The legitimacy of copying DVD's...

[Duvie]

I know often the topic about copying DVD's can often invoke reponses of "illegal" and "pirating", but there is a viable use for it and there are large quantities of software (both free and for retail) out there to help us.

The main use that comes to mind is backing up DVD titles....I know you are thinking I am writing this as a politically correct way of justifying it. However I have done this as many as 10 times in the last year. Reason???

Kids!!! My son and most peoples kids are being inundated with tons of dvd titles of their favorite disney movies to favorite TV shows. The fact is they often load them by themselves and one can only conjur up pictures of sticky hands (peanut butter and jelly) and fingerprints. This is why I in fact did backup his titles....Another reasons is often movies are laden with menus and choices that confuse the small child so I was able to backup movie portion only in either standard 4:3 format or widescreen and take that option out of the equation. I take out the half hour of blantant commercial selling by Disney with previews so my son doesn't have to figure to hit menu to bipass it all to go to main menu. The fact is he has already scratched the heck out of some of those dvd-rw disk to the point of no resale value if it was the original DVD and near freezing in dvd players, all the while the original is pristeeen as if I just opened it up.

Another justification is when we go on vacation I am able to take some movies yet not have the possibility of leaving it behind or having it stolen. With a DVD-rw I merely erase it later and copying the next title over it. I have done this numerous times already.


The fact remains as long as the movie is intended for your sole use and you own the original you are totally within your legal rights to do it.
If you then duplicate and distribute then you are breaking the law, regardless if money was garnered from it.

I contend backing up is legitiment and necessary to secure your investment will have longevity.

[Mikki]

I definitely know about the kids...and it's not just dvd's I've had to replace...kid's computer games as well...:p

Personally I think the best reason is the theft reason...the same reason I use burnt cd's in the car...quality is good and if it get's stolen it's no big deal....;)

[Duvie]

Originally posted by Mikki
I definitely know about the kids...and it's not just dvd's I've had to replace...kid's computer games as well...:p

Personally I think the best reason is the theft reason...the same reason I use burnt cd's in the car...quality is good and if it get's stolen it's no big deal....;)

I can attest to the cd thing...I had stereo stolen and a few other items but while the cd-rs were ruffled through not one was taken...Thieves can't hock them so they often don't take them. Very few actually want the stuff they take....

[ThugsRook]

concidering the price of DVDs and CDs ~ personal backups is the main reason. i make a copy as soon as i get it and then never use the original again.

:wave:

[Duvie]

Originally posted by ThugsRook
concidering the price of DVDs and CDs ~ personal backups is the main reason. i make a copy as soon as i get it and then never use the original again.

:wave:

I agree....That is why I called it an investment. At 15-30 dollars per disc and the next big thing around the corner I like to have the ability in the future if I see fit to sell them or trade them. Many ppl flat out do not except dvds with scratches so I try hard to keep them flawless.

[oldfart]

I may have to try it out. The kids are getting more DVDs now and often cant get the movie to start with all the menu stuff.

I can make a movie that will just "play" when the disc is inserted? I hear the Pinnacle Instant Copy is good

[ThugsRook]

I can make a movie that will just "play" when the disc is inserted?

LOL ~ yea interesting concept isnt it!?

thats the one big reason i kinda hate DVDs :smash:
(that d@mn menu)

[oldfart]

It may be worth it. My 6 year old can work the VCR just fine including fast forwarding past the ads at the beginning, but the DVD menu gives her trouble. I may have to try this out.

[ThugsRook]

tell her not to feel bad ~ it gives me trouble too! :wack:

[Duvie]

Originally posted by oldfart
I may have to try it out. The kids are getting more DVDs now and often cant get the movie to start with all the menu stuff.

I can make a movie that will just "play" when the disc is inserted? I hear the Pinnacle Instant Copy is good

Yes you can!!! It is great...for me and the kid....

It just runs through same FBI warning and movie company prologue then plays. NO menus and no chapter search yet if you use chapter skip button they will jump to correct chapters.

[oldfart]

Sounds good. I'll have to try it. How do you label your DVDs? There was a lot of chatter about lables messing up the playability of DVD disks. Have you seen that?

[Duvie]

Originally posted by oldfart
Sounds good. I'll have to try it. How do you label your DVDs? There was a lot of chatter about lables messing up the playability of DVD disks. Have you seen that?

I hadn't heard...maybe I need to investigate...Mydvdpro came with a bonus dvd labeling software but I haven't used it....

