I did a search to see if there were any threads on people's feelings about "backups" of DVD and found nothing...so I was just curious how you hard core dvd'ers felt about backups...with DVD burners so cheap and media pretty cheap, its seems so easy to be able to do.

it's against the rules of the forum that you should have read when you signed up to discuss making copies of DVDs. This includes whether or not it is for back up purposes or not.

I'm not discussing the "making copies of DVDs"...I was just asking peoples opinions of it..but I guess thats a no-no too?

the only NO-NO is how ignorant it is that a collector like myself...cant have a copy of each of his dvds. why do I want a copy? those IDIOTS at the pressing plants are known for making shotty product. now when the dvd goes oop...which they all will at some point....and the company wont replace my "long-lasting" dvd....I'm screwed. it's all BS. it should be my right to have a back-up because of manufacturing ignorance. simple, huh?

nice gutwrencher...i thought everyone would be afraid and say "backups are bad!"

That's a good idea gutwrencher I never thought of that. Then again I've never had a disc go bad on me. Though give me sometime I'm in only in the 400s.

Backing up DVDs that you have purchased, for your own personal use is perfectly legal (and very well should be). However, such discussion is usually frowned upon here, because some people may use the term "backup" as a euphemism for "illegally copying discs". I'm not saying that anyone in this thread is doing that, just explaining why there might be a problem in discussing it here.

I see you're point cultshock!

I would never rent a DVD and make a "backup" but I'm sure thinking about making a "backup" of some of the pricey DVDs and DVD sets I have.

I never want to buy the X-Files sets over again so a "backup", no matter how much they are frowned upon, is something I want for added security. I don't mind a 15.00-20.00 DVD crapping out but when the costs 80.00-100.00 I really don't think it's a bad idea as long as I am the only one who uses the "backup"

I'll miss this thread when it's locked.

Making copies of music media one owns for one's own personal use has long been held as "legal". Even the music industry accepts this as they have fees attached to blank CDR media labeled for music copying.

I'm certain the MPAA and the studios lie awake at night dreading the day that this same thing is codified by the legal system for movies. 321 Studios even fired a preemptive shot across the studios bow by filing a lawsuit against them attempting to set a precedent for the making of backups of DVDs for one's own use. Using the music industry as a precedent, 321 Studios might have a case, except for that legal quagmire that is the DMCA.

The DMCA is so broadly written, virtually any sort of copying of digital media can be interpreted as illegal, that is, until there are enough Congressmen and Senators that are not being paid off by the entertainment industry to go back and re-write the DMCA to preserve consumer's "fair use". Or until the MPAA oversteps its bounds and becomes so heavy-handed that a case winds up in the Supreme Court that finally goes the consumer's way.

Until there is a definitive ruling, however, copying of DVDs seems to now be in a sort of legal gray area. One side is claiming personal backups are legal and covered by "fair use" and the other claiming circumventing copy protections, even those that limit otherwise legal fair use, is illegal.

No, backup isn't a bad word. But **** is. And ****. And ****.

And let's not forget all the backups I have made of my own legally-purchases laserdiscs. In fact, I never owned a laserdisc player back in the day. I bought one and tracked down a ton of laserdiscs just so I could have certain titles that I thought would not be released or that would be "modified" in some way.

Star Wars: Original Trilogy
Star Wars: Original Trilogy - Special Editions
The Lion King
Song of the South )(Hong Kong - talk about spending some serious $$$ )
Bambi
Cinderella
Indiana Jones Trilogy (I will be buying the DVD's, but still nice to have the unaltered "Raiders" just for the heck of it.
Star Trek: The Motion Picture (Original Theatrical Cut)
Schindler's List (Original Theatrical Cut) (Spielberg may modifiy this for the DVD release)
and my favorite movie over the years...
Superman: The Movie (ORIGINAL CUT THE WAY I WATCHED IT SINCE I WAS 5 YEARS OLD!!!!

I spent some serious money on those discs, and you better believe I have made my own backups to DVD-R. You better friggin' believe it!!! I do NOT want to have to rebuy some of those.

I don't have a DVD burner, but from what I understand, DVD-R, DVD+/-RW capacities are about 4.7 GB, and many DVDs have more data than this, so you'll either have to backup to multiple disks, or do additional compression and lose picture quality.

There's obviously a difference between:

- backing-up things you own legally and keeping those back-ups for if/when the originals fail, and

- buying/renting a DVD, making a "back-up," and selling/returning the original and keeping the "back-up."

If we stay on topic about back-ups, and don't discuss bootlegging, then I don't see a problem with this thread. (I'm not the only mod on forum, though.)

I should note here that Troma, as a studio, wholly supports the backing up of movies for your own personal use. And the DMCA is a big pile of _____!

I only back up my FAVORITE movies...and I'm glad I did cuz Tommy Boy got scratched to hell some how but my back up saved the day!!!

Maybe it's just me but even if the quality didn't suffer losses, ending up using a backup just wouldn't be the same. Imagine accidentally scratching a Criterion version of Brazil to the point where it doesn't work anymore. Having a DVD-R with ink-written "Barzil - Criterion collection" text on it wouldn't console me too much.

As already stated, the most common use of "backup" is as a codeword for "pirated copy." So the word has a lot of baggage associated with it.

I evaluated the time and money it would take to backup all of my DVD's against the cost of just replacing the individual DVDs as they broke. I decided just to replace them as I go, which is a much better value for me overall.

dvdshrink allows you to get rid of extra languages, extra menus, trim credits, ditch captions etc etc before you actually have to do any kind of further compression. Good program, highly recommended.

j

how did it get scratched? if you are using a backup, your original is stored in its original case in a safe location... its the backup, if anything, that will get scratched because its the only one you actually use...

j

At a cost of about $2 a blank DVD-R and considering many DVDs are dual layered and take two discs to back them up it would probably cost me about $3000 to back up my DVDs. No thanks, I would rather spend that buying new DVDs and I'll rebuy the one or two discs that will go bad in the next 20 or 30 years. If its an OOP DVD or a Laserdisc thats not available on DVD then I can probably see doing it, but thats a very small number of movies for me.

From my experience with people that have DVD burners on their computers they spend their time backing up other peoples DVDs to their collection. It stealing where I come from.

what Darkside said: It's amazing how many people have asked me to burn them a copy of one of my DVD's when they found out I had a standalone burner in my rack. I tell them I can't since there's Macrovision (even though I have allcode players with it defeated). Buy your own damn discs!

Totally agree... I get asked to burn movies all the time.... You go spend your money on the movies..

How easy is it to back up one's disks?

I'm not talking pirate - I mean the 100 or so movies that I own. There is talk of this "disk rot" that has me seriously worried sometimes. Not that I have any great expensive DVD's - but I certainly don't have the money to shell out for these titles again and again.

If I buy one of the dvd burners sold nowadays as a pc drive - and my player reads DVD-r, is it as easy as backing up a cd? Put in - copy disk - remove and play?

I'm just wondering - I haven't looked into it too seriously yet, but as the prices of burners continue to fall, it looks more and more attractive.

yeah, friends think backing up a DVD-R is an inexpensive at throwing in a CDR and backing up anything else..i tell them to go buy the DVD..lol.

As for back ups...i see no quality loss for the few movies that I backed up..they fit fine on 1 DVD-R once you strip out the extras, subs and extranious audio tracks. Long movies like LOTR aren't worth backing up...too long...i'd rather just buy another copy if mine got messed up.