What is involved in copying a home-made video DVD (recorded on a standalone
DVD recorder as opposed to a computer)?

Is it as simple as using a PC with a DVD writer drive to copy the file and
directory structure from one DVD (eg DVD-RAM) to another (eg DVD-R), maybe
by copying to HDD with a simple Windows Explorer copy and then from HDD to
new DVD using Nero? Obviously the drive has to be capable of reading the
source format and writing the destination format.

My sister has some DVDs of camcorder footage that are recorded on DVD-RAM
and she wants to put them onto DVD-R so that (as far as possible) anyone
else with a DVD player can play them.

What's involved in extracting footage from the source DVD to copy it to the
destination DVD, as opposed to simply copying the whole of the DVD? What
software is needed to do that?


On a related note, if you copy between DVD and HDD of a DVD recorder
(standalone, not computer drive), is it a straight lossless byte-for-byte
copy or does uncompression and recompression occur (with possible loss of
quality)? I'm assuming that I'm copying to the same level of compression (eg
from HQ to HQ or SQ to SQ).

On Fri, 25 Feb 2005 17:14:54 -0000, "Martin Underwood"
wrote:

What is involved in copying a home-made video DVD (recorded on a standalone
DVD recorder as opposed to a computer)?

Is it as simple as using a PC with a DVD writer drive to copy the file and
directory structure from one DVD (eg DVD-RAM) to another (eg DVD-R), maybe
by copying to HDD with a simple Windows Explorer copy and then from HDD to
new DVD using Nero? Obviously the drive has to be capable of reading the
source format and writing the destination format.

My sister has some DVDs of camcorder footage that are recorded on DVD-RAM
and she wants to put them onto DVD-R so that (as far as possible) anyone
else with a DVD player can play them.

What's involved in extracting footage from the source DVD to copy it to the
destination DVD, as opposed to simply copying the whole of the DVD? What
software is needed to do that?


On a related note, if you copy between DVD and HDD of a DVD recorder
(standalone, not computer drive), is it a straight lossless byte-for-byte
copy or does uncompression and recompression occur (with possible loss of
quality)? I'm assuming that I'm copying to the same level of compression (eg
from HQ to HQ or SQ to SQ).


1. yes , read disk into pc .... write structure back out.
2. to extract footage from a dvd and create a compilation dvd i would
suggest using dvdshrink
3. if you copy a sp program to hd and then back to disc as sp , then
no change in data
however if you copy to hd as one recording level and out again at a
different level , there will be recompression/decompression.
Gary MacKenzie
Video Editor

On 25/02/2005 Martin Underwood wrote:

What is involved in copying a home-made video DVD (recorded on a
standalone DVD recorder as opposed to a computer)?

Is it as simple as using a PC with a DVD writer drive to copy the
file and directory structure from one DVD (eg DVD-RAM) to another (eg
DVD-R), maybe by copying to HDD with a simple Windows Explorer copy
and then from HDD to new DVD using Nero? Obviously the drive has to
be capable of reading the source format and writing the destination
format.


There are several shareware / trial apps that you can use to make an
iso image of the original DVD. I did this for my daughter recently and
used WinISO from http://www.winiso.com/. Once you've got the iso you
can burn it to a new DVD with Nero or similar.


My sister has some DVDs of camcorder footage that are recorded on
DVD-RAM and she wants to put them onto DVD-R so that (as far as
possible) anyone else with a DVD player can play them.

What's involved in extracting footage from the source DVD to copy it
to the destination DVD, as opposed to simply copying the whole of the
DVD? What software is needed to do that?


My daughter used Pinnacle Studio to make a 'movie', she found version 8
in PC World for £16 and did a really good job with it. I think that
Nero can burn things like mpg/avi to a playable CD but I'm out of my
depth on that.


On a related note, if you copy between DVD and HDD of a DVD recorder
(standalone, not computer drive), is it a straight lossless
byte-for-byte copy or does uncompression and recompression occur
(with possible loss of quality)? I'm assuming that I'm copying to the
same level of compression (eg from HQ to HQ or SQ to SQ).

