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BendCD DVDShrink Makes Back ups of your DVDsDo you have a pile of expensive DVD’s? Do you have Kids ? Does your kids have a pile of expensive Children’s DVD’s ? If you answer yes to at least TWO of these questions – you are aware that kids doesn’t always treat DVD’s very nice. I don’t know about your kids, but mine, hardly ever put the DVD back into its case. I can find them anywhere, on the floor, under the sofa, piled on top of the DVD player…Especially if they had a TV-day because of bad weather, being sick etc.

Remember back when the CD was first introduced – how they promised that a CD would withstand anything, heat, water, jam(!), you could even jump up and down on them…. yeah right. Okay, The CD and DVD are durable – but I have yet to find a CD or DVD that is completely child and scratch proof.

The most expensive DVD’s I buy are the one for Kids – so naturally I want to preserve them – making them last long enough for my kids to outgrow them. What do you do ?

I for one begun sniffing around after ways to take backups (for my own personal use) to preserve the original disk, and to burn a copy that my kids can (ab)use…

This is what I found…

No Liability (…or what my lawyer advised me to say…)

Before we continue I would like to point out that  this is not a tutorial on how to steal or otherwise illegally distribute DVD’s. I am writing this post for other parents out there who are in desperate need of preserving the expensive DVD’s so that they do not have to re-buy a DVD because their kids have ruined it. This is for your personal backup needs only. okay, let’s continue…

DVD copying software

First we need a program that will allow us to copy the data from the DVD to your hard drive. I recommend on that is completely free: DVDshrink. Click Here to Download.

What I like about DVDshrink is that you may copy the entire DVD as is, or you may re-master it, copying only the part you want, like the main movie, languages, subtitles etc. Making it possible to copy a 8GB DVD to a 4GB DVD. DVDshrink also allows you to control how much compression to use so you never end up with files that are too large to burn.

Step by Step

  1. Insert your DVD and Click OPEN.
    Let DVDshrink analyze the disk. When done, DVDshrink will show you how much space the entire backup will take, copying the entire disk. If you want to copy the entire disk, skip steps 2 through 5.DVD analyzing 500x246 DVDShrink Makes Back ups of your DVDs
  2. To backup only the necessary parts, go through the list of contents like Audio, and subtitles (called Subpicture) and disable what you don’t need. When you do, notice that the Movie Compression Rate is automatically adjusted for you.DVD content 500x529 DVDShrink Makes Back ups of your DVDs
  3. Click Re-Author
  4. From the content list in the left pane, drag whatever titles you want into the DVD Structure window in the Right pane. The Main movie will always be the largest file.
  5. Click Backup. Now you get to choose your new DVD settings.DVD backup DVDShrink Makes Back ups of your DVDs
  6. In the Target Device Tab, chose where to store the backup (on Hard Disk Folder or directly to a new DVD). I recommend you first store the backup-files to your Hard Drive in case anything should go wrong during the copy process.
  7. Set DVD region (default is Region Free) in the DVD Region Tab.
  8. As long as you use the default settings for Video Compression, you cannot access anything in the Quality Settings Tab
  9. To set CPU Service Priorities, click on the Options Tab.
  10. If you Chose to Burn the Copy directly to a new disk, you can change the setting like Volume label, Burn Speed etc for your DVD burner in the Burn Settings tab.
  11. Click OK, Sit back and let DVDshrink do the rest.

NOTE!
A Copy Protection will be read as a CRC check error.
If you do get those You might need to get hold of a copy of SlySoft AnyDVD  or another CopyProtect removal tool. Not that I’m recommending any.

Other ways

There are of course other ways to make secure backups of your DVD’s, like create ISO-Images of the entire disk without violation copy protection etc. If you need to make backups of other kinds of DVD’s or want a simple way of creating ISO-Files from an entire disk, you should try ImgBurn (Read Here)



 DVDShrink Makes Back ups of your DVDs

About Thomas

Computer geek from the age of 7, which amounts to 30 years of computer experience. From the early days (when every computer company had their own OS) of DOS, Windows 1.0 through Seven...

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Comments

  • b0r1s

    this is the best tool for dvd backup. I use it for almost two years :)

  • b0r1s

    this is the best tool for dvd backup. I use it for almost two years :)

  • b0r1s

    this is the best tool for dvd backup. I use it for almost two years :)

  • zl1ogx

    I have been using this and a wee program called dvd idle pro for backing up those dvd’s.

    Great bit of software.

  • zl1ogx

    I have been using this and a wee program called dvd idle pro for backing up those dvd’s.

    Great bit of software.

  • zl1ogx

    I have been using this and a wee program called dvd idle pro for backing up those dvd’s.

    Great bit of software.

  • Walt

    This is a very good tool. Been using it for years. I know firsthand how kids treat, or I should say mistreat DVD's. That is why I got into the habit of using DVD Shrink to make a back up first. Then I put the original disk in a safe place and let the kids have the backup copy. When they destroy that one, as they always will, I make them another one.


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