ideal, I have that software myself, just thought it was too simple, I know I could have tried but would have wasted a dvd, thanks for the info biscuit

[Biscuit]

No problem, give us a shout if you have any issues

[Jonj1611]

Ideal, will do, thank you

[scaryjim]

You'll definitely want to rip the disk as an image, rather than files - that way you don't even need to burn a new DVD to play it back on a computer - just copy the image over and mount it with something like Daemon Tools.

In fact, I'm pretty sure Daemon Tools has all the functions to rip the image and burn it to a blank DVD as well as being able to mount the image (i.e. use a virtual DVD drive) to play like a normal DVD. Good bit of software, DT

[g8ina]

Nero Express ftw, "copy entire DVD"

[Agent]

You'll definitely want to rip the disk as an image, rather than files - that way you don't even need to burn a new DVD to play it back on a computer - just copy the image over and mount it with something like Daemon Tools.

In fact, I'm pretty sure Daemon Tools has all the functions to rip the image and burn it to a blank DVD as well as being able to mount the image (i.e. use a virtual DVD drive) to play like a normal DVD. Good bit of software, DT

That's awfully complex for his parents to watch a video!

Just burn it as another DVD and pass it along. It'll autoplay when inserted into a PC without any messing about with image files. Not only that, but he does say "And that will still play in a regular dvd player?"....which a image file on a DVD won't do!

Imgburn is perfect for things like this.

[Funkstar]

The way DVDs work, anything that can burn a DVD (even the built in functions of Windows) will let you burn a copy of the files.

Unlike an audio CD, the video data on a DVD is held in regular files. Copy them manually to another disk and they still work (as long as there is no copy protection). No ripping, no decoding. Just drag and drop the files into a folder on your desktop (or anywhere else), put a blank disk in and drag the files onto the drive icon. Windows will write them to disk, make sure it is finalised and away you go.

[Biscuit]

Perhaps, to me it still seems more sensible to create and ISO or BIN file and have it as a complete image. I dont understand the need to complicate matters beyond... make and image and then burn a disk.

[Funkstar]

Copy files to desktop, copy back to a blank disk.

No need for any special software, will work with a virgin Windows install with nothing added. I don't see anything complicated about that. It's only slightly different from copying files between two USB sticks really.

[Agent]

Copy files to desktop, copy back to a blank disk.

No need for any special software, will work with a virgin Windows install with nothing added. I don't see anything complicated about that. It's only slightly different from copying files between two USB sticks really.

The copying of the files isn't the issue really, it's just Windows built in writing software is very basic in terms of user feedback. If anything goes wrong, you're normally left in the dark. With something that's very small and free like Imgburn, it'll give you endless information about what's caused the issue.

Granted, 90% of the time it's caused by bad media, but Imgburn is so lightweight and free, it's always worth having in your arsenal

edit - For example: Get a DVD with even one sector with an error on it, and copy it through windows to the computer. DOIINKKK, goes your sound as it bombs out mid copy. With something like Imgburn, you can get it to fill it as an empty value. Sure this means you're going to get a quick / small artefact in the final disk at that time position, but a dam sight better than no copy at all

[Funkstar]

I know what you are saying, and I do agree with you.

I've just done it with only Windows loads of times in my previous job and never had a problem. We kept a dump of a few in house DVDs on the network and I had instructions for how to put them on a disk for the admin girls. I don't think they had any problems either (provided the put the AUDIO_TS and VIDEO_TS folders on the disk and not the parent folder)

[scaryjim]

I can see where you're coming from Funk, but as a power user I'd rather have the option of either burning the image to a DVD to send to a "normal" user (i.e. stick this in the drive and it'll work), or sending another power user an image they can mount or burn as they see fit. Plus Win 7 includes image burning software as part of the base install nowadays, and I can't imagine me ever having a computer that didn't get an image ripping tool installed on it within the first 24 hours - very useful for backup purposes if nothing else.

Of course, all this is predicated on me making a basic assumption that the OP is a similar level of power user to me. If they're not, then the files -> hard drive -> blank DVD is probably all they need to worry about.

[Jonj1611]

Thanks for all the comments

Indeed scaryjim, about a similar level of power user To be honest and from my experience of dvd authoring programs etc, I thought the task would be a lot more involved than it actually is. Think it was my brain just saying, hey its windows, it can't be that easy. Turned out it was in the end.

What I actually did in the end was just copy the audio and video folder to a dvd, that was that sorted and then I created an image of the disk for achiving, so if I need it in future rather than hunting around for it, will just burn it from the image.

Great comments and great feedback, thanks and appreciated

[Leftfield_2k2]

As others has stated it's not just a matter of copying off the disc then onto another as the filesystem needs to be correct for DVD Video (UDF). As stated use the excellent AND free Imgburn to create an image and then burn that, this will ensure a 100% exact copy including setting the correct file-system.