i want to backup my stargate eps, 5 7.5gig dvd's. mostly video.

i want to have good quality still. i would prefer not using 2 dvd+r's for 1 normal, but its an option if i must.

what program would best suit this desire to backup eps at good/best quality?

Warzer

CCE (Registred copy) and Avisynth. If you don't have/cannot afford a registred copy use TMPGEnc Plus instead to avoid watermarks.
//Danne

i have not heard of these apps where do i get, and are there guides for them

If you're completely clueless (I don't mean to be harsh) you're best off using TMPGEnc Plus by following it's wizard.
//Danne

I use AnyDVD and Clonedvd 2 to back up my Stargate discs. However, I back up the first 3 episodes to 1 disc and the last 2 and the extras to another. This way I get 100% copies. If you back up to 1 disc, you will get pixelation on the backup.

did u ignore the menu i would like to do it yourway if i could still have the menu.

Just check the box in CloneDVD to preserve the menu. I do it for both discs. The full menu appears on both, but you can only access the relevant items on each disc e.g. Disc 1 you can access Titles 1 through 3, Disc 2 , Titles 4 through 5 and the extras.

very kool idea, so 60dvd's to backup compared to 30, but at least the quality stays.

oh i have noticed that season 6 uses all video in 1 file and all sound in 1 so that doesn't really work. but it does work for the older ones. the 5.1 sounds no better then stero from season 1 yet it takes up 700mb of room.

ah i tried the clone and it can seperate the vids unlike dvdshrink

I seperate out the episodes of Sopranos by using DVDShrink. Put each episode into a different folder then back them up any way you like.

i ended up doing it kinda weird since i couldn't find an easy way to recode the eps seperatly to talk out the intro and credits and yet retain the menu i just copied it with less quality. its not great but its not horrid. i don't think i will backup any other eps until i get a dual layer dvd.

Most TV episode DVD's are already poor quailty and are packed in real tight. The use of any transcoder is not going to do a good job in condense them to 50% to fit to a dvdr.

The use of a quality encoder like CCE, TMPGenc or Procder can get very acceptable results however. I tend to convert each episode separately, rip the menu off the dvd then re-auther them all back to a working DVDR. A long process compared to using Shrink, DVD2One, etc but the result are worth it.

A new kid on the block, check out DVD ReBuilder. A One click dvd to dvdr using CCE for the encoding. Its still beta but working on many/most dvd's problem free including TV Eps dvd's. I just did Futurama Seasion 1 with supurb results using it. Get it from Doom9 forum http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=73051

I used dvd shrink to take 3 episodes from the sopranos on one disk..hence getting 5 disks from 4. my last 2 disks had only episodes 10 and 11 and the other 12 and 13. the first two used compression to get 3 episodes on it if you use deep anayasis you dont notice pixalization. using shrink does lose the menu though.
Also if you rip your dvds to harddrive first with dvd decryptor (highly reccomend) then you can combine episodes from 2 or more different dvds onto one with shrink using reauthor. Also my rule of thumb is if the compression setting is not less than 80% then you really will not notice any pixaliztion etc. from compression.

you have to be a rocket scientist to get that to work..hehee..ill just stick with easy shrink.