DVD recorder question.

[Rdaug27]

I use AnyDVD with 1 Click DVD Copy. 1 Click will auto shrink the DVD to fit on a single layer DVD. (I am sure other programs will do the same.) It is the easiest programs I have found to use. AnyDVD runs in the background, and 1 Click DVD Copy is just that. You click on start and it does everything on its own. There are options you can set up, like cutting out the trailers at the beginning, and even cutting out the menu so when you put the DVD in your player, it just starts playing the movie.

I have been converting all of my DVD's to DIVX and putting them on my external HD. I have over 300 movies on there now, and its so nice to just click on whatever you want to watch from the Media Center remote. Also they have cheap DVD players that will read DIVX movies also, so you can put several (3+) movies on a single DVD (depending on the quality you rip them to with DIVX) Yes you might lose some quality, but its minimal in my opinion. I haven't hooked my DVD/DIVX player up via the HDMI port that is on it, so I would imagine that it would look even better if it were hooked up like that.

DIVX format will not work on Windows Movie Maker, or at least I haven't been able to get it to work.

[Dioxin]

I'm not positive, but I think the 1 Click DVD Copy uses the DVD Shrink engine. There are much better compression programs out there, but they can be much more challenging to use. DVD shrink is super simple.

http://www.mrbass.org/dvdshrink/

walkthrough

http://www.doom9.org/index.html?/mpg/dvdshrink31-firsttime.htm

[Rdaug27]

Thats a lot of walk through. J/K It actually looks pretty cool, but quite a bit more complex compared to the 1 Click. If I remember correctly with the 1 Click all you have to do is select dual layer disk, or single layer disk, and it will automatically compress, if necessary, to whatever size you need. You don't really have control of how compressed you can make it, but that DVD Shrink looks like it might. With the 1 Click you click start, and it automatically downloads to temp file, compresses, and burns. For me it has been the simplest by far for exact disk to disk backups. Honestly I don't use it much anymore since I am converting to DIVX. Any movie I buy now it gets immediately ripped and converted onto my hard drive. Actually DIVX just came out with HD conversions, so I guess people with HD DVD, or Blu Ray drives can rip and convert to HD.

Best thing I could say is trial and error. There are several options out there. If you are internet savvy you might be able to find some stuff for free ;) The most important thing is a program like AnyDVD. Something that will disable the protections that are on the DVD. I know AnyDVD is pretty expensive, but it is well worth it, and updates frequently because with newer movies, there sometimes is newer protections on the disk that an updated AnyDVD should be able to work around.

[Dioxin]

rdaug, yeah, that's the best part of dvd shrink. You can get rid of audio types that you never use, compress the extras even further, and then get optimal compression on the actual movie. If you just want to compress and backup the movie without any extras, you can do that too for optimal performance.

The actual conversion process isn't as good as some of the other compression programs (forget the names now), but dvd shrink is much easier to use than they are.

[The_Blunt]

I didn't want to start a new topic over this, so I figured I'd just do it here. I threw a tiny movie together to test everything out, so if it works here then I'm good to go!


Edit: Woohoo! I'm so glad this is finally working. 360 COD4 movies will be coming very soon!!!

Edit: I got rid of the video since there's no need for it anymore. Thank you topic, for being my test dummy.