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Overview

What we want:

To be able to backup your DVD movies to a blank DVD+R/-R 4.7 GB disc. 

Brief Intro:

We all know about the format wars between DVD-R/RW and DVD+R/RW and their compatibility with consumer DVD players.  This guide is not specific to the DVD+R/RW standard; this should work with DVD-R/-RW standards, however, I own an HP DVD200i DVD+R/RW burner so my experience is with that standard.    This guide will only keep the movie, not the extras or menus.   This guide will give you a step by step with screenshots.  If you feel this guide has helped you out, donate a dollar or two to me for helping you get started and also support Derrow (ifoeditor creator and working on dvdxcopy) by donating a few bucks for his time and work on Ifoeditor (an amazing program).

Background:

-DVD Types:

There are two main types of DVDs out there.

DVD-9 and DVD-5.  These types are differentiated by their layers.  DVD-9 is a dual layered DVD, it lets you record up to 9.4GB (DVD movies that are over 120 min and/or has lots of extras).  DVD-5 is a single layered DVD, it lets you record up to 4.7GB (These movies are easy to ‘backup’; you don’t need to transcode the video, a straight rip)

Blank DVD media is DVD-5 (single layered).

What is this guide about?

This is a guide on ‘backing up’ a DVD-9 (dual layered) movie, that you own, to a blank 4.7GB (single layered) DVD disc.  This guide will give you a streamlined version of the guides found at www.doom9.net.  Another great place to go to is www.afterdawn.com, the forums are great!! This guide will explain how to: copy the DVD to your hard drive while removing the Macrovision and CSS encryption; rip the DVD with ifoeditor to keep only the movie (no menus or extras are kept, this helps to make the process more efficient and fast); transcode the files so they fit onto a blank 4.7GB DVD, and burn it to a blank 4.7GB DVD+R/-R

Hardware and Software Requirements:  

Hardware:

To rip DVD-9 movies to DVD-5, we need these system requirements:

-Windows 2000 or XP Operating System (NTFS file system, ideally, but FAT32 will work too)

-A DVD Burner (obviously!), usually we want one that writes DVD–R/-RW or +R/+RW format

-About 20 to 100 GB of free disk space on your hard drive, and make sure that the file system is NTFS, Fat32 will work but has a file size limit of 4GB, so files can't be over 4GB in size (mainly a concern if you create images of your backups; 4.36GB .iso files). I personally have a partition of 40GB that I use for DVD ripping only.

Software you need (www.doom9.net will have all of these programs to download):

DVD Decrypter – rips the DVD from DVD to your hard drive while removing the CSS and Macrovision (alternative program: smartripper)

Ifoeditor –" THE" IFO editing program

Rempeg2 or TMPG and DVD2AVI – transcodes the video

DVDcalc – calculates the Time Scale for when you have to remux the m2v stream (click here for a copy)

Nero Burn – burn to blank DVD disc

Stomp RecordNow MAX - burn to blank DVD disc

PowerDVD XP / WinDVD or any other DVD player that will let you play DVDs from your hard drive.

-Optional (not freeware)

-DVD2one - shrinks dvd9 movies to fit onto blank dvd

-DVDXCopy - shrinks movies to fit onto blank dvds with menus and extras