Hello all. I'm very new to backing up my DVD's, and fisrt off I want to say thanks for compiling so much great information into one place for the total noob user to gain some knowledge. I've read most of the guides and related posts in depth, but I'm still hung up on a few things I'm hoping you guys can help with. First off, I've backed up about 10 of my newer dvd's with little or no problem whatsoever (few coasters starting off, but I expected that to happen). A few of the titles gave others problems on this site, so I guess I gained a little undeserved confidence. I've been having some serious problems backing up Spiderman 2 and the Villiage...I've tried several methods with Decrypter, Shrink, VobBlanker, and Nero but all result in a perfectly worthless coaster. If anyone can help with either of those two titles it would be a blessing. My other issue (my main issue in a way) is verifying the content on my drive before actually burning to disk. I usually don't receive the error messages others refer to, so I'm pretty much guessing that the backup was performed sucessfully. I haven't seen anything mentioned on it, but I have to be missing something somewhere. My system specs are- P4 3.0 w/ 800 fsb 512 mb PC 3200 memory Geoforce FX5200 128 mb 250 gig Maxtor Hard Drive w/ 16mb cache Lite-On 16X drive Mostly Wal-Mart purchased movies Memorex 8x DVD+R disks Any help would be wonderful, and thanks again for sharing so much awesome information! Have a great day guys and gals.
Your taking a chance w/ Memorex. http://www.videohelp.com/dvdmedia.p...peed=8&order=Name&search=Search+or+List+Media I did Spiderman 2 w/ DVD Decrypter in file mode and the main movie only. There were no problems. [edit to shorten link]
Wow, that's surprising to say the least. Memorex has a reliable name in electronics, I never would have guessed their disks would be unreliable. Thanks a bunch for the link.
heres a post cant find the link. enjoy the read:: (author scubapete : afterdawn addict) First off, we need you to change your media, Memorex is an excellent example as media goes, figures as high as 50% coasters have been reported (One member bought a stack of 50 and got 23 good burns.), not what I would call an impressive record. There are 4 different companies that manufacture Memorex BTW and product quality varies widely as you might imagine. Easy to see now why the quality of a big-named company can’t be trusted - “ Who’s making your Memorex tonight ?” Is it just Memorex ? No ! I just used Memorex as an example., Princo, Fuji, Orange Pack, Great AZO and most "store" discs aren’t all that suitable as a DVD backup media – that’s why we are specific in the type of media we are recommending. 1. * Cheap media freezes, skips, pixelats and may refuse to be recognized :-( Besides "Freezing", "skips" and pixelations, many times you’ll get a “Cyclic Redundancy error” or an "I/O error". This message can mean that your discs are scratched or dirty, it can also mean that your burner won’t accept your “cheap” media :-( Another problem which “pops up” is a “*Power Calibration Error”. This can stop you right in your tracks and most often is caused by, Yep, you guessed it, inexpensive media. *A “Power Calibration Error” can also be attributed to the Optical Components of a DVD Writer, though this isn’t usually the case. Trying to shut down your software and ejecting your DVD then restarting your program and re-inserting the same media recently cleaned has been known to help. Inexpensive media or even average media is great for text, Data, Spreadsheets, .Jpg and .Gif pictures and is good even for MP3 music BUT for DVD backups - BLAaaaaaT! It SUCKTH in an extremely Big-th way ! What we are suggesting is to download this DVD Identifier to find out who manufactured your DVD and if it's a decent quality. http://dvd.identifier.cdfreaks.com/ Once you have your disc identified, click the "More information" icon and see what information you're given. if you're not sure of the quality, come on back and we'll check it out for you - 2. A good grade, Hi-quality media is needed for DVD reproduction ! RiData, Sony, TDK, "Branded" Ritek G04's or "Branded" Verbatim Data Life, Verbatim DataLife plus, Taiyo Yuden's and generally, almost any discs manufactured by Mitsubishi are excellent bets. Among the better discs we're looking for, any media boasting "Advanced Metal AZO" - BUT it must say "METAL" AZO !, this indicates a superior dye and dye application on a good composite disc, while they are sometimes a bit "pricey" they are just the type of media we're looking for to do our DVD backups, Prices online from Meritline.com have gotten Ritek G04 starting at about a $ .45 (USD) a disc - Question - If you make coasters out of 3 cheap or even average discs and good copies from 3 RiData, Ritek, TDK, Sony or Verbatim discs - which ones then will you say are too expensive ? The 3 “Cheapo’s with no movie backup OR, the 3 recommended discs with a perfect backup on each disc ? Bear in mind, Memorex, Orange Pack, Princo, Fuji, Great AZO and others are quite good for your MP3 music, picture archives, Spread