[Ti] Help! Copy DVD's ~ LEGAL

[Brian Olesky]

On 10/20/04 8:11 AM, "Vicky Quinn" <quinns5x at mac.com> wrote:

> When I purchased my Apple Titanium Powerbook in June of 2003, I thought
> I'd be able to make usable back-up DVDs of DVD movies that we own.  My
> biggest need for this is with kids' movies as my children often get
> their fingers on the dvds and have accidentally scratched a couple of
> them.  Anyway, I cannot seem to figure out how to copy DVD movies and
> the Apple Website Support pages are just not very helpful for most
> things, to me.
> 
> Anyway, I'd appreciate your help!

>From the September issue of MacWorld:


DVD Duplication

If you're a parent who just purchased your third copy of Finding Nemo
because thrice-weekly viewings have destroyed the first two copies, or if
you're a road warrior who prefers to take copies of movies with you so the
originals don't get scratched, you've probably wondered how to make easy
backup copies of your commercial DVDs.

There are many ways to copy such DVDs; most employ a multistep process
involving various combinations of open-source and commercial products. But
for a one-click approach, the only product I've found for OS X is Velan's
$99 Fast DVD Copy 2.1 (; www.fastdvdcopy.com).

For some DVDs, the process is as simple as clicking on Start, letting Fast
DVD Copy extract the content of the disc, and then burning the copy.
However, because single-layer recordable DVDs hold less data than commercial
(dual-layer) video DVDs, many movies won't fit. For these movies, Fast DVD
Copy lets you decide between further compressing the movie (resulting in
lower video quality) or cutting disc features such as additional audio
tracks and languages, supplemental material, subtitles, and so on. You
decide the balance between these two options -- as you remove items, the
resulting video quality will increase. Fast DVD Copy displays a graph of the
expected quality of the copy, from Good to Highest.

As an extreme example, I recently made a backup of the 200-minute Lord of
the Rings: The Return of the King DVD to watch on a trip. Even at the lowest
quality, the movie was too big for a recordable DVD. I told Fast DVD Copy to
eliminate the 5.1-channel audio track -- leaving just the 12-channel version
-- and the copy then fit on a standard recordable DVD.

Fast DVD Copy isn't without drawbacks. It's expensive, and the multistep
activation procedure is cumbersome. In addition, each copy of the program is
licensed to a particular computer -- if you ever want to run it on another
machine, the process can be a hassle. And while a Power Mac G5 with a 4x
SuperDrive worked flawlessly, I experienced a few failed burns on a
PowerBook with a 1x SuperDrive. But despite these complaints, Fast DVD Copy
is the easiest way to make backup copies of your DVDs, and that alone makes
it worth looking into.


Hope this helps,
Brian