[olePigeon]

My buddy at work today showed me a cool program for Windows called DVDecrypter. When you burn a DVD, it allows you to change some bits or whatever on the DVD-R/+R that tells the computer it's a real DVD and not a DVD-R/+R. Apparently it also allows DVD-R/+Rs to run on older DVD players (like mine) that don't support burned DVDs.

Are there any programs like that for the Mac?

[wuzup101]

I haven't "backed-up" a dvd in a while on my PC, but I know my father uses DVD shrink. From what I remember DVDecrypter is a program designed to crack the encryption of a commerically pressed DVD and extract the data onto your HDD. You then need a program to compress the data to fit on a DVD-R. For a mac you might want to look for "DVDbackup" and "DVD2oneX." These programs, along with toast, will allow you to rip, compress, and burn a normal pressed DVD onto a playable DVD+/-R for viewing in your choice of DVD players. Most new DVD players have no problems with burns (though some of the cheaper DVD players still have media that they like and media that they don't like). I find a PS2 or newer Xbox (read: newer model of the origional xbox) to be good DVD "backup" players.

[Meritocracy]

He's talking about bitsetting +R media to be read as a DVD-ROM for better compatibility on standalones. This is a totally different issue which essentially has nothing to do with decrypting commercially pressed discs, DVDecrypter etc., and is solely for +R media as -R discs typically provide better compatibility than standard +R.

BTW, it's dependant on your burner...many recent models offer bitsetting, most older units don't. If your burner supports it, DVDPlusTool will do just fine.