I usually scan the box art and print out new box art that I slide in my nice DVD cases I booght for like 30 cents or less (I believe if memory serves me)...Haven't needed them yet. Boy is good about putting them away...partly the reason for more scratchs!!!!;)

[Mikki]

I agree about the menus, I don't like them either....I say take the bonus material and just stick it at the end of the movie and get rid of the menu....:rolleyes:

[Duvie]

Originally posted by Mikki
I agree about the menus, I don't like them either....I say take the bonus material and just stick it at the end of the movie and get rid of the menu....:rolleyes:

I like the 2nd disc for those things...Most all the big blockbuster movies run a 2 disc format with extra and bonus footing on the second page, and the highest quality movie on the first disc....That is the way I like it....

[Mikki]

Originally posted by Duvie
I like the 2nd disc for those things...Most all the big blockbuster movies run a 2 disc format with extra and bonus footing on the second page, and the highest quality movie on the first disc....That is the way I like it....
Absolutely...:)

[Duvie]

Originally posted by Mikki
Absolutely...:)

And by the way with some of the guides of dvd9 to 2 dvd-r's they show you how to and where to split them to that. You can place just the menu on one disc and the rest on the 2nd disc, even if the movie fits on 1 dvd-r by itself...

great stuff I need to play with a bit...

[Mikki]

Duvie, would it be possible to put just the features on the disk without the menu? Just have them play automatically? :)

[Duvie]

Yes!!!! Not as many guides into doing it but as long as I don't think you have too many items cause then you would need to merge the different vob files....Say just take the video or the making of wuld be fine but generally they would be rather small by themselves on a disk.

[sodface]

I burned my first DVD last night. I used Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels as my test subject. I used DVD Decrypter to rip just the 4:3 version of the movie to hard disk.

The result was a directory 3.9 GB in size with the following files:
VTS_07_0.BUP
VTS_07_0.IFO
VTS_07_1.VOB
VTS_07_2.VOB
VTS_07_3.VOB
VTS_07_4.VOB

The original DVD actually has many more files, presumably for the menus, extra footage, and for the 16:9 aspect ratio version. These other files are grouped together with the naming scheme of:
VTS_XX_0.BUP
VTS_XX_0.IFO
VTS_XX_1.VOB
VTS_XX_2.VOB
etc...

Where the 'XX' begins at 01 and marks a logical grouping of related material (a title), and then the number is increased sequentially by 1 when each new grouping starts. In the case of Lock, Stock I needed grouping 7 for the main movie as listed above.

The .IFO file contains navigational information about the .VOB files, which contain the actual video and audio streams. The .BUP file is a backup of the .IFO file.

Ok. If I wanted to just play the movie from the hard drive I could have stopped here. But I wanted to burn a DVD that would play in my set-top player.

A settop player looks first for the file group named like so:
VIDEO_TS.BUP
VIDEO_TS.IFO
VIDEO_TS.VOB
This is the group it will play first and I guess the VOB file would contain the FBI warning or whatever.

As you can see from the file list that I ripped, I don't have any files with these names. Mine are in the 07 grouping. I used IFOEDIT to scan my ripped VOB files and produce another directory with the following files:
VIDEO_TS.BUP
VIDEO_TS.IFO
VTS_01_0.BUP
VTS_01_0.IFO
VTS_01_1.VOB
VTS_01_2.VOB
VTS_01_3.VOB
VTS_01_4.VOB

So IFOEDIT apparently will take a grouping of VOB files, analyze them, and write new IFO and BUP files for them and also rename them to the right title number. It also produces the VIDEO_TS.IFO and .BUP files, (which are the items played first) but as you can see there is no corresponding .VOB file, which is OK I guess as it just skips right into the 01 grouping and the movie starts playing.

I am not trying to explain the process. I'm actually just writing this down so that someone that really knows can point out what I've got wrong. I have some questions I need answered.

Ripping and re-naming the files won't work will it? I would guess not as there would be no programs like IFOEDIT if it was that easy. IFOEDIT appeared to have to re-write the .VOB files, not just generate the IFO and BUP file and then copy and rename the VOB. Do I have that right? The VOB must have items internally that have to be updated as well?

The VOB files contain other material that I would like to get rid of, ie foreign language tracks and subtitle info. I tried vobrator02b but it kept performing illegal operations and shutting down with with WinXP. What other options are there?

As a first go, I was pleased. I used an RW disk so I could erase and try again.
Burn started at:
12:58:50 AM
Completed at:
1:19:59 AM

RW speed was 2.4X(Max). +R speed would have been quicker at 4X.

