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i am seriously thinking of getting a dvd burner for making backups of my movies. i want them to be as close to the originals as possible. im not sure what format to get to make them play in dvd players and in computers. also i have the first 2 lord of the rings that look like it wont fit on one dvd-/+r disc. do they make them in 9gb or just dvd ram?

i don't know the PCA policy on linking to sites related to this...but since it's for legal backups of your dvd's i'll provide a little info.

nearly ALL dvd's you buy today will be too large for a dvd-r (4.7GB...but "usable" is actually 4.36GB or something).

copying a dvd is similar to ripping and burning a music cd...you have to have a program that will rip it (decrypt) and then also compress it. there are many retail products that will do this (DVDxCopy), etc. if you do a web search you will find that there are also many free or shareware products that do just as good, or better, of a job.

i've found that anything under 30% compression of the video (you can't compress the audio DD/DTS tracks) is hardly noticable...especially on smaller tv's.

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edit: and as far as burning the dvd...you can use newer versions of Nero (i use 6.0) and it automatically takes the .vob, .ifo files and creates the directory structure for you.

there's a new one out there forgot the name but outpost.com carries it and it costs $50 .. it claims to actually handle all the compression and would allow easy complete copy of any dvd to the std. 4.7gb media

im not sure what format to get to make them play in dvd players and in computers.

DVD-R is supposed to be the most compatible format. Any new DVD players should be able to handle most formats, however. The only thing to watch out for are the old first-gen DVD players which can't read any recordable media.

good site for info: http://www.dvdrhelp.com/

i've found the el cheapo apex dvd players (starts at $40) plays all those beautifully

there are a couple of issues - the compression and all the extra stuff on the disks - the one i am using now is dvd xcopy xpress which will copy one movie with one sound track (english, etc) onto one disk.

as to format I have no idea I have a +r because that's what OM had on sale for $150 (hp300i)

i don't have a problem with the extras on dvds...i just dynamically compress the stuff i don't care about as much and lower the compression on the main movie, etc. if i do reauthor a dvd i will just strip out the junk and keep the movie and DTS track if available (if not, then i go for DD).

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I would buy a dual format 4x drive. One that writes BOTH - and + at 4x! Some will write one format 4x but the other only 2x. NOW the price of dual format is about the same as either single format drives. When I bought mine they were about twice the price.

I burn -R disks. Not haveing any trouble so far.

As for backups, get DVDshrink ver. 2.3 AND 3beta 5. I preffer 3beta 5, but if I have a problem ver 2.3 works. FREE!!!! Great software and the price is perfect! Easy to learn and use. Does NOT install into windows, so you can use both.

Many comercial DVDs are DVD9 and if they are actually over 4.7gigs in data then you have to either shrink the files, cut extras and such, or split to two disks. There is Nothing over 4.7 for DVD R.

As for burning. Alot of people like Nero for DVD and about as many hate it! There are others like record Now MAx and such. If your going to be making backups or original DVDs I like Tmpgenc DVD Author as a good authoring and burning program. Fully working 30 day free demo. It's not as advanced as many programs, but does a great job, also now has built in burner. That's what I use mostly.
I think it cost about $70 if you buy it after the demo. I forgot now, but that's close.

Many other programs to choose from also with 30day free demos that fully work! Some cheap, some expensive. Some FREE!

As for write speeds, 1X is an hour, 2x 30minutes, 4x 15 minutes, aprox. for a full disk.
Riteks seem to be the most recomended disks, G03 and G04 id codes. Not too expensive.
I use CHEAP leda/princos, write 1x on my burner, but I never has a bad disk yet, though many speak of princo badly.

I've done alot of reading and studing on dvdrhelp.com

I would assume given the specs on my DVD player:
DVD-Audio, DVD-Video, DVD-RAM/DVD-R, CD, CD-R/RW 5, Video CD, JPEG, MP3, WMA, HighMAT

That I can only use DVD- ?
Would that be correct?
What is the difference between DVD-RAM and DVD-R, anything ?

-R and +R are recordable DVD formats for write once disks just like Cd R, same with - or + rw disks, just two different formats for rewritable DVDs.

Kinda like the Beta vs VHS in the old VCR wars. Most players seem to play either format, -r is suppodely more compatible with older players.

Ram is totally different, not everything plays ram disks. Geuss its sort of like Cds and DVDs in away, same size disk, looks the same, works different!

Also DVD R disks all hold 4.7gigs data MAX, But Ram can go about 9-10gigs I think.

Cheapest RAM disks are about $8 that I know of, DVD -r about $0.80

Oh I also have the First 2 Lord of the rings also. They are put away nice and safe
We watch the backups!

Using DVDshrink, I was able to put each 3 hour movie onto a disk, and for us we can't tell the difference between the backups and the real disks on our tv. Excellent picture!
Only thing I might have left out would be extra lanauges like french, I normally only keep english.

Sometime I need to see what the disks look like on a 52"

Sometime I need to see what the disks look like on a 52"

i've tested some of my backups on a friend's 60" projection and the quality was still excellent. pretty much anything under 20-25% compression and it's tough to tell there is any pixelation unless the scene is static for a while...moving pics look perfect. heck, i've even put a backup or two on projectors and they looked great on a 10'x10' screen.

Projection?

I've seen some advertised for around $1000 or so, how do those projectors work? They hookup with cables like a TV VCR DVD does?

How good are they? Like a theater or LARGE Tv or just so so?

If you get a good projector with good inputs you can get HDTV (I believe) the size of a wall. The projector has video and audio inputs on it (most have both, some may have only video) and you mount it and run the wires to it.

Well I geuss I will be moving up again

I suppose like everything else, they have a remote controll ?

I have a nice sloping hill, just right for a theatre floor. How large do the less expensive ones go and still have a decent picture? And how much room do you need, like how far away from the wall/screen?

i tried the dvd shrinker program with a partial file burned to a cd-r and it played choppy on the dvd player. does this represent how it will play on a dvd-r ? or will it play normally?