Backing Up DVD's's topics - tribe.net

DVD Shrink frustration

dq — Wed, 17 May 2006 07:57:45 GMT

My last DVD/RW (+/-) drive (NEC ND-2500A) went belly up recently. I replaced it with a new LiteOn burner (SHM-165H6S, if it matters). Ever since then, DVD Shrink has been extremely problematic. It either craps out while doing the initial disk scan (yielding a Cyclic Redundancy Error), OR it lets me finish that step but when I click Backup, it momentarily hangs, then automatically dies (the process just disappears, no error message).

ANY problems that I had received under the old drive were always attributable to a bad (scratched or cracked) source disk. Now I am lucky if I can back up 1 out of 4 disks that I try. I've tried uninstalling and reinstalling the program, uninstalling and reinstalling the drive, temporarily downgrading the driver, flashing the drive's firmware, etc.

I've never used any other software as DVD Shrink has always met my needs perfectly. I would love to hear a) recommendations on getting operational with DVD Shrink again, b) any similar tales of woe, c) any suggestions on an alternate piece of software to try (ideally one that lets me pick and choose compression ratios for special features, reauthor, etc.

help?

posted in Backing Up DVD's - 34 replies

who uses a mac?

dariusmaximus — Wed, 27 Jul 2005 14:28:13 GMT

i just got a mac and i was wondering if anyone here uses any mac software? the way i see it, if i don't find anything, i'll use my pc as the designated dvd backup device. i was just wondering if anyone had any suggestions.

lemme know what's up there you gear heads

posted in Backing Up DVD's - 17 replies

Best back up program

groovinjello — Wed, 23 Mar 2005 01:20:46 GMT

I've been reading through this tribe and I'm a little confused about what program is the best to back up DVDs. I've been using DVD X Copy, but it doesn't always work. I keep getting error messages right at the end.

It sounds like DVD Shrink is my best bet?

posted in Backing Up DVD's - 18 replies

PSP

Upside Down John — Thu, 29 Dec 2005 11:30:54 GMT

Anybody got one? Anyone dabbling into converting DVD's to MPEG 4 to transfer onto memory card?

posted in Backing Up DVD's - 4 replies

NEW TRIBE

tmfloria — Sat, 17 Sep 2005 20:28:18 GMT

for anyone who has ever used http://www.afterdawn.com and asked a ? only to be told it's against forum rules or people just refuse to answer it this is the tribe for you....

http://tribes.tribe.net/afterdawn

posted in Backing Up DVD's - 0 replies

VERY interesting article

Upside Down John — Tue, 05 Jul 2005 22:21:09 GMT

http://www.edn.com/blog/400000040/post/1190000919.html

posted in Backing Up DVD's - 1 reply

That'll do it...

Upside Down John — Tue, 14 Jun 2005 09:24:17 GMT

...for VHS:

http://money.cnn.com/2005/06/13/news/fortune500/walmart_vhs/index.htm?cnn=yes

posted in Backing Up DVD's - 0 replies

DVD releases

Upside Down John — Mon, 25 Apr 2005 10:16:40 GMT

Same day as the theatrical release?!? I don't see it, but there are some who do:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/film/4467741.stm

posted in Backing Up DVD's - 0 replies

DL writing

Upside Down John — Thu, 24 Feb 2005 12:00:20 GMT

I've got a DL writer, but haven't messed around with DL discs yet, mainly because they're still too expensive for my tastes. Has anyone else tried them out? And if so, have you successfully made a 1-to-1 copy of a DVD?

posted in Backing Up DVD's - 8 replies

Free DVD Cases

groovinjello — Thu, 21 Apr 2005 18:13:21 GMT

Just thought I pass on this tip...

I store my back upped dvd on a spindal or in a CD binder. There are those times when a nice plastic DVD case is desired.

I went into blockbuster and asked if they had any cases they were throwing out. They laughed that, "if you only knew" kind of laugh and asked me how many I was looking for. "About 5." They returned from the back with a box full of new cases and I walked away with 17. Some of them had pricing stickers, but a little 409 on a cloth and they cleaned right off.

When they get new releases, they have to take them out of their original cases and put them in the special "blockbuster" cases. The original case just gets thrown out. So just go in and ask. It saves like a dollar a case.

posted in Backing Up DVD's - 2 replies

I give up

Upside Down John — Fri, 28 Jan 2005 00:13:36 GMT

I've created more coasters lately than every before, this is pathetic.

posted in Backing Up DVD's - 22 replies

Having some trouble...

