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DVD-RW, what does it really do???

post #1 of 11
2/6/04 at 4:46pm
Thread Starter 
Hello everyone.

I am seriously looking at the emachines 6805 or 6807. But I feel stupid saying this, but I really don't know what a DVD-RW does? I mean, don't the DVD manufactures have some type of protection against copying someones DVD? For example, if my friend had the DVD "Black Hawk Down", would I be able to record that DVD onto another blank DVD with the DVD-RW?

If not, what is the advantage of the DVD-RW? More size? Better picture quality on recorded video clips? Would I be able to download video clips from the internet and then record those video clips onto a DVD with the DVD-RW???

Thanks for any and all info
Jack.
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post #2 of 11
2/6/04 at 5:18pm
Get the Tools DVD Shrink and Nero Burning ROM. Or you can use DVD decrypter as an alternative, i prefer DVD Shrink with nero though. With them you can copy DVD movies, but only ones you own of course...otherwise it'd be illegal.

www.doom9.org
www.dvdrhelp.com

those sites will show you what you need to know.
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post #3 of 11
2/6/04 at 7:52pm
DVD writers are THE BOMB

DVD Shrink is GREAT for backing-up DVDs for road trips etc. (Ever know someone who had all their CDs stolen out of their car? In my car I have 5 MP3 CDs for the car stereo that plays them and copies of our favorite DVDs for the laptop )

Also, its great for when you need to back up large amounts of data. For example: if you have 4Gigs of pictures from your digital camera, they can fit on 6 CDs or 1 DVD...

ALSO, if you have a digital camcorder you can use it to make home movies and burn them to DVD to mail to family. My family LOVES the videos I send of my son.

ALSO, I've transferred most of our family videos to DVD. Now I find that I watch stuff a lot more. If we have friends over and for some reason the topic turns to our China trip in 2000 ; I just pop in the DVD and we can view a few minuets of the Great Wall, Forbidden City - and it only takes A FEW MINUETS! (no fast-forwarding through the family nonsense, just skip a few chapters!)

This list could go on, but this will suffice. Dispite all of the reasons to have one, if you don't see yourself using it then it's definately a waist of money.
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post #4 of 11
2/6/04 at 9:35pm
DVD burners also do very well as CD burners. My Gateway M675's DVD-RW drive, for instance, is quite fast at burning regular CD-R and CD-RW media.

So, with a DVD burner, you get the best of both worlds: DVD for larger data storage, movies, and high quality audio (DVD audio discs), CD for smaller amounts of data and CD-quality audio.

A DVD burner still will not quickly back up an entire hard drive on a modern laptop or desktop machine, but by selectively picking files, you can very quickly archive a lot of data on DVD.

DVD media, due to its higher data density, reacts very poorly to large or lots of scratches, though. It is important to store DVD data discs, especially, carefully to avoid damage.
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post #5 of 11
2/7/04 at 12:12am
Thread Starter 

DVD-RW sounds good.

Wow.

So, it sounds like these DVD-RW's are pretty cool. I can use a software package to record DVD movies, use my camcorder and old vhs family movies to record onto a DVD, and it even doubles as a cd-rw. Can't go wrong with that.

So...does the speed really matter? I think the emachines 6807 DVD-RW is a 2X speed, where most of the external usb DVD-RW's around $200 are either 4X or 8X speed.

Thanks
Jack
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post #6 of 11
2/7/04 at 12:33am
I have a 505XL and haven't touched the DVD burner yet.

What type of media (R, RW, whatever) should we use for the different things like data storage and copying movies?
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post #7 of 11
2/7/04 at 2:33pm
In my experience this is the most reliable 4x media on the market. Backed up over 20 DVD's all at 4x with no problem. Only problem you might run in to (with pretty much all media) is that it won't play great if you have a sh!tty DVD player. My playstation can barley read the games much less DVD's (even some store bought ones) so i bought a $100 JVC player and it works like a champ.
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post #8 of 11
2/7/04 at 2:38pm
So with that media I can burn movies and date, sounds good. It says 1X and 4X, I wonder if it'll work with our 2X burner? Has anyone used that brand with the Gateway 505XL?

When backing up movies, does it do the entire movie, menu, etc? Would it be in Dolby Digital?
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post #9 of 11
2/7/04 at 4:01pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by TotalNewb
So with that media I can burn movies and date, sounds good. It says 1X and 4X, I wonder if it'll work with our 2X burner? Has anyone used that brand with the Gateway 505XL?

When backing up movies, does it do the entire movie, menu, etc? Would it be in Dolby Digital?
I have not had any trouble using 4X-rated media at 2X. I tend to buy 4X since the desktop machines support 4X, and the price difference is not worth trying to keep both types on hand and separated...

The DVD Shrink and other similar applications are able to compress double layer DVD's so that they will fit on a single DVD-R. In doing so, there are two options that can be used separately or together to squeeze the data down: 1) Delete unnecessary features, such as other languages, special scenes, etc. 2) Re-compress the video with slightly lower quality settings.

When I travel, I do not take my originally purchased DVD's with me - I take backup copies in case of theft. However, they're for my own personal use. I do not mind the slight quality loss for the added convenience of having a large library of personal movies with me with low risk.

Of course, the DMCA and other applicable laws apply when working with protected DVD's and other media.
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post #10 of 11
2/7/04 at 4:18pm
Ok, this is great, thanks for the info. I assume DVD Shrink uses that decss to decode DVD Movies?

So I am going to use DVD Shrink and try this as soon as the media gets here.

One last question, my laptop came with Nero Express, will that burn the DVD movies after I use DVD Shrink?
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post #11 of 11
2/7/04 at 6:00pm
Wow, that was easy. I downloaded DVD Shrink, a few hours later I have a backup of DVD! I went out and got Sony DVD-R's, they didn't say what speed they are so I assume they are 1X, but it automatically burned at 2X and the DVD still works, even on my really old Pioneer DVD Player.

I let DVD Shrink burn the DVD, I guess it does that since I have Nero Express installed on this PC.

Thanks for the help guys.


BTW, I never said if the DVD I copied was an OMP or copyrighted or anything so to the DMCA
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