Hi there!

I just discovered this forum an got very excited about the possibilities to copy DVDs. However, it is more complicated than I thought and I'd like a little help to get started. I just downloaded a trialware of DVDFab Platinum (Express Mode) and copied my first DVD (Chocolate with Johnny Depp), played it from the HD of my computer but the quality was just horrible.

I now would like to increase the quality of the clone...

My questions are?

1) How good can i clone be? Are there possibilities to approach the original quality of the DVD?

2) If yes, which copy-program is the best?

2) Is there any anything else to think of when attempting to get the best possible quality?

4) Does the burning effect the quality?

5) Which blank is to be used to get the best available quality?

I hope someone has the time to answer me. Thank you very much for your help!

Greetings from Sweden /Felix

start with DVD decrypter DVD Shrink and Nero
Most will never notice the difference from Org. V Copy
Use good media say TY
Sure a copy will not equal origional but not by much

try my dvd shrink guide, it designed for beginners

Thanks for the fast replies. Some more questions:

TY seems to have differend DVD blanks. Which one is to be used?
Do you refer to Nero Burning ROM v7.0.1.2?

Thanks! /Felix

Bye any of the TY media. It is all good. Or buy Verbatim (MCC) media. plus r or minus r both are fine, depending on what brand of standalone dvd player you have.

Yes the TY media is pretty good, I am not sure where you are located but RIMA.COM is a good source for media. When I started out I used DVD Decrtyper, DVD Shrink and Nero 6.6 which was a great combination and worked well.

@ new_here,

Suggest trying the AnyDVD- CloneDVD software combination available from SlySoft (http://www.slysoft.com). You can use these programs for 21 days to ensure that they meet your needs.

Below is an AnyDVD-CloneDVD user tutorial that provides detailed information on the use of these programs.

http://club.cdfreaks.com/showthread.php?threadid=72022

Also the CD freaks has an AnyDVD Forum (http://club.cdfreaks.com/forumdisplay.php?f=88) and a CloneDVD Forum (http://club.cdfreaks.com/forumdisplay.php?f=74) if you require any assistance with these programs.

The AnyDVD-CloneDVD software combination is an all in one solution that is easy to use and produces excellent results. These programs are actively being updated and improved to address the ever-changing copy protection schemes used in the latest Commercial DVD Movie Titles.

In many circles Taiyo Yuden media is considered quality top of the line media. Rima.Com (http://www.rima.com) is considered a reliable source of Taiyo Yuden media.

Best Regards,
bjkg

Great, thanks! You guys are very helpful!

DVD shrink works quite nicely even though I think I see the difference between the original and the copy. But that might just be in my mind because I know that it is a copy. I will also try DVD decrypter as you suggested and have found DVD Decrypter v3.5.4.0 on the web to download. I hope that is the right one?

Two more questions:

1) Are Double Layer DVDs recommendable (if so, which one?). I guess that you can maintain a rather high quality as you don't need to shrink the files that much?

2) Will a copy ever reach the quality of the original DVD with the rather simple steps you describe here? And if yes, are there any special things to think of?

Thank you very much!

Cheers /Felix

PS: @ robo100, I am living in Sweden

I don't usually use double layer DVD's, simply because they are a lot more expensive. I just use single layer DVD's and compress the images down. There are a few movies that I did use dual layer because they were in the 7~8 GB size. If the video compresion starts getting large then I just use dual layer.

The movie Sin City was one that I used dual layer. I ran the DVD through DVD Shrink and it complained that it couldn't compress it enough to fit on a 4.7GB disc. So I ran it a second time through and it did fit, but the quality suffered. So I just put it on a Verbatium Dual Layer disc and it looked great.

In general you will never get an exact copy from the original to a copy, but the copy will be very good and in a lot of cases very difficult to tell from the original.

I use DVDFAB and have had good results.

Apparently, my latest reply dissappeared somewhere in cyberspace but I try again....

I am wondering if....

...there is a difference between first using DVD Decrypter and THEN using DVD Shrink, alternatively using DVD Shrink only? Both alternatives were suggested here.

Thanks /Felix

Another problem has come up: My DVD player won't play the burned discs. I can play them without problems from my notebook but not (or some without sound) from my "Luxor LUXDV705". The clones i burned were complete DVD shrinks of Indiana Jones.

Can anyone help?

First off, what brand of burner are you using? Second, what type media are you using, + or -R? Try using the opposite type of media that is now failing you. If that doesn't work and your burner is capable of it, use DVD+R's and bit set them to DVD Rom. That usually does the trick.