Upside Down John — Wed, 09 Mar 2005 16:36:39 GMT

...taking the region code off a disc from the UK, the movie in question is the New Zealand end of the world flick "The Quiet Earth" from the 80's. Here's the weird part, the disc is showing up a Region 0 and technically should play in my Sony, I don't think there would be any potential PAL-NTSC conflicts to worry about.

Well, the disc doesn't play, I get the region error, and when I encoded it using DVD Shrink, I specificially selected the Region 1 tab, but in the end the copy got the same error in my player as the original. As expected, the disc plays fine and encodes fine on the computer. Anyone else ever encounter a problem with switching the region code?

posted in Backing Up DVD's - 3 replies

ARccOS™ copy protection

Upside Down John — Mon, 14 Feb 2005 12:53:09 GMT

Here's an interesting thread touching on this one:

http://www.cdrinfo.com/forum/tm.asp?m=95349&mpage=1&key=

posted in Backing Up DVD's - 1 reply

These fools...

Upside Down John — Wed, 16 Feb 2005 11:43:19 GMT

...are trying to keep us down!:

http://www.techtree.com/techtree/jsp/showstory.jsp?storyid=57655

posted in Backing Up DVD's - 0 replies

DVD Shrink crap

Upside Down John — Wed, 08 Dec 2004 16:13:18 GMT

http://www.mrbass.org/dvdshrink/

posted in Backing Up DVD's - 3 replies

4+ DVD Cases at retail?

sthobbes — Tue, 15 Feb 2005 16:20:13 GMT

Anybody have some good retail sources for cases that hold 4 or more discs? I can find them locally to hold as many as 3, but no one seems to carry 4 disc or better cases without having to go online. (Not at there's anything wrong with buying them online, I just have this NEED IT NOW thing going every once in a while.)

posted in Backing Up DVD's - 0 replies

Double Layer 8.5 GB

refernet — Thu, 11 Nov 2004 01:34:01 GMT

I'm still waiting for the media price for this to drop! It would eliminate the need to shrink anymore!

posted in Backing Up DVD's - 6 replies

for MAC?

gordon — Mon, 30 Aug 2004 16:37:13 GMT

is there any software out there for the MAC?

sorry if this has already been discussed -- i'm new here.

posted in Backing Up DVD's - 13 replies

Help with media

Upside Down John — Mon, 14 Feb 2005 12:39:19 GMT

http://dvd.identifier.cdfreaks.com/

posted in Backing Up DVD's - 1 reply

Has anyone here...

Upside Down John — Mon, 14 Feb 2005 12:56:16 GMT

...used this one before? If so, what were your results?:

http://www.slysoft.com/en/anydvd.html

posted in Backing Up DVD's - 0 replies

When using DVD Shrink...

Upside Down John — Thu, 10 Feb 2005 22:20:41 GMT

...you will see the option for "Book type DVD-ROM" on the Burn Settings tab of the Backup DVD option. What does that mean? For clarification, here goes:

http://www.k-probe.com/bitsetting-booktype-faq.php

posted in Backing Up DVD's - 0 replies

Copying wierdness

d00fuss — Mon, 24 Jan 2005 07:24:45 GMT

I dunno if any of you know what might be going on here but I have a weird problem that only appears once in a while when I copy a DVD with my Mac.

Here's what I do:

Insert DVD to be copied.. let DVD Player load up and get the menu up. Quit DVD Player.

Run MacTheRipper and rip the DVD with de-macrovision and set the new region for the DVD to "all".

Run DVD2OneX and compress the whole thing to fit on a single layer disc.

Burn the disc with Toast.

Now, I have done a bunch of DVDs this way and not had any problems... except for a few. What happens is that I'll throw the newly created DVD in my PowerBook and DVD Player loads up and the movie plays just fine.. but when I throw it in my DVD player, it loads up the menu just fine but when I go to actually play the movie, the dvd player plays the first second of the first chapter and then skips to the next chapter, plays the first second and then skips to the next chapter.. and on and on until the last chapter. It's just bizarre. Any thoughts? I'm wondering if this isn't some sort of copy protection or something. I've run into the problem only on maybe 3 movies out of 40 or so. Haven't tried playing the DVD on any other players.

posted in Backing Up DVD's - 0 replies

Got a funky copy

Upside Down John — Thu, 06 Jan 2005 20:59:31 GMT

Anyone ever make a copy of something where the picture never quite skips, and the sound is pretty good, but the video image seems to get a little slooooow at times? Probably just a bad copy, or maybe the original was scratched, but man, I hate when that happens.

posted in Backing Up DVD's - 0 replies

Just got my DL 16X writer...

