[jofisk]

My girls are very hard on their DVDs, so have decided it would be a good idea to back up their most popular DVDs so they can have the copy and I can keep the original discs without too many scratches on them.

I am wondering how do I go about doing this on my PC? I can copy them to my DVD recorder, but it seems that some of the discs wont play on the recorder, so this may not work for all of them. I do have software that will create DVD's from avi files

Any suggestions will be useful.

[TherapyAddict]

Hi OP

This is a great program to use for backing up discs, just click on the 'Latest official version 3.2.0.15' and nothing else ( like the free scan your computer for errors recommendation - it's spam )

HTH

[EoinCuinn]

Hi OP

This is a great program to use for backing up discs, just click on the 'Latest official version 3.2.0.15' and nothing else ( like the free scan your computer for errors recommendation - it's spam )

HTH

DVD Shrink is the best out there (that's what's been linked above) but occasionally it will come across a DVD it won't want to copy due to copyright restrictions on the disc. You can use DVD43 (just google it) which will unlock said encryption, and allow DVDShrink to work

DVD shrink allows you to remove any extra stuff you don't want, like other languages, subtitles etc, and will even allow you to completely get rid of the menu structure if you want it. It will also compress a full double sided DVD down to one single sided DVD if needs be.

[blaast]

You can use DVD43 (just google it) which will unlock said encryption, and allow DVDShrink to work

...or DVD decrypter.

Use either of these first to copy the files to your hard drive, and then in DVD Shrink, open these DVD files to compress (shrink) the DVD to fit onto the smaller single layer 4.7Gb DVDs (DVDs are double layered 8.7Gb).

[Bubble11]

You can also buy programs from places like JB that say they can backup any dvd, keep meaning to do this, though I'm going to try the above links now.

[jofisk]

Would I need to convert the files to AVI or MP4, as I just wont to store them digitally and then redo discs as required.

If I just do a disc back I would need well over 100 disc to do this.

[foxhill]

You can rip the DVD as an 'ISO' image that can then be easily burned back onto any DVD in about 20 minutes.

[blaast]

Would I need to convert the files to AVI or MP4, as I just wont to store them digitally and then redo discs as required.
If I just do a disc back I would need well over 100 disc to do this.

You will need a program to convert DVD files to avi or mp4.
You can fit more movies onto a single disk, but the quality will be greatly reduced.

If you are storing the original disks anyway, and the copied disk gets damaged, then just recopy the original disk.
You can purchase packs of 50 disks for as little as $15.