Hy Im thinking of buying a HITACHI GF-2050 DVD-R recorder and would like to know if its compatible with SMART RIPPER and if it is will it play the DVD-R discs in my home DVD player the same as if I burned the movie on a CD-R.And also will Ill be able to record one whole DVD movie in a single DVD-R?

a) DVD-R discs _should_ be compatible with stand-alone DVD players, they just need to be made in specific way (read other posts from these forums -- SpruceUp is the tool you need)

b) DVD-R drives work just like regular DVD drives in terms of reading the data, so SmartRipper works nicely. (ok, don't sue us if there are problems ,-)

c) DVD-Rs are only single layer discs, which means that one disc can contain only 4.7GB of data and regular DVD-Video discs in other hand are dual-layered (over 9GB) and can be "flippers" (dualsided, doubling the data you can fit to 18GB/disc). Basically in most of the movies, you can fit the movie into 4.7GB, but you can't get the extras ("making of.." documentaries, etc) with it.

Thanx a lot dRD for the quick detailed response.Just one more question will the picture quality of the burned DVD-R be the same as a regular dvd movie? and if not how close is it to the real DVD.Thanx!!

The quality will be slightly lower, because there is no way to clean VOB into pure MPEG-2 -- you need to encode the VOB to MPEG-2 again which weakens the quality, luckily not very much. I would say that the quality drop is appx. 10% of the original (if it is 50% in SVCDs and 60-75% in VCD).

You don't need to re-encode nothing, dRD. I've just copied "Dead man walking", a 4 GB film, to DVD-R. I extract all the audio tracks and subtitles, leaving only the spanish audio and, of course, the video track. I did it with Smartripper and at the end you have a VOB file, and you don't re-encode nothing. I put these files on a DVD-R with Prassi PrimoDVD and it's working fine. That's all.

And, of course, there is NO quality drop at all.

Phobos: Excellent, thanks for the info -- I'm really a beginner with DVD-2-DVD issues and the methods I've brought up I've just learned from various guides :)

Working through DVD 2 DVD issuses as well. Been very seccessful with single layer disc (older as well) running into probs with dual layer and brand new discs. Is this a change in the security from the disc maker? Is this a constant thing to be upgrading for? also having troble breaking apart the info that I could live without (ie extras or discs that contain 2 versions of the movie) so that I can fit a disc onto a 4.7dvd-r. any tips for how to identify what and keep it out of the image that I am creating? Thanks

Like mentioned in multiple threads, SmartRipper allows you to select the clips/chapters/angles you want to rip, so requires some learning first. Tip: After you've ripped a clip and not sure what it contains, use WinDVD or PowerDVD and open the VOB files from your HDD where you ripped them and you see what you actually copied :-)

SmartRipper:
SmartRipper.cfm">http://www.afterdawn.com/software/video_software/dvd_rippers/SmartRipper.cfm

My Dark secret. I'm doing this on a MAC. so its been much harder to find apps. and support, thanks for the help though.

EEEK! *getting allergic reaction* :-) Ah, I know that the Mac has very few DVD ripping apps available. Go through our Mac software section here in AfterDawn.com and you should find the Mac ripping pack from there -- download that one and check the packs homepage, you should be able to find assistance from there.

And for all the Mac DVD guys, if you have indepth knowledge of Mac DVD ripping and would be able to help us out with boards & guides & etc, please contact us.

Hello all & Phobos,

I am very new user with DVD-R movie copy. Would you please give me more information and which software will need to copy DVD movie to DVD-R. I would like extract all the audio tracks and subtitles, but I do not know how to do. Please help! Thanks! dlanguyen

i have been working on a mac for awhile
now, and i think i'm getting the hang of this.
i've sucessfully burned several dvd's, but i
have a lot of trouble with m2v files that are
too big for a dvd-r. any idea how to shrink
them down and still keep the audio and
video in sync? if anyone else is doing this
on a mac, i would love to hear from you.
thanks

i want to know if it is better to waste the mony to get a dvd burner or to just get a ripper

Re turtle post.

Firstly, im pretty new at this so i may not be
doing things exactly right but it seems to
work for me.
Just got a new imac with superdrive and
been backing up a few dvds. As you
probably know DVD's under 4.7 GB (~4.3GB)
can be pretty easily backed up using
dvdExtractor and then burning the resulting
image in toast.
for DVD's over 4.7 GB (ie most dual
layers)the only way i've found so far that
works is if the dvd is split so that the movie
segment occupies one vts_XX_X segment
and all the extras are in different segments.
If u backup the main movie segment vobs ,
ifo and bup, AND the ifo and bup's of all the
other segments (plus the main
VIDEO_TS.*** files) using DVDBackup in
OS X the you can just burn this in toast. Do
this by creating a new dvd project then
copying the video_TS folder created by
DVDBackup into it and create an empty
folder called AUDIO_TS and just burn.
If u just try and rip the main movie segments
alone the dvd wont play / burn which is why u
need the ifo and bups of all the other
segments. Dont always have to create the
AUDIO_TS folder i think but it generally
helps.
If the extras are in the same movie
segment.... then you have some converting
to do, theres a guide by squished squirrel
about it. don't know the URL im afraid, u'll
have to search for it.

www.opuscc.com is a good site for the mac
dvd ripping appz u will need for converting
also
http://www.macdvd.org/cgi-bin/Ultimate.cgi?
action=intro
is a forum for dvd ripping on a mac which
can explain things a lot better than I can. :)

hope this helps

I am also a mac user, except I'm using OS 9.1 not X. I just bought a DVD-RW burner and am having problems burning DVD to DVD. I got the software from this site, but I guess I'm just extremely confused. Can someone help me????