Upside Down John — Thu, 09 Dec 2004 10:40:29 GMT

...and I'm happy. Very happy.

posted in Backing Up DVD's - 6 replies

I am not sure what I am doing

Sat, 11 Dec 2004 00:46:24 GMT

Hi -

I am trying to easily back up DVD's and burn them on my G4 laptop. Some DVD's just don't seem to work. Are specific brands that work best for Mac? Also, what is the easiest way to burn these files to disc? Just drag and drop or do you need Toast or something?

Thanks

posted in Backing Up DVD's - 0 replies

About DVD Players...

sthobbes — Thu, 02 Dec 2004 15:19:12 GMT

I've noticed, of course, that there are brands of DVD players that play backed up dvds better than some. I use DVD Shrink and have yet to have a disc that didn't burn successfully, but my Apex DVD Player will stutter on some of them. My GE DVD player (Don't have a model #, sorry) plays everything smoothly. Anybody else have a player they'd recommend if somebody needs a good player to buy (or one to avoid?)

posted in Backing Up DVD's - 2 replies

Format wars heat up

Upside Down John — Tue, 30 Nov 2004 13:06:23 GMT

4 studios back new DVD format

By Jefferson Graham, USA TODAY

A new high-definition DVD format aimed at replacing current DVDs got a huge boost Monday when NBC Universal and three other heavyweight Hollywood studios endorsed electronics giant Toshiba's new HD DVD.

The new discs - due out next fall - promise superior picture and audio quality and greater storage capacity, enabling longer movies to be stored on a single disc.

The commitment to release movies in HD DVD by Paramount, NBC Universal, Warner Bros. and New Line Cinema is a blow for Sony's competing Blu-ray DVD format.

Blu-ray has the commitment of many computer and consumer electronics manufacturers, including Dell, Hewlett-Packard and Samsung, but no studio beyond Sony's Columbia TriStar Group. Sony is in the process of acquiring MGM.

Walt Disney and 20th Century Fox haven't committed to either format.

For now, Toshiba's HD DVD gets "first-mover advantage," says independent analyst Richard Doherty of The Envisioneering Group. "The DVD player isn't worth much without movies to play on them."

Movies are the big ticket for DVD sales. Consumers spent $16.3 billion on pre-recorded DVDs in 2003 and $16.7 billion this year through October, trade magazine DVD Exclusive says.

Because of its higher resolution, the new DVD format is aimed at the early adopter crowd - those with snazzy plasma and high-definition TVs.

But don't throw away that DVD collection. Current DVDs play on both existing and new DVD models. It could take years - and lots of well-heeled consumers - for the new format to take off.

While plenty of new DVD players cost less than $100, Blu-ray models sell in Asia for $2,000 and up. Toshiba says its unit will retail for $995. The HD DVD movies will be priced "at a premium," too, says Jim Cardwell, president of Warner Home Video. "The video is better. The interactivity is better. The audio is better. That should be worth a little more."

Cardwell, along with counterparts at Universal and Paramount, say the deals with HD DVD are non-exclusive. The studios say they remain open to working with Sony.

But, concedes Universal Home Video President Craig Kornblau: "We'd like to see only one format."

Maureen Weber, spokeswoman for the Blu-ray Disc Association, wasn't waving a white flag Monday. "It takes more than just a disc to create a format." She says her team has the advantage because the Blu-ray format is supported by computer and consumer electronics manufacturers.

posted in Backing Up DVD's - 2 replies

Format wars

Upside Down John — Fri, 12 Nov 2004 21:21:12 GMT

Old news to a lot of you, but interesting nonetheless:

(CNN) -- The electronics and entertainment industries are shaping up for the biggest format battle since the "video wars" between VHS and Betamax to decide the future of DVD.

Two rival "next generation" DVD formats look set to be launched onto the marketplace next year.

Both are backed by powerful and well-known Japanese manufacturers, with each staking their claim to an industry worth billions of dollars.

And with the DVD market unlikely to support parallel formats, the loser faces the prospect of squandering millions spent on research, development and marketing costs.

Both "Blu-ray", principally backed by Sony, and "HD DVD", which has been developed by Toshiba, are based on the same basic technology.

