a real newbie Q

[canadave]

Hi,

Well, I'm a newbie again...seems to happen every time I find a new toy I just discovered the world of DVD's. I'm not a complete technical fool, but I'll admit I'm a little confused with DVD ripping. I've read as much as I can on the Net, but I'm still a bit puzzled.

All I want to know is:

1. If I have a DVD movie, can I make a backup of it that includes not only the movie itself, but the DVD menu and special features and so on? In other words, an EXACT copy that I can play in my DVD player just as if it were the original DVD?

2. What do I need to do in order to do that, in simple terms: i.e., "step 1. rip DVD files from DVD-ROM to HD using Software X--step 2. copy ripped files to a blank CD-R in VCD format using Software Y", etc etc.

Thanks in advance....I just need a little push and then I can fall off the cliff by myself

--Dave K.

[V10]

Hi canadave,

I think that you cannot copy the menu!! But the movies should be
no problem!! You can rip them just as the main movie!!!

There are a lot of ripping programs, what kind is best i don't know!! I just trying to rip for a few weeks now and i've been trying a few programs!!

gordianknot with a 2 pass divx5 routine should be worth to give a try, that's what UNCASMS Told me( Thanks for That)!!

[Nacelle]

I use:
cladMdec to rip
Flask to encode
Virtualdub to cut credits off.

[Nielchiano]

You contradict yourself in your question: you state a:
an EXACT copy that I can play in my DVD player just as if it were the original DVD
and b:
copy ripped files to a blank CD-R in VCD format .

For now, the first (a) is only possible in very rare cases. You'll have to make an exact copy (DVD Decryptor could be useful) and burn it to a DVD-/+R. The maximum is 4.3GB, since there is no bigger DVD-R availible.

Just a regulat Backup is not that hard. Like V10 said, there are a LOT of programs to do this. Some are very simple, straighforward and "bad" (quality). Other are very difficult, full of switches and good... I (think i) use something in between. I'll tell what I do. I get good results, but It might be somewhat complicated for a newbie...:
<ul>
<li>Rip the DVD with SmartRipper (first the main title, than all the extra's) using the movie-mode. I switch on Stream procesing and tell it to demux the audio-tracks already to a sepperate ac3 file.
<li>Then I switch to file-mode and vopy the menu-file (usualy vts_02_0.vob, you can see the icon is different).
<li>now you don't need your DVD anymore
<li>Transcode the AC3 stream to an MP3 stream (using BeSweet)
<li>Transcode the MPEG2 stream to an DivX stream using VVFAPI and VirtualDub and DivX Pro 5.1
<li>Mux those two together with NanDub
<li>Rip the subtitles I want to keep (with SubRip)
<li>Correct them (for OCR errors)
<li>Split the menu-VOB into pieces and encode it (to DivX) (also VirtualDub etc.)
<li>make a MicroDVD-ini file and make everything work
</ul>

Like this you can make an (almost) identical copy of your DVD with the same content and menu/s subs, ... The only thing worse is the quality (since it must fit on a CD).

This produces a DivX format. To make a VCD (worse quality and limited to 74minutes per CD), the procedure is a bit different, you'll encode in MPEG 1, in TMPEG, and use something like Nero to make the VCD structure