I tried the disk on my AIWA XDDV-370 set-top player and it spun up and started the movie immediately, which is what I had hoped for.

So that was it. I am going to play around with removing some more stuff and or keeping a menu or two.

The chapter skip feature still worked by the way which was nice.

Anyone have any suggestions or comments?

[Duvie]

The changes in the vob file name is simply without a 1 thru 6 a dvd will not just let you start at 7...so it changes it to one...Then after you change the vobs in the vobextra portion of ifoedit and hit strip it and it is all done....then when you hit get VTS vectors that is when the ifo and bup (which I believe are ifo backups) are changed to work with the new vob naming and since often you do in fact strip audio tracks and subtitles thus reducing the size of the file yet vob files are still created at or near the 1gb size the start and end of each vob changes...In the get vts vector, correction to the ifo and bup files are being made to map this new vob files out....

In ifoedit when you hit --- strip it---- in the vob extra protion it will show list of audio tracks and subtitle tracks...simply uncheck the ones you don't want....I usually remove all except the DD5.1 english track....

[oldfart]

Pinnacle Instant Copy FREE after MIR (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00008LDHZ/br=1-5/ref=nosim/qid=103416479/102-8493621-20/002-7856453-3481196)

[Duvie]

Originally posted by oldfart
Pinnacle Instant Copy FREE after MIR (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00008LDHZ/br=1-5/ref=nosim/qid=103416479/102-8493621-20/002-7856453-3481196)


I think that may need to go into news for the day.....Hopefully I will be ordering this.....FREE is hard to beat!!!

[Jojo1971]

I use DVD DECRYPTER to rip Disney DVD's into my kids' PC and use PowerDVD to play them then I would "save" and place a SHORTCUT on the desktop.. so if they want to watch their favorite DVD,all they have to do is click on the shortcut and the movie just plays automatically. The only catch here is you got to have a high capacity harddrive ....It only takes 2-5 minutes to rip 1 movie.

I also use DVDXCOPY to make a backup of my DVD collection...

[pointreyes]

Originally posted by Jojo1971
I use DVD DECRYPTER to rip Disney DVD's into my kids' PC and use PowerDVD to play them then I would "save" and place a SHORTCUT on the desktop.. so if they want to watch their favorite DVD,all they have to do is click on the shortcut and the movie just plays automatically. The only catch here is you got to have a high capacity harddrive ....It only takes 2-5 minutes to rip 1 movie.

I like that. Since most EIDE drives cannot exceed 100 Meg/sec; I wonder how good watching movies would be through my network?

[Duvie]

hMMM...2 TO 5 MINUTES???? I have the lite-on dvd-rom 16x which is still the fastest dvd ripper and I have never ripped an entire film in 2-5 minutes....The thing has to ramp up in speed and the best sustained transer I ever saw was 10.8x and I think for the movie still took close to 7 minutes.......

I myself have many uses for that 60-80gb of space and saving movies on them is not worth it for me....I also don't want my kid messing with the computer let alone sitting in the office watching a movie on a 19" screen when he has 32" or 55" to watch it on....


I pay a whopping $1.10 per DVD-RW disk and $0.22 for a case....not much of an investment plus when he is tired of watching it and the disk is not oevrly scratched I will put one of his new movies on it....

[compudog]

Some great info in this thread! As the price of DVD +RW drives come down the likelihood that I will get a drive increases. Also knowing that when I start to screw things up there is a place I can go for answers/guidance is a big help too.

My kids have already destroyed 2 DVD's (Harry Potter and the S.S. and Mulan) that I had to go out and replace ($17 and $22 IIRC) I can almost justify the expense to my wife. :D

[Duvie]

Looking forward to seeing you post here in the forum!!!

[compudog]

I'll be sure to keep you informed. Our dog had puppies earlier this week and we should make a bundle on the litter. PICS (http://mywebpages.comcast.net/compudog/puppy_pics.htm) So that should free ups some $$$ for my next hardware purchase.

[Duvie]

What kind of dog is that??? retriever???

[compudog]

Originally posted by Duvie
What kind of dog is that??? retriever???

She is a flat-coated retriever. More here (http://www.charwillkennels.com/flat.htm) Third one down. (That's my wife in the pic...)

[Duvie]

With a champion like that I would think the puppies are quite valuable!!!

[compudog]

Originally posted by Duvie
With a champion like that I would think the puppies are quite valuable!!!

The father of the pups comes from a good line as well. His grandfather won Best of Sporting Group at the Westminster AKC show a few years back. Pups should go for $800 to $1200 each. Total of 6 in the litter.