Both replace the red lasers found in current DVD machines with blue lasers, utilizing their shorter wavelength to store data at the higher densities needed to record high-definition movies and television.

But with both parties determined to prove the superiority of their product, a protracted dispute could be damaging to the industry as a whole, increasing production costs for DVD manufacturers and making buyers nervous about investing in a format that could quickly become obsolete.

Buena Vista Home Entertainment president Bob Chaprek recently told the DVD Forum, an industry association of 220 electronics and media companies, that launching two formats simultaneously risked "potentially crippling the next generation format" and "utterly confusing or aggravating the customer."

With Blu-ray recorders already on sale in Japan, Toshiba looks set to enter the fray with HD DVD models early in 2005.

But the real battle looks set for next Christmas, when both major players plan to have DVD players in the shops.

By that point the entertainment industry, and particularly Hollywood, will likely have chosen sides; and history suggests that the format with the greater selection of movies will prevail.

Sony has been stung before by that scenario, having seen its groundbreaking Betamax format starved out of the video market by the wider selection of titles made available in VHS format.

This time, however, Sony seems to have learnt its lesson. Not only does it now have VHS pioneers Matsushita, better known for its Panasonic brand, on side but its success with the Playstation games console provides a template for a successful marketing campaign.

Despite its limited previous experience in the gaming industry, Sony was able to corner the market despite competition from Sega and Nintendo because of the depth and quality of its games range.

Sony is already maneuvering for the fight. In September it announced that it was adopting Blu-ray as the format for Playstation 3, currently scheduled for release in 2006.

And with Sony Pictures already in the Blu-ray camp, a Sony-led consortium also recently acquired MGM, along with their back catalogue.

Furthermore, Blu-ray has the backing of Hewlett Packard and Dell, which together control around 30 percent of the global PC market.

"In terms of technology, we have no weak points. Our format is superior on all counts," Sony executive officer Kiyoshi Nishitani said recently.

Toshiba however has not been cowered by Sony's efforts, retaliating to Sony's Playstation-Blu-ray collaboration by announcing that it would introduce notebook computers with HD DVD in the last quarter of 2005.

HD DVD is also backed by rival manufacturers Sanyo and NEC while last year it was also approved by the influential DVD Forum, which has said it will finally endorse just one format.

Toshiba also claims the support of Time Warner, in which it owns a small stake and with which it worked closely to establish the current DVD standard in the mid-1990s.

It has also had senior engineer Hisashi Yamada commuting between Japan and the U.S. in an effort to court the support of undecided studios such as Paramount, Disney and Universal.

"If Sony is so sure it is winning the battle, it wouldn't have felt the need to buy MGM," says Yamada.

Toshiba claims HD DVD's biggest advantage is the format's low transitional costs. Because the discs are physically the same as existing DVDs many of the existing components used by DVD manufacturers will still function.

But the monumental task faced by Toshiba and its allies was summed up by the gadgets weblog Gizmodo, which declared in a recent feature that "Blu-ray has already won."

"Blu-ray is not only technically superior to HD DVD, it has a far stronger corporate backing, and has demonstrated the ability to have more content available to push the format," said Gizmodo.

While a duel layer HD DVD can hold 30GB, a duel layer Blu-ray disc already has a 50GB capacity, and Sony claim the format could eventually hold as much as 200GB on an eight-layered disc.

Sony is also working hard to bring costs down, announcing earlier this year that it had developed paper Blu-ray discs.

"I don't think Toshiba will back down," says analyst Carlos Dimas. "Sony is unlikely to give up either. Inevitably there is going to be some confusion in the market and there's going to be another standard war.

"In the initial phase the consumer will probably lose. It is a big risk for people who actually buy products for either format without knowing who the winner is."

But, in case you've only recently made the switch from DVD to video and are already sweating over the cost of replacing all your favorite films, don't worry. Both Blu-ray and HD DVD will still play your old DVDs.

posted in Backing Up DVD's - 2 replies

DVD burners

Upside Down John — Wed, 13 Oct 2004 10:01:15 GMT

http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/article/0,aid,117420,00.asp

posted in Backing Up DVD's - 0 replies

Sony

Upside Down John — Wed, 13 Oct 2004 09:46:55 GMT

Not in the DVD realm specifically, but still interesting:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/music/3712662.stm

posted in Backing Up DVD's - 0 replies

Star wars Will not rip!

sameverhart — Thu, 23 Sep 2004 17:26:51 GMT

Star wars(4 The New Hope)will not rip or burn. I have tried dvdXcopy, dvd decrypter, and dvd shrink. Damn it to hell! It gets to 52% and stops in all three programs.

posted in Backing Up DVD's - 6 replies

Used Winavi to convert...

