Digital Storage of DVD video

[Danny]

Hi Everyone

What is the best way to store DVD movies on a computer (vob files, iso??, etc). Am wanting to play my movies from PC as they always seem to get scratched quickly when I use the disk.

Cheers

D.

[bobgpsr]

Danny wrote:

What is the best way to store DVD movies on a computer (vob files, iso??, etc).

I find that a straight rip using DVDFabDecrypter to hard drive as a single .ISO file is best for me. Most compatible with everything when I then mount the iso file as a drive letter using DAEMON Tools. If I decide to back it up to optical disc, I mount it with DAEMON Tools, then re-author it with DVD Shrink and burn.

Bob

[Sonnie]

For our protection, let's be very scrupulous in our discussions of this topic, keeping in mind the The Digital Millennium Copyright Act. For those not familiar with the Act, general highlights are as follows:

• Makes it a crime to circumvent anti-piracy measures built into most commercial software.
  
• Outlaws the manufacture, sale, or distribution of code-cracking devices used to illegally copy software.
  
• Does permit the cracking of copyright protection devices, however, to conduct encryption research, assess product interoperability, and test computer security systems.
  
• Provides exemptions from anti-circumvention provisions for nonprofit libraries, archives, and educational institutions under certain circumstances.
  
• In general, limits Internet service providers from copyright infringement liability for simply transmitting information over the Internet.
  
• Service providers, however, are expected to remove material from users' web sites that appears to constitute copyright infringement.
  
• Limits liability of nonprofit institutions of higher education -- when they serve as online service providers and under certain circumstances -- for copyright infringement by faculty members or graduate students.
  
• Requires that "webcasters" pay licensing fees to record companies.
  
• Requires that the Register of Copyrights, after consultation with relevant parties, submit to Congress recommendations regarding how to promote distance education through digital technologies while "maintaining an appropriate balance between the rights of copyright owners and the needs of users."
  
• States explicitly that "[n]othing in this section shall affect rights, remedies, limitations, or defenses to copyright infringement, including fair use..."

I'm not excluding any discussion of copying (other than what our Forum Rules prohibit), and I want to make sure we don't encourage anything that might infringe on the Act.

[Josuah]

Also, even though making a bit-for-bit copy of a DVD (e.g. a disc image/ISO, etc.) doesn't do anything explicitly prohibited by the DMCA (based on my interpretation), Kaleidescape was still sued back in 2004 for creating disc images of DVDs so you could play them back without re-inserting the physical disc. Of course, it doesn't help that most of the lawyers and pretty much all content publishers are about as knowledgeable about technology as a stack of bricks. And fair use rights don't seem to matter either.

[bobgpsr]

I'm looking forward to the DMCA being tested in the courts for a home user making a backup for their personal use at home. There are a whole lot of gray areas that I have heard discussed. It has never had such a test case go up through all the courts up to the Supreme Court. When it does go through the courts and the result is VERY CLEAR -- only then will we really know if we are being scofflaws. Plus if the decision goes against the home user doing backups of purchased material for their own personal and non-public usage -- then I predict a political storm and people will give their congressmen a very hard time.

In the future the new idea of Mandatory Managed Copy in the AACS used for HD DVD and Blu-ray high definition video discs may solve the issue of making hard drive/media server copies from AACS media. Users get to do what they want and content providers have protection. It will require a "phone home" feedback to the content provider to issue a license to the user.

Bob

[Josuah]

Depending on what the user wants. :P A fair number of people strip out the trailers and other forced-viewing stuff from standard DVD movies already.

[Danny]

I think (emphasis on the think) that Australian copyright laws recently changed to allow copy's that are made from a disk that you own.

[khellandros66]

I would use the DVDFab as well to make it a .ISO and use it with FFDShow and DScaler to make it smoother and stuff.

~Bob