Windows 7: How can I backup my DVDs for quick & easy access?

Almost!! The best way to create a movie library. Do U know about the software "HANDBRAKE" ? Its the easiest and finest way to rip your DVds to XVID or MKV. Obviously those formats take a place much less than even a shrinked DVD, but doesnt compromise with video or audio quality. My suggestion to make a DVD library
1. Rip your DVD using handBreak (or you may try virtual dubMod)
2. Download the Album Art for that movie title, edit it as a square pixel (say 500*500)Using Nero photosnap Viewer or The GIMP or Photoshop.
3. Place the album art it the same folder as the dvdrip, rename the image as "folder" and Hide it ( it will give a nice folder view as large or extra large icon) .
4. Add to media center Movie Library , and get such a nice look.

There is another software called KMPLAYER which can make movie library nicely. The library looks somehow like the coverflow view of the MAC OS X . As well as HANDBREAK, KMPLAYER is also free. It takes random snapshot of the movie title to generate thumbnail, so no need to have an album art, too.

i do not want xvid or mkv
the way i have been doing it is fine it allows me to have all the dvd features that are on the disk
i used to rip them to divx
but i wanted something that i can have the entire dvd feature with

as far as how it looks the pic i took is on my gaming machine
my videos are on another computer that i watch them with and record my tv shows on
i use media browser on that one

That actually looks pretty sweet. I LOVE media center - but I can never use it because it locks up the screen/mouse. I have multiple monitors, so I cant be locked onto one monitor with the mouse.

Is there any way to change that?

Arc I've tried Handbrake with Ubuntu & never got it to work. Plus that sounds like a lot of work to get pictures etc.

So if I cant get media center to not lock a screen, how do I create files that will just allow me to double click ONE file & it places the movie?

try handbrake. store them in your video file or whatever you want to do with them. if your using 7mc point it to your directory and they will all show up. if you want posters instead of icons, find the image you want to use, put each video file into it's own folder named for the movie and add the corresponding cover art changing the files name to "foler.jpeg"

My opinion goes with you. HandBrake works nice in windows 7. If a movie is ripped using handbrake, and not imported to media center, just double click on it.... it will begin to play. The folder view or icon view is a matter of customization. If you dont want it, no problem at all.

Right but I'm not just trying to get this to play on Media center, but also all other players.

Also as I mentioned, when I tried HB on Ubuntu, I was never able to do it.

So why cant I use DVDShrink to copy the DVD into a single icon that I can double click?

What you have is the way the DVD format is setup. Look under the VIDEO_TS folder and look for VIDEO_TS.IFO file. Click on this file and it will play the DVD. You could make a shortcut to this file and place it where ever you want.

Jim

Isnt there a way to just combine all of the files into a single file to click on?

It seems like it would keep it more neat & organized that way too. Instead of having to search through a bunch of video files to find a single file. It just seems very time consuming & more clicks than it should.

In DVD format, perhaps not . If a movie is a very short one, you may encode it in dvd format, it may contain in a single .vob. But for a normal sized movie, usually there is more than one .vob files.

But if you can copy a movie and use a program that can join .vob files, what you want may happen ( it is more laborious than ripping a dvd)