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

[JohnnyScience]

I am looking to backup my dvds for quick & easy access on the computer instead of having to search through & load up each one.

What is the easiest way to do this in 7?

 

[aem]

Copy them all to your HDD and create shortcuts.
No need to browse, just click on the shortcuts.
Am i gettn warm as to what you want?

 

[JohnnyScience]

Copy them all to your HDD and create shortcuts.
No need to browse, just click on the shortcuts.
Am i gettn warm as to what you want?

Yeah but whats the best program in 7 to use to copy them to my HDD?

 

[Tews]

You dont need a special program to do this... just copy and paste...

 

[JohnnyScience]

You dont need a special program to do this... just copy and paste...

Hmm. Just go into My computer & copy the CDROM icon & paste it where I want? I always thought you needed some type of ripping program?

 

[Beastie]

dvd shrink and burn is one way to do it
DVD Shrink - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
i used this to do mine ust tell it to back up and save in folder instead of burning to disk
i have all my dvds on a hard drive and use win 7 media center to view them

 

[Tews]

That all depends on what type of data you want to copy... you never said... if its music, you can use Windows Media Player to rip it to your hard drive.. if its data, open the cd in windows explorer then copy and paste what you want to backup

 

[JohnnyScience]

dvd shrink and burn is one way to do it
DVD Shrink - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
i used this to do mine ust tell it to back up and save in folder instead of burning to disk
i have all my dvds on a hard drive and use win 7 media center to view them

Is this dvd shrink better than copy & paste?

I see it compresses & therefore losing quality - something I would be concerned about with higher end movies in HD etc?

And yes they are dvds/movies etc. I'd like them all to be compiled so I can run them through something like WMC or WMV.

I love WMC but I just hate how it takes ever the entire screen & locks your mouse on that program. I have 3 monitors & like to multi task while watching things.

 

[Beastie]

most dvds are copy protected so trying to copy and past may not work as i have never tried to do it that way
dvd shrink will work in most cases unless the dvd has some heavy duty copy protectin then you would need another program for that

 

[JohnnyScience]

most dvds are copy protected so trying to copy and past may not work as i have never tried to do it that way
dvd shrink will work in most cases unless the dvd has some heavy duty copy protectin then you would need another program for that

How much quality is lost with the compression?

 

[Beastie]

ive not noticed any problems with the quality every one i have done has worked nice
you should try using it see what happens one thing about it the program is free

at any rate this is my last post fro a while i have to go to work

 

[JohnnyScience]

Ok so I finally had a chance to try out DVDShrink and I'm a bit stuck.

I ran through the process to save everything to my HDD, but then I was left with an empty AUDIO_TS file & a VIDEO_TS file with a bunch of .VOB files.

I wanted to back this up so that everything was all under one file/icon that I can double click to just start automatically playing the movie.

So how do I change these files to do that?

 

[Frostmourne]

That is correct. The .VOB .IFO .BUP files are part of dvd's. For what you want I'd re-encode the films to 300-400mb x264 mkv films. I can walk you through the process. Those DVD shrink films are fat - 4.7GB. You should be able to open the VIDEO_TS files with Media Player Classic - HOme Cinema choose eitehr the x86 or x64 versions as necessary.

 

[JohnnyScience]

That is corect. T

?

That doesnt really explain anything?

 

[Frostmourne]

See above - twitchy mousepad.

 

[macgyver2]

You want to copy your movies off the DVD to a single file for later viewing on your computer correct?

If this is what you want then I can help as I have been doing this to my DVD collection for view off a Western Digital HD Media Player. There are many different apps that can be used depending on the quality you want and how fast it works. I Keep my files smaller so I can store more on my USB HDD but I lose sound quality but keep the HD video instead. There are many guides online about this topic depending on the software used.

If you do a complete back-up of a DVD you could have 4+GB used, if you rip the movie you can reduce this to smaller sizes. I rip to about 1.2GB for my movies.

 

[Frostmourne]

You want to copy your movies off the DVD to a single file for later viewing on your computer correct?

If this is what you want then I can help as I have been doing this to my DVD collection for view off a Western Digital HD Media Player. There are many different apps that can be used depending on the quality you want and how fast it works. I Keep my files smaller so I can store more on my USB HDD but I lose sound quality but keep the HD video instead. There are many guides online about this topic depending on the software used.

If you do a complete back-up of a DVD you could have 4+GB used, if you rip the movie you can reduce this to smaller sizes. I rip to about 1.2GB for my movies.

You can rip to less than 500mb with x264 and keep the quality - .avi and xvid isn't as good - if that's what you are using.

 

[gregrocker]

I back up all ISO's in Downloads folder.

If the image is on a disk, I use ImgBurn to extract the ISO.

 

[Beastie]

using dvd shrink when you do the back up uncheck create seperate audio and video folders
then have it save in a folder with the name you want
then in media center go to movies tab right click then add movies select folder to watch

i have a folder on my hard drive called movies then in that i have a folders for each movie

it also helps to add a picture in the folder and rename it to folder
give me a bit of time i can post some screen shots of what i have but it will take me a bit

 

[Beastie]

this is inside my movie folder

this is inside one of the movie folders

this is what i get with media center