DVD to CD?

[EpyonMelee]

how do i burn a dvd to a cd and how much quatily do i lose?

[Tazzin]

I have never tried it. the quality would be dependent on how big the DVD is you are trying to copy. I suggest using DVD Shrink.. it has a slider to compress the file(s) down how ever much you want.

If you are copying a movie DVD .. I would only compress and burn the actual movie files.

[The_Shooter]

If you are planning on 'backing' up your movies onto CD, then you can go about it with different results.
You could convert your DVD to VCD, which is supposed to be a lil less quality that VHS. With VCD, you can get away with only 2 CDs.
You could convert it to SVCD, which is alot better quality but can have several CDs to one movie. I have a couple of SVCDs that are 4 CDs long. The quality is supposed to be VHS or better.
If you do not want to play it back on a DVD player, you could use Avi, Divx, Xvid, etc.

For more info, you can do to: http://www.dvdrhelp.com/
On the left, there is a link called "Guides". You should take a look there. The whole site is full of info to help you.

[RayH]

The process can be very long and is not an exact science. Trying to compress and keep everything in sync is a task. Go to www.dvdhelp.com and search them. It's very helpful.

I've actually done a bunch of movies. The results are like about a good copy of a VHS. It may not make much difference on a small screen, especially that of older technology. But with new technolgoy, it may not be satisfying.

I'm older. I like older movies. So the originals I like tend to not be as digitized as new movies. Since the task is laborious, I tend to do it for movies that are more on the rare side. I don't lend my originals out. So I'll make copies. But once they are on VCD, they copy like any other!

With the price of DVD burners coming down, it may be easier and better to just copy them as DVDs!

[[Neo770]]

I highly recommend getting a DVD burner. I dont know about you but I cant stand loosing the Dolby Digital/DTS surround tracks.

But if you have to do it on CD, then I use a free program called DVDx to make my SVCD's.

http://www.labdv.com/dvdx/

[RayH]

But as about as easy as it's going to get to copy DVDs to VCDs that can play on a home DVD player is getting a couple of freeware programs: EasyVCD and VCDEasy V1.15 (this is the free version, you'll have to hunt).

EasyVCD is only good for no subtitle moives.

[RayH]

It appears, from my archive library, that the best results of DVD to VCD are using an home DVD player hooked to the computer. Caputre the image with Caputre VCR, re-encode it with TMPGEnc, and burn it to CD with VCDEasy v 1.15. Each of these programs is free. The movies aren't as jerky.

Trying to do DVD to VCD using the DVD drive of the computer can be really iffy. First, you may not know the quality until after you're done. You may not know if you got the right audio track. You might get the Director's comments track!

There is a $40 payware called WinCopyDVD. It's really quick. But the results are jerky.

Free software are: DVDx, DVD2SVCD, and EasyVCD. DVDx may have you go back and re-record the end. Somehow it seems to drop the last three minutes the first time. Slower the rendering, the better the results.

The trick is to burn the CDs with VCDEasy v.1.15 Go here and get it. It's the only site that still has it for free: http://www.pc-magazin.de/datatip/com...66&fileid=2245

I've tried burning with with Roxio and Nero. I can't get them to play on a home unit. VCDEasy works like a champ. You will also need the free version of TMPGEnc. At minimum, it's handy to resplit the files. For MPEG 1, TMPGEnc is free.

[Ymer]

I have tried many programs, and the program I find works the best (with the least hassle), is DVDShrink. It's really good, especially with a DVD-burner!

[excuzzzeme]

Have used DVD2SVCD along with NERO. Have had decent results. As far as quality it seems to be VHS compatible. I have noticed occaional pixelation but is not frequent (at least not as bad as my digital cable was). After ripping (DVDRipper), burn time was in the hours.

[dr_roberts49]

I agree with Klipsch. DVD burners are at a good affordable price right now. You can get a quality burner from Newegg in the $100 range. Average time for backing up your personal DVDs can be done in 30 minutes or more, and you keep most if not all the quality. This depends on the size of the movie. It's just too long and difficult to go through the process of fitting it to a CD. This was a good option a couple of years ago, but I don't think the time it takes (hours) is worth it anymore. That's my opinion.

Robert