How to back up a DVDPosted by Andy Atkinson on April 30, 2006 This article is a tutorial that explains the process of backing up a DVD on a PC using DVD Shrink. While there are many software solutions for backing up DVDs, the one on Windows I like is DVD Shrink. The program I use to burn CDs and DVDs is Nero. This article assumes your computer is already equipped with a burning program. An explanation of DVD Shrink and its features is available in a previous article. DVD Shrink will use Nero for burning if it is detected, but does not require Nero. Nero "Express" edition can be purchased very inexpensively (@ buycheapsoftware.com for example). This tutorial will be a concise explanation of how to get the most out of your backup. There are many reasons to make a backup copy of DVDs one has purchased, keep reading to learn how to improve the quality of your re-encoded backups.
As explained in the previous article, if the DVD you are backing up is a single layer disc, or if your burner is capable of writing to dual-layer discs and you've purchased blank dual-layer media, backing up your DVD will be effortless. 1) Open the disc for "Analysis"The first thing you will need to do is open the disc. Open DVD Shrink, and click the "Open Disc" menu option at the top of the menu bar. When you click OK, the DVD will be "analyzed"--this process will run for 1-3 minutes, then DVD Shrink will "suggest" a level of compression.
Most people however will be backing up dual-layer DVDs to single-layer media, and will therefore need to compress (or "shrink") the movie files down to a size that will fit on single-layer media, but at the highest quality level. If you receive an error while trying to rip the DVD (like the one shown in the screenshot above), you will need to use another program such as DVD Fab Decrypter to copy the DVD files off of the disc on to your hard drive. Click here to read how to backup DVDs with DVD Fab Decrypter.
2) Adjust compression for individual TitlesAssuming you now have the original DVD backed up to your hard drive, DVD Shrink will automatically select the highest possible quality settings that will fit on your disc. You could accept the settings that DVD Shrink chooses, but you should understand that you can increase the quality of the main movie file by reducing or eliminating other video and audio files on the DVD. Many modern DVDs will contain bonus footage, trailers, multiple surround sound modes, and other settings that one can reduce or eliminate to improve the quality of the main movie feature. The main movie quality setting is reported to the left of a slider bar in the top right of the screen. In the screenshot below we see that the default setting requires that the main movie be compressed to 49% of its original level to fit on the disc. I would like to increase this percentage to improve the final quality of the backed-up DVD.
The way in which one goes about improving the quality of the main movie will be different depending on your specific needs. For example, when "Dolby Digital" and "DTS" 5.1 audio tracks are available, I will generally remove "DTS" (to save hundreds of megabytes), but other users might prefer to preserve "DTS" and reduce or eliminate other items from the DVD. Some of the settings I made to this particular DVD were:
To improve the quality of the main movie, you'll need to reduce or eliminate other DVD features, each called a "Title" in DVD Shrink. Click the "plus sign" next to "Extras" in the menu to view the other titles.
The Title I've selected below was 836MB. In order to preview this title, like any other Title in DVD Shrink, I clicked the triangle (Play) button to decide whether this was a feature I wished to preserve.
In this case the video was a "behind the scenes" featurette that I did not wish to keep. Since one cannot completely remove any of the "Titles," the next best thing is to replace them with a still image. In order to do this, select the title you want to replace, and choose "Still Image" from the drop-down menu in the top right. In this case the file went from 836MB to 117MB. The still image is configurable, simply drop an image of your own into the aptly named
Again, you'll want to tweak the movie settings until you are satisfied. In the case of this DVD, I made only those two changes, which improved the main movie compression from 49% to 70.7%. 3) Burn the re-encoded files to discThe burn settings will be displayed over several tabs shown in the screenshot below.
Once you have the settings the way you like them, begin the burn process. You'll see the "Encoding" happening first. There is a video preview that will show you where you are, but I believe that the encoding process goes slower with this setting enabled.
If you have just one drive to rip and burn, then you will be prompted to replace the disc after the "rip" (also called copy) of the DVD has successfully copied the contents to your hard drive. If you have a second drive set up to burn DVDs, the burn will start immediately. I hope this guide made it easy for you to burn backup DVDs with DVD Shrink. Please share your tips or questions in the comment section below or through the contact form. About the author(s) Andy started Pain in the Tech in 2005 as a way to share tips and tutorials with friends and family, and evangelize great products and services. By 2008, Pain in the Tech had 7 contributors, thousands of daily page views. Site ownership was transitioned to Matt Thommes in 2008. Comments
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# Paul Stamatiou at 5/4/2006 12:20 pm cst
I was under the impression that DVDShrink no longer exists as of about 5 months ago when they were told to shut down. Granted you can still find it online, newer versions cease to be created. I think there was an open-source project called ShrinkTo5 to replace DVDShrink. I talked about ShrinkTo5 here.Quick Link to this comment: http://TTIP.me/c4010