Upside Down John — Wed, 25 Aug 2004 11:04:45 GMT

...some my old DivX movies to DVD format so I could burn them to disc and play them in my standalone player. The conversion using this tool was no problem, very painless, and I used Nero to create the disc. The DVD+R played on the computer via WinDVD, but when I dropped the disc in my Sony DVD player to give it a while, I got the "area" error message telling me it couldn't play the disc. I take this to mean that it's been encoded for a region different than region 1. I went back into Winavi and there is nothing in the options that's obvious to me as being a means of changing this region encoding. Okay, am I wrong to think that this is a region encoding issue? Could it be something else?

posted in Backing Up DVD's - 12 replies

Change Tribe Name?

The Real Zeppo — Thu, 26 Aug 2004 23:45:19 GMT

Just thought since DVD X Copy is no more that maybe we can change the name of the tribe to something like DVD Burning, DVD Authoring or DVD Copying. I'm actually thinking we should shy away from anything with "Copy" in the title since that might possibly put us in an uncomfortable position if certain groups come a-knocking on the tribe door.

posted in Backing Up DVD's - 7 replies

Another tool

Upside Down John — Wed, 11 Aug 2004 12:55:18 GMT

Look, forgive me if this stuff is old news, I'm still catching up!:

http://www.dvdrecode.com/

posted in Backing Up DVD's - 1 reply

I'm going to run DVD Shrink...

Upside Down John — Thu, 05 Aug 2004 09:32:43 GMT

...through its paces since you yahoos tell me it's the bomb.

posted in Backing Up DVD's - 2 replies

Okay, I'm a fan

Upside Down John — Wed, 11 Aug 2004 12:48:38 GMT

DVD Shrink, where have you been all my life?

http://www.dvdr-digest.com/software/software.php?file=dvdshrink

posted in Backing Up DVD's - 1 reply

MPAA, 321 Studios settle

Upside Down John — Tue, 10 Aug 2004 20:17:42 GMT

http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104_2-5303946.html

posted in Backing Up DVD's - 0 replies

Well 321 has gone under! %70 off sale!

sameverhart — Wed, 04 Aug 2004 13:38:30 GMT

http://www.321studios.com/

Well 321 has gone under!

posted in Backing Up DVD's - 2 replies

Swappin'

Upside Down John — Tue, 03 Aug 2004 13:39:37 GMT

Not that I would personally be interested in such a thing, but does anyone know of an online network through which people swap their copies? You know, not that I would be interested in that sort of thing...

posted in Backing Up DVD's - 0 replies

Article on 321 Studios

Upside Down John — Thu, 03 Jun 2004 10:40:53 GMT

321 Studios spins toward zero
By Jerri Stroud
Of the Post-Dispatch
06/01/2004

Robert H. Moore's 321 Studios has moved five times in 2 1/2 years to cope with rapid growth in sales of its DVD-copying software, DVD X Copy.

But court orders that bar 321 Studios from selling any version of that product have thrown the company's growth into reverse.

They've forced Moore to lay off nearly 300 people in the last two months and led him to sublease part of the 80,000-square-foot headquarters 321 Studios has occupied in the Missouri Research Park since last fall.

A half-floor of offices is vacant, and a handful of employees work in a warehouse that once hummed with activity. Today, the company has about 50 employees, down from nearly 400, said Julia Bishop-Cross, a spokeswoman.

Moore, 43, founded 321 Studios nearly three years ago as a way to get his son, Brian, interested in the computer business.

Robert Moore figured out how to use a compact-disc burner to make backup copies of his collection of movies on DVD and videocassette. Brian Moore put together a Web site to sell his father's instructions, and sales took off.

The company kept expanding - opening retail stores and a call center to market DVD X Copy and related products - until February, when the movie industry won an injunction halting sales of the product.

The injunction was like "a hit to the back of the head," Moore said. He believes that some major movie studios want to put him out of business.

Matthew Grossman, a spokesman for the Motion Picture Association of America, said the studios simply are defending their copyrights from piracy.

"Obviously, we're not in the business of making people unemployed," Grossman said. "We are doing what we have to do to defend our studios' copyrights."