May depend on the DVD recorder, mine wouldn't dub my daughter's DVD's
nor could I copy them to HD but WinISO just did it :-)

--
Jeff Gaines
Posted with XanaNews 1.17.2.7

"Gary MacKenzie" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 25 Feb 2005 17:14:54 -0000, "Martin Underwood"
wrote:

What is involved in copying a home-made video DVD (recorded on a
standalone
DVD recorder as opposed to a computer)?

Is it as simple as using a PC with a DVD writer drive to copy the file and
directory structure from one DVD (eg DVD-RAM) to another (eg DVD-R), maybe
by copying to HDD with a simple Windows Explorer copy and then from HDD to
new DVD using Nero? Obviously the drive has to be capable of reading the
source format and writing the destination format.

My sister has some DVDs of camcorder footage that are recorded on DVD-RAM
and she wants to put them onto DVD-R so that (as far as possible) anyone
else with a DVD player can play them.

What's involved in extracting footage from the source DVD to copy it to
the
destination DVD, as opposed to simply copying the whole of the DVD? What
software is needed to do that?


On a related note, if you copy between DVD and HDD of a DVD recorder
(standalone, not computer drive), is it a straight lossless byte-for-byte
copy or does uncompression and recompression occur (with possible loss of
quality)? I'm assuming that I'm copying to the same level of compression
(eg
from HQ to HQ or SQ to SQ).


1. yes , read disk into pc .... write structure back out.

So I use Windows Explorer to select all the files/folders on the source disc
and copy them to a folder (eg c:\DVD)? Then drag the contents of that folder
into Nero, configured to burn a DVD? And write the DVD? That's what I hoped:
that a DVD-Video was just a DVD with files/folders with the right names and
formats.


2. to extract footage from a dvd and create a compilation dvd i would
suggest using dvdshrink

OK. I'll see if I can track down a site to download it from. Is it shareware
or do you have to pay for it? Does it have an option to keep the compression
the same so you don't get mutli-generation losses in recompressing - I
assume that if you start editing a DVD, it gets expanded to full size and
recompressed on the fly.

3. if you copy a sp program to hd and then back to disc as sp , then
no change in data
however if you copy to hd as one recording level and out again at a
different level , there will be recompression/decompression.

That's as I expected. So multigeneration copies are lossless as long as the
compression remains the same (eg SP on source, SP of destination).

Martin Underwood wrote:
What is involved in copying a home-made video DVD (recorded on a standalone
DVD recorder as opposed to a computer)?

Is it as simple as using a PC with a DVD writer drive to copy the file and
directory structure from one DVD (eg DVD-RAM) to another (eg DVD-R), maybe
by copying to HDD with a simple Windows Explorer copy and then from HDD to
new DVD using Nero? Obviously the drive has to be capable of reading the
source format and writing the destination format.

Unless your DVD reader is capable of reading DVD-Ram format you will not
be able to copy.My HP writer is incapable of reading DVD-Ram.Most
programs like Nero will do the copying for you without using Explorer.

My sister has some DVDs of camcorder footage that are recorded on DVD-RAM
and she wants to put them onto DVD-R so that (as far as possible) anyone
else with a DVD player can play them.

What's involved in extracting footage from the source DVD to copy it to the
destination DVD, as opposed to simply copying the whole of the DVD? What
software is needed to do that?

As mentioned Pinnacle should do what you require


On a related note, if you copy between DVD and HDD of a DVD recorder
(standalone, not computer drive), is it a straight lossless byte-for-byte
copy or does uncompression and recompression occur (with possible loss of
quality)? I'm assuming that I'm copying to the same level of compression (eg
from HQ to HQ or SQ to SQ).



Try this site http://www.dvdplusrw.org/

Martin Underwood wrote:

What is involved in copying a home-made video DVD (recorded on a standalone
DVD recorder as opposed to a computer)?


First your PC drive must be physically capable of reading the DVD, then
your software has to be able to make sense of what the drive's reading.

If your drive can read a DVD-RAM disc then software like 'TMPGEnc DVD
Author' will be able to read it, let you make new menus if you want, and
then re-burn it to a DVD-R(W) or DVD+R(W) blank.