sheets, Data and your text backups and archives, they just don’t work well for DVD backups. Even DataSafe G04’s made by Ritek have been reported as an inferior quality media and are evoking that “Oh no, I shouldn’t have gotten those.” Remember, for DVD backups, purchasing inexpensive media or even average media is a gamble, some people win, the majority of people lose, varying amounts varying amounts, true but, they still lose :-( Using good grade media can guarantee you one thing to an absolute certainty; it surely cannot hurt. BTW, In an effort to clear the air, when I speak of "Cheap" or "Inexpensive" media, I'm not referring to the price you pay at the counter - I'm referring to the type of composite some manufactures use, their method of dye application and the lack of OR the poor quality control used during manufacturing. when I say "Branded" that means that when you pick up a disc in your hand, it says "Ritek" or "RiData" on the disc itself. The monetary cost of the media we recommend many times is cheaper than that you are buying now. (footnote added march 05) quote: The second part of the solution is to always use a decent grade media. I suggest something like those discs made by Taiyo Yuden, Ritek, Mitsubishi or RICOH. Unfortunately they are also the discs most plagued by pirate Mfgrs. and for that reason I like dealing with Mertline OR Newegg who have a great return policy on their products. I have had great luck with RiData and Verbatim DataLife Plus discs and their prices are extremely reasonable. [bold]PART 2[/bold] Eliminating errors and going for the "Best burn" ~ Tips ~ When attempting to achieve the best burn, consider reducing that burn speed to the 4X area. Iffin you have a new 16X, DL burner, you'll probably do well at 6X. It is my feeling that 8X and over leads to occasional coasters, even when using top grade stuff such as Verbatim DataLife Plus media. The second part of the solution is to always use a decent grade media. I suggest something like those discs made by Taiyo Yuden, Ritek, Mitsubishi or RICOH. Unfortunately they are also the discs most plagued by pirate Mfgrs. and for that reason I like dealing with Mertline, Supermediastore OR Newegg who have a great return policy on their products. I have had great luck with RiData and Verbatim DataLife Plus discs and their prices are extremely reasonable. As a passing note, when buying Verbatim's, they come with a lifetime warrantee. Return them with your sales slip OR register receipt and a new one will be shipped to replace it. For the best online media stores to shop, try – Mertline.com http://meritline.com/ Newegg.com http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=17-132-344&depa=0 And, Supermediastore.com http://www.supermediastore.com/media1.html Something to watch out for, ~> In today's market, now more than any other time, beware of pirated fakes. DVD-R market plagued by fake media and inconsistent quality. Fake Taiyo Yuden media, and the current quality of RITEK products is discussed here. Is the quality of Verbatim affected by the fact that they are now outsourcing production to CMC, and Moser Bayer? http://www.cd-rw.org/articles/archive/dvd-r_media_report.cfm The DVD recordable media market: What's up with RITEK? What a convenient timing - few days after we publish articles about the quality issues on the DVD recordable media market, RiDisc promises to start delivering premium quality. They use strong words in describing their new RiDisc Xtreme products - "Grade AAA+ RITEK G05" and "zero tolerance quality control". http://cd-rw.org/articles/archive/ritek_dvd-r_quality.cfm DVD-R market plagued by fake media and inconsistent quality http://www.afterdawn.com/news/archive/6090.cfm But then again, on another topic – long will your discs last ? You may not wish to read on . . . . FAIR WARNING. . . Using that "Cheap" quality media, your backups might not last all that long - One thing I haven't addressed is the life of a backup made on an "el cheapo" disc. We all know that data, music and video backups on CD's and DVD's will last forever, well, if not forever for at least 100 yrs or so - That's what we've read and I believed and that's why we backup our treasures to disc, so that they'll be safe. "BLAaaaT" (the bone chilling sound of an emergency air horn), Wrong, Dead Wrong ! Don't throw the originals away, you may very well need them. Your video camera tapes and family picture CD's and DVD's, may not be there the next time you want to look at them. "Point of fact," inferior discs have a tendency to "Break down]" in time. In a very short time, we're talking disc can breakdown in less than a single year, in as little as 6 to 8 months. This article was written about CD discs but DVD discs are exactly the same. I was miss-informed and this opened my eyes. Perhaps you'll find it as important as I did. Independent Portfolio Content Ever decreasing circlesYou know those CD-Rs and DVD-Rs that you've trusted your most precious memories to? They could be little more use than coasters after just two years. Michael Pollitt investigates21 April 