Moore said 321 Studios was on track for sales of $100 million or more this year before a federal judge in San Francisco ruled that 321's product violated the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

The judge said the software's circumvention of encryption codes on copyrighted material was a specific violation of the act. In March, a judge in New York issued a similar ruling in a suit filed by Macrovision, which makes encryption technology.

Grossman said the MPAA has won similar judgments against 10 other companies marketing technology similar to what 321 Studios was selling.

"The courts all agree that these are copyright violations," Grossman said. "If it's illegal, it's illegal."

321 Studios says making copies for personal use is legal under the long-standing principle of fair use of copyrighted material that an individual has purchased. Moore adds that his software has anti-piracy provisions, so it's impractical to use it to make copies for resale.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco-based group dedicated to defending digital rights, filed briefs in support of 321 Studios before the injunctions were issued.

The group says the Digital Millennium Copyright Act has been used to stifle a wide variety of legitimate activities by journalists, publishers, scientists, students and programmers.

Moore hasn't given up his fight against the injunctions, but he has been unable to persuade the judges to reconsider their rulings.

"We're gasping for breath," Moore said. "No one will listen to us scream."

321 Studios has other products for sale, including game-copying software and a CD-rescue program. But sales of those products total only about $10 million a year, Moore said.

"We still have the expenses of a $100 million company," he said, including big legal bills and expenses for lobbying Congress to revise the digital-copyright act to allow making copies for personal use.

Moore has turned his attention to supporting a bill in Congress that would allow consumers to make copies of DVDs, music CDs and other material for personal use. This month, he testified in favor of the bill, which the MPAA opposes.

Fred von Lohmann, a senior staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said he's encouraged by the bill's prospects this year because Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, is supporting it. Barton is chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, which held hearings on the bill last month.

Moore worries that his company's legal troubles are threatening more than sales.

"People are losing confidence that we are a viable company," Moore said. But rather than give up, he plans to fight. "If we go out, we're going out swinging."

posted in Backing Up DVD's - 0 replies

More on CD rot

Upside Down John — Thu, 06 May 2004 21:17:42 GMT

I need to start storing these bad boys in the upright position, I have my DVD's in a horizontal storage tower:

www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/ptech/05/06/disc.rot.ap/index.html

posted in Backing Up DVD's - 0 replies

Degradation

Upside Down John — Wed, 05 May 2004 20:12:13 GMT

CDs can degrade much earlier than origially thought:

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
The entire article may be viewed at www.gcn.com/23_5/news/25166-1.html

Breaking point

03/08/04

By Joab Jackson, GCN Staff

Optical disks might not last as long as you would expect —or hope

Don ’t be mistaken: Optical disks won ’t last forever.

Many users think the disks are indestructible, but they are wrong, said Fred Byers, an IT specialist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

As the government saves more and more records in electronic format, long-term archiving becomes a puzzle. Paper has lasted for centuries. Can optical disks really last for the 100-year life span envisioned for them?

The good news from NIST is that certain types of optical disks might last that long or even double that —but only if handled with care.

But disk life expectancy depends on many factors, some controllable by users, others not, Byers noted in a disk care guide, NIST Special Publication 500-252.

The National Archives and Records Administration requested the report, asking NIST to come up with care and handling instructions for optical media. The goal was to imitate a report about magnetic tape care created by the now-defunct National Media Laboratory. Byers said he spent about a year testing disks and working on the guide.

Although many agencies have no archiving policy, they nonetheless are saving a lot of data on optical disks. “There are a lot of questions about the implications of that, ”Byers said.

Recordable CDs and DVDs can be as reliable as magnetic tape for backup, he said, and they read much faster because they use random access, whereas users must search files stored on tape sequentially.

The useful life span of optical disks varies with temperature, humidity and day-to-day use. Data degradation at first can go unnoticed because of the error-correcting abilities of disk readers.

NIST has found that recordable disks seem to last much longer than rewritable disks, Byers said, and even longer than manufactured disks such as CDs for installing commercial software.

General industry guidelines now estimate office-burned copies of CDs and DVDs could remain readable for 100 to 200 years.

A disk burner records information by laser-heating a dye inside the disk. Over time the dye fades, rendering the information difficult to read. The disk ’s reflective layer, which sends information back to a photosensor during reading, is also subject to degradation.

