How to Legally Make Copies of Your DVD's

So we all have probably bought a DVD and maybe it got scratched, or lost, or damaged, or maybe you let a friend borrow it and it never got returned

I can help you solve this problem with one very simple program called DVD Decrypter.

DVD Decrypter is legal software (remember to only use it to make copies of your own discs, not rented ones, that is illegal) that can bypass security placed on DVD's to create identical copies. You can also edit numerous aspects of the disc such as the region.

I will give you detailed steps on how to create a copy of your disc. If you need any additional information, just google the program and youll easily find more information.

Step 1: Download the program at the link given below. This program is 100% virus,spyware,malware free, and is very small.

http://happykitty.free2hoxt.com/Setu...er_3.5.4.0.exe

Step 2: Install the program

Step 3:Start the program

Step 4: Go to the mode button, and make sure it is set to ISO (which is a disc image) read

Step 5: Insert your DVD (please note this only works for DVD, a tutorial on an HD DVD and Blue Ray program will be given soon)

Step 6: Let the disc load, and then click on the folder under the destination area to select a place to save the disc image.

Step 7:Hit the DVD to Hard drive button, and wait while it writes the file to your hard drive.

Step 8: Once it is done, change the mode to ISO Write.

Step 9: Now hit the folder button and browse to where you saved your disc image.

Step 10: Insert a blank DVD into your drive

Step 11:Hit the Hard Drive to DVD button

Step 12: Wait for it to write to your disc

Step 13: Enjoy your identical copy of any DVD disc.


Remember this program is free and legal, and the action is legal. As long as you own the original copy it is legal.

Hope this helps anyone wanting to make a backup copy of their DVD's

[bobgpsr]

1. Cracking CSS or AACS is stated to be illegal in one clause of the DMCA. However another clause mentions fair use archival backups. Making personal backups of things you own for strictly personal use which requires cracking copy protection encryption has not yet been vetted by the courts in the US. Many are anxious to see such a case go to court.

2. DVD Decrypter is now sadly out of date and does not work a good percentage of the time. DVDFab HD Decrypter 5.0.8.5 (August 16, 2008) is up to date.

Well the Fab program was the second tutorial I was going to list, but DVD Decrypter works fine with any DVD. I've tried on many lol.

[sparky77]

I use ripit4me with dvd decrypter, and dvdshrink. It's worked for every disk I've tried so far, and it is very simple to use.

[tbase1]

will any of these work well with vista media center and copy as mpeg4? All i want to do is save the movies to my harddrive and launch them from there. If mpeg4 looks bad on a 8' wide screen ,I'll just use mpeg2.

[bobgpsr]

DVD's use MPEG2 for video. Converting (re-encoding) to a different video codec such as MPEG4 is a lengthy process that takes many hours on a home PC. Some people do do it to save space and then put the result into a different encapsulation format container such as MKV that allows for MPEG4.

[sparky77]

if you use ripit4me with dvdshrink, I do believe there is a way to make it format the file into one av file, I've never personally done it because if I compress the files any further I use DR. DIVX which is now rather outdated. Using dvdshrink would keep it all in the mpg2/ac3 realm which would probably yield the best picture/sound results, there may be others on the forum that could correct me if I'm wrong.

tbase1 wrote:

will any of these work well with vista media center and copy as mpeg4? All i want to do is save the movies to my harddrive and launch them from there. If mpeg4 looks bad on a 8' wide screen ,I'll just use mpeg2.

These create a disk image, which can be saved, and launched from your harddrive. All you need to do is download a program that will create virtual drives, which you can mount and launch the image from. If you're interested I can make a tutorial for how to do this.

[madhorizons]

A lot of the newer DVDs have a purposely placed bad sector into them that kill the process for a lot of the decoders. I use "Mac The Ripper" on my Apple to backup mine and have ran into it a few times. I'm not sure if the newer software mentioned here will assist with that process or not.

[tonyvdb]

madhorizons wrote:

A lot of the newer DVDs have a purposely placed bad sector into them that kill the process for a lot of the decoders. I'm not sure if the newer software mentioned here will assist with that process or not.

Has anybody found a way around this? My three youngest daughters are rough on there DVDs and I would love to be able to make a backup of them so they dont destroy the originals but so far the above mentioned programs will not work for most movies with this bad track, it kills the process.

[Otto]

tonyvdb wrote:

Has anybody found a way around this? My three youngest daughters are rough on there DVDs and I would love to be able to make a backup of them so they dont destroy the originals but so far the above mentioned programs will not work for most movies with this bad track, it kills the process.

Not sure of that. I have ripped many, many, many DVDs, and have never run into this issue. Hey, madhorizons, could you offer a couple names of DVDs that have this intentional bad sector?

I have had good luck ripping DVDs with DVD Decrypter, DVDFab, and most recently AnyDVD HD. I would highly recommend AnyDVD HD.

[Mike P.]

When you burn a DVD, does it still have the resolution of the original DVD?

[atledreier]

If you don't use a program liek DVDshrink the image will be identical to the original. That means you need a dual-layer DVDr to fit the image. Many use DVDshrink to fit the image on a single layer DVDr, adn will have to re-encode. This WILL lose picture quality, no matter what the mp3 crowd says...

[tonyvdb]

I've been using DVDshrink and it has worked for two out of the 7 DVDs I have tried. I keep getting a error with most of them. (mostly Disney DVDs) I'm not worried about quality loss as its only kids movies and they dont care.

[atledreier]

tonyvdb wrote:

I'm not worried about quality loss as its only kids movies and they dont care.