2004 Are we putting too much faith in the ubiquitous "recordable CD", or CD-R? It is undeniably one of the most useful means of storage around, offering an inexpensive way to save digital photographs, music and files and costing less than 50 pence per disc.If you check the claims made by some manufacturers of popular CD-R brands, you will see that some make bold claims indeed. Typical boasts include: "100-years archival life", "guaranteed archival lifespan of more than 100 years" and "one million read cycles". One company even says data can be stored "swiftly and permanently", leaving you free to bequeath those backups of your letter to the electricity company to your great-great-grandchildren.But an investigation by a Dutch personal computer magazine, PC Active, has shown that some CD-Rs are unreadable in as little as two years, because the dyes in the CD's recording layer fade. These dyes replace the aluminum "pits" of a music CD or CD-Rom, and the laser uses that layer to distinguish 0s from 1s. When the CD is written, the writing laser "burns" the dye, which becomes dark, to represent a "1" while a "0" will be left blank so that if the dye fades, there's no difference; it's just a long string of nothing to the playback laser.So have you already lost those irreplaceable pictures you committed to the silver disc? PC Active suggests we should forget CD-Rs as a durable medium, after its own testing found some with unreadable data after just two years. "Though they looked fine from the outside, they turned out to be completely useless," wrote the technical editor Jeroen Horlings, who had tested 30 brands in 2001, left them in a dark cupboard for two years and then re-tested them in August 2003. Of the brands tested, 10 per cent showed ageing problems. And it wasn't just Horlings. After seeing the results, shocked readers contacted the magazine with their experiences.Recordable DVDs are not off the hook either. The "dye chemicals" in write-once DVDs are similar to CD-R, though recording density and disk construction differ. "We're in the process of testing DVDs and we're sure that the same problems will occur," said Horlings, who plans to publish his findings soon.Gordon Stevenson, the managing director of Vogon International - a company specializing in data recovery - is familiar with these shortcomings thanks to the experiences of his customers, one of whom commissioned Vogon to retrieve pictures of his second honeymoon from a failed six-month-old CD-R. "The dye layer was fading," Stevenson says, "but we were able to recover most of the disk. But these claims [of a 100-year archival life] are unhelpful and misleading. If you're spending 20p on something, you probably don't expect it to last 100 years," he says.In the wrong conditions, such as sunlight, humidity and upper surface damage, your CD-R will slowly turn into a coaster. "CD-Rs should never be left lying in sunlight as there's an element of light sensitivity, certainly in the poor quality media," says Stevenson. "I wouldn't rely on CD-Rs for long-term storage unless you're prepared to deal with them as recommended."Such views are echoed by the National Archives at Kew. "Generally speaking, we don't recommend CD-Rs for long-term storage," says Jeffrey Darlington, a project manager at the Archives' Digital Preservation Department. "We don't regard CD-Rs as an archival medium. Most of the CD-Rs on the market are not of archival quality." Instead of CD-Rs, therefore, the National Archives tend to use magnetic tape rated for a 30-year life. Also, they are careful to copy, check and re-copy to avoid losing information and this is also a useful strategy for CD-Rs. "If you keep doing that so the CD-R is never more than physically three to five years old, you'll be safe enough. A hundred years sounds pretty unlikely," says Darlington.Not all optical media is vulnerable. The rewritable variants (RW) use metallic materials that change the phase of the light, rather than light-sensitive dyes. Commercial magneto-optical and ultra-density optical systems are different too. Stewart Vane-Tempest, the optical product director at Plasmon, the archival specialists, has first-hand experience of unreadable CD-R media. "Some dyes are very robust, but others not," Vane-Tempest says. "The one thing they have in common is susceptibility to environmental conditions. I do a lot of digital photography and pay top price for media. If I have anything important, I generally make a couple of copies. I've not used CD-Rs for long-term archiving."Vane-Tempest also offers a tip. Blank CD-R disks have a code that your CD writer reads to find the best writing strategy. If this isn't in the CD-writer's inbuilt software (its "firmware"), the default may be a poor compromise. Vane-Tempest says that some "less scrupulous" Far East companies have been using other people's codes, with deficient results. However, there is a way around this which is to find out which brands suit your writer and ensure the firmware is up to date.While such matchmaking is useful, there's no way to assess CD-R longevity at home. All