The reflective layer is usually of thin gold, silver or silver alloy. Gold does not corrode, though gold-coated disks are expensive. Silver corrodes when exposed to air pollutants such as sulfur. Most silver-coated disks use alloys to inhibit corrosion.

Rewritable CDs and DVDs have a shorter life span of about 25 years, so Byers said he does not recommend them for archiving.

A rewritable disk ’s metal-alloy data layer is less stable than that in write-once disks. And rewritable disks are affected by light, so they also have a limited number of reads —a number that ’s still uncertain.

Surprisingly, premanufactured CD-ROMs and DVD-ROMs may not last as long as recordable disks, Byers said. Surprisingly, premanufactured CD-ROMs and DVD-ROMs may not last as long as recordable disks, Byers said.

Most industry estimates place the life span of professionally produced optical disks somewhere between 20 and 100 years. But the weakness of the ROM disks stems largely from their aluminum reflective layer, Byers said.

When exposed to humidity and atmospheric oxygen through scratches, cracks or delaminated areas in the label, the aluminum breaks down.

Byers warned that all the life spans are rough estimates. A hurried burn or a change in manufacturing technique could cause premature failure.

He advised agencies to consider the longevity of their current storage media and always be developing migration strategies to a new one.

“These days, the rate of change in technology is so much faster, ”Byers said. “I ’m convinced there will be a new storage technology within 10 years. ”

©1996-2004 Post-Newsweek Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved

posted in Backing Up DVD's - 0 replies

Digital Media Consumers Rights Act

Wed, 05 May 2004 14:24:16 GMT

If you're not familiar with this act, one of the main things it's meant to do is restore fair use taken away by the DMCA.

It was first submitted in October 2002, as HR 107, and then resubmitted last year.

Here is the bill as submitted before the 107th Congress in 2002:

http://www.techlawjournal.com/cong107/copyright/boucher/20021003bill.asp

And as it was resubmitted last year before the 108th Congress:

http://www.theorator.com/bills108/hr107.html

Here are some articles that offer more info on the bill and discuss the pros and cons:

http://www.house.gov/boucher/docs/dmcrasec.htm

http://www.publicknowledge.org/content/legislation/pending-legislation-dmcra

http://www.cato.org/tech/tk/030113-tk.html

And on May 12th there will be a Congressional hearing on the DMCRA where the head of 321 Studios, the makers of DVD X Copy, will also be testifying:

http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/040430/cgf047_1.html

posted in Backing Up DVD's - 0 replies

Article concerning DL recording

Upside Down John — Wed, 05 May 2004 11:22:03 GMT

New DVDs Hold More
By Don Labriola, PC Magazine

If you thought the current crop of multiformat DVD+/-R/RW drives had finally resolved the long-standing rivalry between the DVD-Plus and DVD-Dash camps, guess again. The DVD+RW Alliance and DVD Forum may now both support high-performance 8X write-once and 4X rewritable media, but the battlefield has simply shifted to another front: dual-layer (DL) recording.

Unlike currently available single-layer media, which hold 4.37GB (about 4.7 billion bytes) of data, DL write-once discs can store a whopping 7.95GB (about 8.5 billion bytes)—matching the capacity of the dual-layer read-only discs used to distribute Hollywood movies. They provide nearly twice as much room for video productions and computer data, and make it possible to back up any dual-layer DVD-Video disc on a single piece of media.

Until a few years ago, most analysts considered it impossible to manufacture DL-recordable media that would work reliably with consumer DVD players. But as has been the case with most advances in DVD recording, the DVD Forum and DVD+RW Alliance now both plan to release proprietary versions of such a technology. Building on research at Philips and MKM (Mitsubishi Kagaku Media, the parent company of Verbatim), the Alliance has already launched its DVD+R DL format. A similar format developed at Pioneer Electronics promises to become the basis of the DVD Forum's imminent (but not yet named) dual-layer version of DVD-R. Although it's too early to know for sure, it's likely that both formats will be equally compatible with most late-model DVD players.

The two specifications have many minor technical differences, and use dissimilar mechanisms for addressing and locating data on the disc. But from an end-user perspective, the only obvious difference is likely to be their write speed. DVD+R DL will initially support 2.4X recording, but the Forum's dual-layer spec will probably run at 2X. Media prices are not yet set, but they're likely to be similar for both Plus and Dash blanks, though dual-layer discs initially will cost much more than single-layer DVDs of equivalent speed. 4X versions of both formats are already in development.