Regards

Mark

"Mark A" wrote in message
...
Martin Underwood wrote:

What is involved in copying a home-made video DVD (recorded on a
standalone
DVD recorder as opposed to a computer)?


First your PC drive must be physically capable of reading the DVD, then
your software has to be able to make sense of what the drive's reading.

Yes, I realised that the drive has to be able to read the source format.
Maybe I didn't so explicitly!

If your drive can read a DVD-RAM disc then software like 'TMPGEnc DVD
Author' will be able to read it, let you make new menus if you want, and
then re-burn it to a DVD-R(W) or DVD+R(W) blank.

Thanks. Someone else has suggested DVDshrink. I'll investigate those two.

"NBT" wrote in message
...
Martin Underwood wrote:
What is involved in copying a home-made video DVD (recorded on a
standalone
DVD recorder as opposed to a computer)?

Is it as simple as using a PC with a DVD writer drive to copy the file
and
directory structure from one DVD (eg DVD-RAM) to another (eg DVD-R),
maybe
by copying to HDD with a simple Windows Explorer copy and then from HDD
to
new DVD using Nero? Obviously the drive has to be capable of reading the
source format and writing the destination format.

Unless your DVD reader is capable of reading DVD-Ram format you will not
be able to copy.My HP writer is incapable of reading DVD-Ram.Most programs
like Nero will do the copying for you without using Explorer.

For my PC, I'll probably get an LG drive that claims to have read *and*
write support for all the formats (DVD-RAM, DVD+/-R, DVD+/-RW).

I only mentioned copying via the HDD (using Explorer) to cater for the case
where you don't have two DVD drives - one that can read the source format
and the other that can write the destination format. However, as you say,
Nero can do copies from one disk to another even if you only have one drive,
without explicitly needing to make a disk-HDD copy using Explorer.

I've been asked to make copies of my sister's DVD-RAM drives after someone
accidentally trod on one of them, containing irreplaceable camcorder footage
:-( Since her DVD recorder doesn't have a hard disk, she doesn't have any
way of copying DVDs - and she needed to make the master copy onto DVD-RAM to
be able to use the editing facilities that her recorder provides, but only
to a rewritable disk.

I've also decided to go out and buy a DVD recorder myself. I was holding out
for manufacturers to produce combined Freeview/DVD/HDD recorders. So far,
AFAIK, you can only buy Freeview/HDD (OK for timeshifting but no use for
archiving) and DVD/HDD (involves a digital-to-analogue and
analogue-to-digital stage between Freeview and DVD/HDD). However it looks as
if there aren't any in the pipeline (unless anyone knows differently) so
I'll probably get a Pioneer 420H since this has better disk-navigation and
disk-memory facilities than the Panasonic DMR-E85, and put up with the
D-to-A and A-to-D losses.

In article , Martin
Underwood wrote:
"Mark A" wrote in message
...
Martin Underwood wrote:

What is involved in copying a home-made video DVD (recorded on a
standalone
DVD recorder as opposed to a computer)?


First your PC drive must be physically capable of reading the DVD, then
your software has to be able to make sense of what the drive's reading.

Yes, I realised that the drive has to be able to read the source format.
Maybe I didn't so explicitly!

If your drive can read a DVD-RAM disc then software like 'TMPGEnc DVD
Author' will be able to read it, let you make new menus if you want, and
then re-burn it to a DVD-R(W) or DVD+R(W) blank.

Thanks. Someone else has suggested DVDshrink. I'll investigate those two.

It might be that DVD-RAM recording writes in a different format from normal.

I think my DVD recorder records DVD-RAM in DVD-VR mode (which is UDF 2
format discs, no AUDIO_TS/VIDEO_TS directories and uses .VRO files rather
than .IFO/BUP etc files).

Some recent dvd players can read this format, but to be sure you'd have
to pull it out to DVD-Video format, Ulead DVD Movie Factory allows you
to read this. Some people do use TMPGEnc but it barfed my uk recorded stuff
with a "non compliant screen size", so I didn't use it...

Smid