you can do is check periodically. As for whether manufacturers are guilty of using finger-in-the-air methods, Kevin Jefcoate, the marketing and product management director at Verbatim, says: "It's a bit more than guesswork because there's a lot of scientific evidence to back it up."The answer, Jefcoate says, is to use a climate chamber to accelerate the ageing of the organic dye. Using a relationship between chemical reaction rate and temperature, 100-year lifetimes may be argued for normal conditions. Jefcoate adds that he has never known users to complain of age-related failures? "We haven't had anyone complain that, after three to five years, it hasn't worked." It's easy to blame budget CD-Rs when things go wrong. Novatech's purchasing and product manager, Kriss Pomroy, suggests users buy a small quantity for testing first.The PC builder sells unbranded CD-Rs sourced from a Far East distributor that buys over-production from well-known factories. Are we saving pennies and taking risks? "No," says Pomroy, "You can get problematic batches, but that's as true with branded media." The company now sells two-and-a-half times more unbranded write-once DVDs than CD-Rs.The world's No 1 supplier of CD-Rs, Imation, talks of "saving precious digital photo memories" - exactly what many people think they're doing. Semar Majid, its technical marketing executive, hasn't heard of any ageing problems. "Optical media should last between 30 and 200 years," he says, "but it's dependent on storage conditions and how you handle it." He suggests transferring important photos to DVD, and keeping on moving to new formats.Another big maker, TDK, takes a cautious view with DVDs, claiming only a 70-year lifespan. "This does not mean that DVD is more fragile or unstable in time compared to CD-R; this is only because of the shorter experience that we have in manufacturing and testing this relatively young technology," says the TDK product manager Hartmut Kulessa. There have been no complaints about ageing failures.As the oldest CD-R is barely a teenager, there are no definitive answers either. But perhaps the last word belongs to Jeroen Horlings at PC Active. "We see a lot of manufacturers and they think that quantity is more important than quality," he says. "The problem will remain."For more info on CD-Rs and dyes: www.burnworld.com/cdr/primer/whatis.htm; www.xdr2.com/CDR-Info/Dye.htm My personal observations on this subject - I have had about 40 backups that have refused to play after being stored for a year or more. I test all of my backups when they are burnt to be very sure that there are no problems. "In the Golden, Olden times," before I knew any better, the Memorex, Maxell's and professional "Store Brand" discs (and any thing that was on sale) was what used before I switched to Ritek, RICOH and Verbatim (Mitsubishi Chemical Corp.). It is the poor quality stuff that I have been experiencing my trouble with. I noticed that backup DVD's I had, refused to play in my standalone player and on my PC. VOB files wouldn't play either and other discs that I backed up about the same time would "Freeze" part way through the movie. After switching to Verbatim and Ritek's, mostly the Ritek's because the price was right, I've not had 1 go "Flat" in over 1 ½ years. I still have some backups about 90 of them done on the "cheap stuff" and, as time wears on I lose a few more as I attempt to check them. I say to you, why did a backup play fine the end of "02"and "03" then "fail" in "04 ?? Some that were done in "03" never made it till "04" (it took me some time to learn, lol) Most of my backups from around March of "03" were done on the "good Stuff" and they still work fine today - not a single failure ! What about now ? Well, 2005 is the year, I'll wait no longer, before this year is through I'm going to test the rest and most likely re-record them onto a decent grade of media. It's been too long and I don't want to run the risk that I've lost an original OR one has been borrowed and never returned (like that's never happened, Huh ?). I want my discs back and 005 is the year - Don't go through what I did, protect your investment. As always, you have a choice -
=======DVD-5 -> DVD±R, Single layer DVD discs only (*Inc PS2*)========= Remove all discs from drives. Open DVD Decrypter. From the 'Mode' menu, select 'ISO' -> 'Read'. Put DVD-5 / PS2 disc in drive. Take note of the 'Destination' file name. Click the big 'Decrypt' button. Take the DVD-5 / PS2 disc out of the drive. From the 'Mode' menu, select 'ISO' -> 'Write'. Put a blank disc in your DVD Writer. Click the little folder icon - 'Browse for source file' - and select the MDS file created for you as part of the steps above. Click the big 'Write' button. Finished! Note: You NEED a chipped PS2 to play these disks. Try http://www.gameworlddirect.co.uk or http://www.modchip.com ------------------------------------------- ========DVD-9 -> DVD±R, using only free software======== This is one good path to follow if you don't have any DVD software utilities at all. Updated: 8th August 2004 (based on hembo's guide) Scope