To comprehend how dual-layer recording works, you first need to understand how DVD players access data on mass-produced single-layer discs. Read-only DVDs store information as billions of microscopic pits stamped in a spiral groove on the surface of a polycarbonate disc. The grooved side of the disc is coated with a reflective material like aluminum, which is then bonded to a protective plastic layer and label. When a laser is swept along the groove, a sensor monitors the amount of light bouncing off the reflective layer behind the pitted surface. Alterations in the beam that occur when it passes through a pit enable the drive to interpret the stamped pattern as a sequence of ones and zeros.

Blank recordable DVDs replace the pits with a blank stamped groove covered by a layer of heat-sensitive organic dye. A virtual pit is recorded by heating a tiny pinpoint of dye with a tightly focused laser. This permanently changes the dye's physical characteristics at that point, giving it optical properties similar to those of a stamped pit.

Dual-layer media add a second recordable layer behind the first. The metallic coating of Layer 0, which is closer to the laser, is altered to become translucent, allowing the laser beam to pass through it when focused on the deeper Layer 1.

Producing such a disc may sound like a straightforward task, but ensuring that both recordable layers have the same optical properties as stamped pits was a monumental feat. Even after carefully tweaking parameters like the precise depth and shape of the recorded "pits," the thickness and chemical composition of each dye layer, and the ability of the metallic coatings to reflect or transmit light, first-generation DL media are still subject to constraints. Both formats, for example, require that data on Layer 0 must be recorded before the corresponding position on Layer 1 can be burnt.

Recordable dual-layer media won't single-handedly revolutionize the DVD industry. But the technology is a giant leap in the continuing effort to make personal DVD recording flexible enough to handle any DVD application.

posted in Backing Up DVD's - 1 reply

DivX to DVD

Upside Down John — Wed, 05 May 2004 11:08:52 GMT

www.afterdawn.com/guides/archive/convert_avi_to_dvd.cfm

posted in Backing Up DVD's - 1 reply

Can you legally copy DVDs?

Upside Down John — Wed, 05 May 2004 11:00:58 GMT

http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-3513_7-5128652.html

posted in Backing Up DVD's - 2 replies

Discussion board for DVD X Copy

Upside Down John — Wed, 05 May 2004 11:31:16 GMT

http://dvdxcopy.afterdawn.com

posted in Backing Up DVD's - 0 replies

8x

Upside Down John — Wed, 05 May 2004 10:54:58 GMT

While vendors have called a ceasefire in the DVD format war with the release of dual and tri-format burners, the market is still gripped by a speed war as opposing units get faster and cheaper. The bar has been raised to 8x DVD-/+R but, even though 8x burning has been with us for several months, unfortunately blank 8x DVD-Rs are still rare.

The situation with 8x DVD+R isn't much better. Upgrade has been told the situation should improve next month. Pioneer's DVR-AO7 DVD burns -/+R at 8x, -/+RW at 4x speed and CD-R/RW at 24x. It comes bundled with a single JVC 8x DVD-R, giving you just one chance to enjoy 8x burning speeds before discs hit the Australian shelves. After scrounging a Verbatim 8x DVD+R we had two chances at breaking the speed barrier and the DVR-AO7 didn't disappoint.

Using the bundled Ulead Burn Now it wrote 4.25 GB to the 8x DVD-R in an impressive 8 minutes 44 seconds, after spending 2 minutes 51 seconds writing a disc image. The software offers the option of a direct burn. The same burn on the 8x DVD+R took 9 min 01 sec, after spending 2 min 56 sec writing a disc image.

Turning to a Datastream 4x DVD-R, Ulead Burn Now wrote 4.22 GB in 14 min 54 sec (plus 2 min 51 sec writing disc image) - a very respectable 4x burn time. While the DVR-AO7 easily gave the speed barrier a good shellacking, it was surprisingly quiet. The retail version comes bundled with Ulead DVD MovieFactory 3 SE Suite, offering DVD/CD burning for data, video and music files along with basic DVD authoring and a DVD playback.

Video-editing facilities are provided by Ulead Video Studio 7 SE and Ulead DVD Picture Show SE caters for still images. The TMPGEnc MPEG1/2 + DOLBY AC-3 Audio Encoder and DVD-lab offer advanced DVD authoring and video encoding respectively. Competitively priced and from a highly respected name in the optical drive market, Pioneer's DVR-AO7 gets a tick in every box.

www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/04/26/1082831476461.html

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