Aside from using a dl disc the best method quality wise for movie only copies is to use a ripper like dvd decrypter and extract the main movie video and
audio streams. You can do the same with dvdshrink but without shrinking.
If the results are roughly within 4.3 gig (to fit on sl disc) then proceed to authoring a dvd structure using a program like DVDlab pro.
If the file(s) are too large then re-encode the audio and video to create an output of the right size. Excellent commercial encoders like CCE, Mainconcept, and Canopus Procoder are in the best group but costly (CCE has a basic version). Many other encoders (like Vegas, Ulead VideoStudio) are based on or use one these 3 but are more affordable. There are others like tmpgenc that others love but each person has to compare. Anyway the better the encoder the better the results.
Then proceed to authoring and then burning.
Quality wise this is the best method recommended by experienced users. DVDshrink, dvd2one, possibly Shrinto5, and the like are transcoders and they do not re-encode every frame like encoders do. They are very good but high quality encoders can produce results that are hard to tell from the original. Anytime you lose bitrate it's bound to have an effect so some will argue that they see macroblocks anyway but I swear I've seen macroblocks on original discs.
Transcoders offer convenience and speed and most of the time just to make a copy that I don't have to worry the kids will scratch is all I need.

btw) One reason sometimes to use another ripper is because dvdshrink is no longer updated and can't handle certain DVD. So you use another ripper but then use DVDShrink to transcode if you want

I won't argue with gumshoes answer but IMO, unless you've got a $10,000 Plasma TV and 1000% eyesight, I don't believe you'll see enough difference to justify purchasing a progam for encoding. I've been using Shrink and Decrypter or Nero to burn and have been plenty satisfied with the quality I've gotten. So unless you have the money to spend, don't waist it. I like the cost of Shrink and Decrypter. FREE!!!! And if you run into problems with copyright protection, spend a couple bucks on AnyDVD. Ad that and your good to go.

If you want the best quality compression, try Dvd Rebuilder. Dvd shrink is good but IMHO i don't think it can touch the encoders in Dvd RB. It's not as easy to use, but take the time to learn and it'll be worth it. Another downside is, it's much slower but when i want better quality i just let it run overnight, or while i'm at work.

Thanks for all your suggestions! The burner I am using is one that is inside my Acer Aspire 4100 Notebook (QSI DVD+-RW SDW-082) and the software is NTI CD&DVD-Maker Gold.

I will try DVD+R instead of DVD-R and will also try to bitset DVD+R's to DVD Rom as soon as I find out how to do that ;-) (if that is possible at all)...

Cheers /Felix

Ahhhhh now we get down to it. It's a Laptop your talking about. Unless I missed something before this is news to me. Your drive will NOT be able to bit set. Unless you run into a hack that can write you some new firmware for it, your chances are pretty slim to none. So stick with trying some +R media and make sure it's quality. In fact you should do OK with -R media but also must be of quality. Unfortuantely thats about all you can do is try better media. Unless you want to invest in a new drive. And the only one I think can be set up to bit set is the NEC (again I think) 6500. I'm not positive if this number is correct but you can take a look over in the NEC forum to verify for sure. But here again your looking at a fare amount of money for the drive. It's a shame but the laptop drives are quite a bit more expensive than a drive for a tower. Sorry I don't have any better news for you but this is pretty much all you have to go on. Oh ya one more thing. You could get better results by using a different software than what you just mentioned. Try the free trial of Nero.

Here you want to use Shrink first and then burn with Decrypter. You can set this up in shrink so it will do it all at once. Start you process with shrink and it will go right to Decrypter to burn. Works slick. Take a look at Eyeless in Gaza's tutorial in his signature. Very straight forward and easy to understand how to operate Shrink properly.

Hello again!

Two weeks after my first posting I got the system to work properly. Very nice, thank you all for your help ;-) I am now using shrink to make an ISO-file (main title only) and then burn it with decrypter. Excellent results, both when using DVD-R and DVD+R ;-)

However, I am more curious. People mention often that TY in combination with NERO are the best DVDs to burn. But how can there be differences? I thought that every backup has a unique code of 1s and 0s which should not differ between different brands or burners? In which way is TY then better than other DVDs? How can NERO burn better DVDs than other burners?

When putting the main title of a pressed DVD on a SL DVD-blank, it usually needs to be compressed. Does anyone have experiences with the "compression-limit" that will result in an excellent copy? I tried not to go less that 80% ant thinkt that the results are very good. But I maybe gan get lower that that?

Cheers /Felix

The software (in this case Nero) has nothing to do with the quality of the burn. The software is preference by the person using it. IMO that is. Some people like Roxio which I happen to think is . The actual quality has to do with the burner and the media being used. Each media uses a special blend of dye's on the disc. TY happens ot of developed what we think is the superior dye for burning. Thus the reason for people raving about the product. Then next comes the burner. If you don't have a quality burner, it doesn't much matter what disc type you use. But once again this will come down to personal preference. I happen to like BenQ & NEC burners. Other folks may dissagree with me. But from my own experience, these two drives (1620 & 3500) have given me outstanding results. I myself can't really tell the difference in quality of burn whether I use Nero or Decrypter to do the burn. Both work great. Just a matter what works well for what you have. But TY is by far #1 and that's not just my opinion.