How to copy video DVDs?

[Soapy Sam]

How do you copy movies from DVD to a hard drive?
I want to do so legally. Is this possible?
I own the DVDs and the computer. I want to be able to watch the movies when abroad , on my laptop, and I don't wish to carry the discs with me.
(They will probably be confiscated by customs). I want to make a single copy, which will be seen by myself only- the owner of the DVDs.

I have Nero7, and a Roxio suite but neither will copy any of the six DVDs I just tried.

Now it may be that this is illegal everywhere and under any circumstances. It is, I understand, also illegal to copy music CDs to an ipod pr PC, yet I know many apparently law abiding citizens who do so daily. Is copying one's own files really so different?

So. 1. Is it legal at all to copy one's own DVDs to hard drive?
and 2. If so, what's the easiest and cheapest way?

 

[Grimoire]

How do you copy movies from DVD to a hard drive?
I want to do so legally. Is this possible?

It depends on your local laws. Not all countries have the same copyright laws.

Now it may be that this is illegal everywhere and under any circumstances. It is, I understand, also illegal to copy music CDs to an ipod pr PC, yet I know many apparently law abiding citizens who do so daily. Is copying one's own files really so different?

DVD has a very rudimentary copy protection system. In the US, bypassing or attempting to bypass a digital copy protection system is illegal under the DMCA^WP. Copying a DVD to a hard drive requires that you bypass the copyright system, and is therefore illegal. Other countries may have similar laws in place.

So. 1. Is it legal at all to copy one's own DVDs to hard drive?

It depends on where you live.

and 2. If so, what's the easiest and cheapest way?

If you live in a country that allows DVD copying,

use DVD clone from Slysoft. It comes with a free 21 day trial, and you can use Nero to make a disc image, and then use the Nero's ImageDrive to "mount" the image file. You only need AnyDVD to make the image, and so you can continue to view the DVDs on the hard drive after the 21 day trial period.

 

[EHLO]

I use a some freeware called DVD Shrink which will copy DVD's to your hard drive and also compress them to fit on a standard DVDR. I think it will use Nero to burn if you want to copy.

Ripping DVD's to your harddrive results in a couple of folders called VIDEO_TS and AUDIO_TS which can be played by most DVD/Media software by choosing a "Play from HDD" option.

As for copy/region protection etc, I've never had any problems but most hardware in OZ these days seems to be region free.

You'll need other conversion software if you want to convert the DVD files to a single DivX file or something suitable for iPod, PSP etc.

 

[Joppy]

There is a program called DVD Decryter that bypasses protection and creates an iso image on your drive. I remember it's free. And you can watch the image on your computer by mounting it with Daemon tools or other similiar programs. If you want to burn it then depend on the size of your DVD, you might have to reduce the size of the image. You can use the DVD Shrink as mentioned above. There is also a program call PgcEdit that does similiar job but a bit more complicated to use. I suppose there are other programs, but I don't know what they are. Then burn the resized image.

If you just want to watch it from your hard drive, you can also just rip the DVD. This preserves the quality fairly well but only takes up a fraction of the size of a DVD image. I don't know how to do this.

As far as I know, Grimoire is correct in what was posted.

 

[Bob Klase]

There are a number of free programs besides DVD Shrink and DVD Decryter (both of which are excellent- but neither has been updated in 2-3 years).

There's all the information you want (plus a few dozen gigabytes more) here:

http://www.videohelp.com/

 

[Bob Klase]

If you just want to watch it from your hard drive, you can also just rip the DVD. This preserves the quality fairly well but only takes up a fraction of the size of a DVD image.

If you just rip the DVD it preserves the quality exactly because the term 'rip' refers only to getting the files from the DVD (or CD) to your hard drive- nothing is changed and the files will be exactly the same size on the hard drive as they were on the disc unless you do something besides ripping.

You have to rip the DVD to make a DVD image.

 

[Reality Believer]

Also a wealth of information and tools here:

http://www.doom9.net/

 

[Joppy]

If you just rip the DVD it preserves the quality exactly because the term 'rip' refers only to getting the files from the DVD (or CD) to your hard drive- nothing is changed and the files will be exactly the same size on the hard drive as they were on the disc unless you do something besides ripping.

You have to rip the DVD to make a DVD image.

I see, thanks. So what does creating an avi or other files called?

haha I don't have much knowledge in these stuff. I got my information mainly from the doom9 site.

 

[Bob Klase]

I see, thanks. So what does creating an avi or other files called?

Creating an avi (or mpeg, or other file) is generally called 'creating an avi (or mpeg, or other) file', although it can depend on how the file is being created. If you're playing video into a capture device on your computer it could be called 'capturing'. If you're creating an avi file by converting some other type of video to avi then it would be called converting.

haha I don't have much knowledge in these stuff. I got my information mainly from the doom9 site.

http://www.videohelp.com has a glossary that might help. Ripping a disc is the act of taking the audio and/or video from a CD or DVD. You can rip a video DVD to vob (and associated files) or to an iso file (which is a single file that is an image of the disk and contains all the files that were on the disk. You can also rip it to other types of files (ie- separate audio and video, or mpeg) but that would be converting as you rip.

 

[Cuddles]

In many places it is technically illegal to copy pretty much anything, including copying CDs to mp3 players or making compilation tapes, and even just making backups for security. However, as far as I am aware, no-one has ever been prosecuted for copying things for their own personal use.

One thing to bear in mind is that many virtual drive programs, like Daemon tools, can interfere with copy protection programs and stop many games and films working. It's not usually a major problem, but unless you are really obsessive about the quality (which would be odd when watching on a laptop ), I would recomend converting to .avi or .mpeg rather than making an image. Saves space too.