Well... My kids didn't want to watch my copied version of Finding Nemo. "Dad, why is this so fuzzy!? Can we watch one of your movies, they are always sharp!" I'll admit that version of the movie was pretty poor quality, but still... I put on 'Happy feet' on HD-DVD and they were happy again. We are a photographer's and painter's family so it may be in their blood, though. They always hear me comment on pictures and image quality.

[tonyvdb]

Thes movies are for our 2 and 4 year old, I agree that my older girls would complane but I'm not worried about them using our DVDs

[superjoe89]

This could really come in handy for me. Thanks a bunchh!!

[Wayde]

I've had a lot of luck with DVDShrink but the odd time I can't do it I hunt around Doom9:

http://www.doom9.org/

I want to add my $.02 about the title of this thread:

There is no illegal way to make copies of your DVDs!

You are protected by a Supreme Court decision known as Sony vs. Universal that ruled in favor of “Fair Use”.

Fair Use includes time-shifting, PVRing, taping TV shows, copying CDs/DVDs.

Much later the Clinton / Gore administration passed something called the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).

DMCA gave sweeping powers to content providers (music and movie studios ie. RIAA and MPAA) to:

A/ By-pass traditional due process and find anyone they suspect of copyright infringement guilty.

B/ Execute their own field punishments or digital vigilante justice against anyone they suspect of copyright infringement.

I won’t even get into the fact that the RIAA ties up American courts with litigation against parents with children that might have used file sharing programs, on the US tax-payer bill.

If that seems a little UN-American, that's because it is. Before Al Gore invented the Internet, became an environmentalist and discovered the inconvenient truth that a single donut contains as much as 30grams of saturated fat - he was a suck-up to the mainstream recording industries and along with his wife Tipper did everything they could to prevent non-mainstream music from appearing at record stores.

I’m not espousing politics here but just remember your rights. If you own it, you can copy it for your own use, that’s considered fair use. If you don’t own it and want it, you should buy it – making it profitable is the only way to encourage the creation of the kind of content you like.

[bobgpsr]

The DMCA was passed in 1998 by a Republican Party controlled congress. Clinton did sign it.
http://www.copyright.gov/legislation/dmca.pdf

a quote from it (bold is mine):

This distinction was employed to assure that the public will have the continued
ability to make fair use of copyrighted works. Since copying of a work may be a fair use
under appropriate circumstances, section 1201 does not prohibit the act of circumventing
a technological measure that prevents copying. By contrast, since the fair use
doctrine is not a defense to the act of gaining unauthorized access to a work, the act of
circumventing a technological measure in order to gain access is prohibited.

[Wayde]

Do I stand corrected or merely supplemented?

No, DMCA doesn't overturn Sony V. Uversal or Fair use. I hope I didn't give anyone that impression.

You do have the right to copy your stuff.

I was just pointing out that DMCA is (wrongly) used as a legal basis for circumventing due process. It's abused by doing things like attempting to subpeona logs from ISPs. There is very little legal prescident here so some ISPs, famously Verizon, have caved in to the RIAA demands.

Just remember that everything you do online is logged by your ISP and any Tom, Dick or Harry who wants to write your ISP (with convincing-sounding argument) can obtain those logs and track all your actions without your knowlege. Oh... and use that information as evidence against you in court.

The Verizon case proved ISP's aren't ready to go to bat for your privacy.

There have been allegations that the studios themselves plant fake copies of their content that plant viruses and other bugs to purposely hurt would-be copyright infringers.

I wasn't really trying to provide a civics lesson on the origin of a bill or late 90s politics.

Suffice it to say Clinton was president in '98 so the DMCA wears his name. Although I don't suggest he's responsible for the monster the DMCA has become. It's the most abused bit of policy to ever come out of the digital realm.

Admittedly it probably would have been difficult to predict in 1998 what was going to happen nearly a decade later.

[Sonnie]

I have an insert in one of my DVD cases (either Batman or Narnia) that encourages me to download a digital copy of the DVD online.

[tonyvdb]

Well, still having issues using DVDshrink. I keep getting an error "Data error (cyclic redundancy check)" I've tried 5 of the disney dvds that I want to do and they all give the same error when I start the backup process and it all seems to happen about 1/4 of the way in. any ideas as to what that may be? I have tried it on two different computers in our house.

[thewire]

tonyvdb wrote:

Well, still having issues using DVDshrink. I keep getting an error "Data error (cyclic redundancy check)" I've tried 5 of the disney dvds that I want to do and they all give the same error when I start the backup process and it all seems to happen about 1/4 of the way in. any ideas as to what that may be? I have tried it on two different computers in our house.

When I make demo disc or want to watch a DVD in player using upconversion without the "restricted to 480P" message in my player I make some copies to disc using DVD Shrink. I don't use compression. There is an option to not use compression in DVD shrink. The problem you may be having is that you need to restart the program to start encoding the next disc. I found this needs to be done sometimes, but not sure this will help you or not.

[Pinhead-227]

tonyvdb wrote:

Has anybody found a way around this? My three youngest daughters are rough on there DVDs and I would love to be able to make a backup of them so they dont destroy the originals but so far the above mentioned programs will not work for most movies with this bad track, it kills the process.

You're probably getting a "cyclic redundancy check" or some similar message? You need Slysoft AnyDVD. It's not free but it's WELL worth the money.

[bobgpsr]

tonyvdb wrote:

Well, still having issues using DVDshrink. I keep getting an error "Data error (cyclic redundancy check)" I've tried 5 of the disney dvds that I want to do and they all give the same error when I start the backup process and it all seems to happen about 1/4 of the way in. any ideas as to what that may be? I have tried it on two different computers in our house.

Have you even tried the latest version of DVDFab HD Decrypter, which is up to version 5.2.3.2 as of 22 January 2009?

DVDshrink has not been maintained for the past few years.