of this guide: To copy any DVD9 to one DVD±R(W) with all the contents or the 'main movie' only. Hard disc space needed: 20 Gbyte when backing up a movie on 1 DVD9. Tools used: DVD Decrypter 3.5.2.0 DVD Shink 3.2 (note: if your drive is not NTFS you must use 3.2 or later) Download and install both of the above. Setting up DVD Shrink: Click on the Edit menu and then on Preferences... In the DVD Shrink Preferences window which opens, click on the File I/O tab As this guide only uses freeware, make sure that the Enable burning with Nero option is UNCHECKED Click the OK button Ripping: Start DVD Decrypter Ensure you're in 'File' mode by pressing the 'F' key or selecting it via the 'Mode' option in the menu at the top If, for some reason, all files are not selected, press <Ctrl-A> to select ALL the files Make a note of the destination folder, for example 'C:\NAME_OF_DVD\VIDEO_TS' Click the [DVD-image] button to start DVD Decrypter, this will take anything from 10 minutes and up, depending on your computer and DVD drive speed When it is finished, close DVD Decrypter Re-authoring / Shrinking: Start DVD Shrink Click the [OPEN FILES] button on the main toolbar Navigate to C:\NAME_OF_DVD\VIDEO_TS and click [Ok], this will take a few minutes while DVD shrink analyzes the DVD. When the analysis has finished, you will see the entire structure of the decrypted DVD files. Jump to step 16 to backup the entire DVD, (like an episodic or series DVD like Friends or Simpsons), instead of just the 'main movie', and then adjust the compression for the extras and menus in order to leave more room for the main title. Click the [RE-AUTHOR] button on the main toolbar and the DVD Browser tab should be active; if not, click on it Click and hold on 'Title 1' and drag it to the left-hand pane, under DVD If your movie is greater than 4.35GB then the movie is automatically compressed as you can see if you click on the 'Compression Settings' tab. Here you can deselect audio tracks and subtitles you don't want in order to minimize the compression of the video. Insert a blank DVD±R(W) into your DVD-burner Click the [BACKUP] button on the main toolbar Select ISO Image file and burn with DVD Decrypter as your target device Select an appropriate target file/folder for DVD Shrink to output to, for example 'C:\NEW_DVD.ISO' If your movie is greater than 4.35GB, then you can CHECK the 'Perform deep analysis' option on the Quality Settings tab to enhance the video quality. If it's not, there's no need to compress and you can't select that option. Click [OK]. If your movie is greater than 4.35GB it will take about 20 - 40 minutes depending on the length of the movie, and the complexity of the mpeg. Otherwise it will only take a few minutes. Once DVD Shrink has finished reauthoring and/or compressing, DVD Decrypter will automatically launch and burn the image to DVD without any user intervention When you have checked and are happy with the new DVD, you can delete the 'C:\NAME_OF_DVD' folder, the 'C:\NEW_DVD' folder (if it exists) and the 'C:\NAME_OF_DVD.ISO' file ========DVD-9 -> DVD+R DL, Double layer to Double layer! (1:1)========== Remove all discs from drives. Open DVD Decrypter. From the 'Mode' menu, select 'ISO' -> 'Read'. Put DVD-9 disc in drive. Take note of the 'Destination' file name. Click the big 'Decrypt' button. Take the DVD-9 disc out of the drive. From the 'Mode' menu, select 'ISO' -> 'Write'. Put a blank double layer disc in your DVD Writer. Click the little folder icon - 'Browse for source file' - and select the MDS file created for you as part of the steps above. Click the big 'Write' button. Finished! USE THE .MDS FILE IT CONTAINS THE LAYER BREAK INFO FOR BURNING! Note: If your drive supports booktype / bit setting, remember to tell it to burn DVD+R DL discs as DVDROM. This will make them more compatible with players. The booktype / bit setting utility is accessed by clicking on the little 'book' icon when in ISO Write mode.
Here is the link to ScubaPete's original article, written by him and formatted by me. http://www.dvdplusvideo.com/petesguide12.html
Awesome article, and so very true. I switched disks and used the decrypted files already on my hard drive from before...two perfect backups. If anyone else is just starting out, hopefully you won't do what I did and grab that 30 pack of Memorex from Wal Mart. I ended up with 19 coasters and a good 20 hours of headaches wondering what the heck I was doing wrong. Thanks again guys!
fasfrank Nice job on the website for ScubaPete with his great guides. I think I've seen that diver at the bottom of the page before. Mine says Welcome...
hi Scubabud, I think that diver belongs to you! ScubaPete sent me a URL to get his AD gif and I found that one as well. BTW I've got plenty of bandwidth so if you or anyone else needs a .gif hosted for a signature, etc, let me know and I can host it.
actually the article was from scubapete.He added part2 at my request. I reckon that as this is such a great article that maybe they should add this some where on the site as its relevance is outstanding in todays media world.
