[yoyoman]

Are these qualitys good ripping the dvd. Do you loose quality from it and this new one fast dvd copy how good is the quality you think?

[The Jackalope]

Edit: nevermind. I like Handbrake, it works really well, but doesn't handle multi-angle well. DVD Backup is also awesome. Both are considerably cheaper than $100.

[Fothb]

Pop in your original DVD and wait for its icon to show up on the desktop. Highlight the icon and do a command+i (get info). If the total disk size is over 4.36GB, then _yes_ you will lose quality because the data will have to be compressed to fit that size on a DVD-R disc.

That's the tradeoff of these 1-click ultra-simple programs. You end up not having to know anything, but you lose quality. If you use a more complex program you can do things like strip out unwanted language tracks and movie trailers and interviews to preserve the quality of the actual movie itself, but then there's a learning curve.

I'm a big fan of DVD2OneX myself. It creates highly compatible images (others have failed in my home player on certain titles) and has some terrific extra features on top of simply copying an entire disc. It's "Join" feature is worth the purchase price alone IMHO. Handbrake is great too... when it works. The latest build has been crashing for me.

[mitchell_pgh]

It depends upon what you want out of the software.

I use Handbrake for the following reasons:
1) It's simple
2) It's free
3) The quality is solid

The quality is noticeably lower then the native DVD, and it's VERY difficult to get the video back on to a DVD.

Handbrake is amazing, but if you are looking for something very specific (like creating SVCDs, VCDs, etc. you should look elsewhere. I use for placing high quality videos of shows on my computer to watch... (when I don't have a ton of space) the size of the file is around 500MB for an hour of video (stereo quality, solid video quality) you can increase it or decrease it for specific uses.

DVD Backup and Handbrake are two totally different applications. DVD Backup simply places a copy of the DVD on your hard drive (and can remove the encryption, macrovision, region encoding). I use this when I need to return a DVD to the Blockbuster, but I haven't had a chance to actually watch it yet. FYI, a regular DVD is around 5GB - 7GB, so it's not like I'm going to archive all of my DVDs on my computer, but that's becoming a reality with the new 300GB drives dropping in price... (Yes, you can store around 50+ full quality DVDs movies on a 300 GB hard drive.)

[GodOD]

i donwloaded the demo and tried it out, but it didn't work for me. it took about 2 hours. when i tried to play the dvd it looked ok at first, but when it tried to load the dvd menu, it stopped. i was doing a lot of other things while this process was happening, so... i don't know. so what's the best way on the mac? use handbrake then dvd2onex or mactheripper then dvd2onex? i'd really like to do this, but not if it's more trouble than it's worth.

[Fothb]

Originally posted by GodOD:
i donwloaded the demo and tried it out, but it didn't work for me. it took about 2 hours. when i tried to play the dvd it looked ok at first, but when it tried to load the dvd menu, it stopped. i was doing a lot of other things while this process was happening, so... i don't know. so what's the best way on the mac? use handbrake then dvd2onex or mactheripper then dvd2onex? i'd really like to do this, but not if it's more trouble than it's worth.

Use DVDBackup, MacTheRipper, or 0sex to copy the contents of the DVD to your harddrive (these tools can remove Macrovision, CSS Encryption, and Region Coding). If the result is larger than 4.36GB, use a tool to compress the data. For this I recommend DVD2OneX if you're trying to make a DVD-R. Handbrake and the like are used more for SVCDs or compressed movies saved on disk, not for DVD-R images. If you don't want to spend the money on DVD2OneX, you can go the cheaper route with FFMpegX. Depending on just how much larger than 4.36GB your disc is, you can also use DVD2OneX to split the title onto two DVD-Rs. Once you've ran the files through DVD2OneX, you'll have a VIDEO_TS folder at or under 4.36GB. Take that folder and either a) use Toast to burn it immediately, or b) use DVD Imager to create an image file, and use Disk Utility to burn that image to disk.

[mitchell_pgh]

Originally posted by Fothb:
Use DVDBackup, MacTheRipper, or 0sex to copy the contents of the DVD to your harddrive (these tools can remove Macrovision, CSS Encryption, and Region Coding). If the result is larger than 4.36GB, use a tool to compress the data. For this I recommend DVD2OneX if you're trying to make a DVD-R. Handbrake and the like are used more for SVCDs or compressed movies saved on disk, not for DVD-R images. If you don't want to spend the money on DVD2OneX, you can go the cheaper route with FFMpegX. Depending on just how much larger than 4.36GB your disc is, you can also use DVD2OneX to split the title onto two DVD-Rs. Once you've ran the files through DVD2OneX, you'll have a VIDEO_TS folder at or under 4.36GB. Take that folder and either a) use Toast to burn it immediately, or b) use DVD Imager to create an image file, and use Disk Utility to burn that image to disk.

Bingo, couldn't have said it better myself.