I have an ATI AIW 9700 pro. The card has DRM (digital rights management) built-in and will allow you to play a copy-protected DVD, but not record it (it records in a loop). My card is hooked to my cable and to a dual Zenith DVD/VCR player that I use for capture and to view VHS. I noticed by the way, that the Michael Jackson music DVD was not copy protected. It happened to have been the first DVD I played on this dual player and I was able to copy the video. I thought I had defeated the copy protection, only to discover that over DVD's would not copy the same way.

There are some DVD players, however, that can be re-flashed to turn off the DRM and the resulting signal can then be copied. The Apex brand is the most touted (and it is dirt cheap)--I think the 1200 is the most re-flashable. There is a whole undergound that list the re-flash capability of select DVD brands, along with links to the flash software. I have heard of DVD copying gained, but other features lost after a flash, but the sites will tell you the "drug" side affects.

By the way, at the low cost of DVS's, I personally think it is not cost effective to capture an entire DVD, only to have to re-render it (for a day), when you only save about 5-10 bucks (isn't your time worth anything). I only wanted a few snippets for fun (like the Paramount logo, etc.) to soup up a few home videos and don't espouse copying--having made my money in the entertainment industry for 7 years.

Hope this helps.

Hey Chanimal - Thanks for the information. I'm glad you wrote before I spent wasted time on trying to configure the AIW card just to find out it cannot do what I want. I totally agree that people are crazy to attempt to spend the time to record and copy an entire DVD when they are relatively cheap. In fact, I have no idea why the industry copy protects these things given this fact. In my situation, I just want to grab a few music videos I enjoy from the pre-recorded DVDs I purchased and make my own DVD compilation for my personal use. People have taken this for granted with their pre-recorded CDs for years, but us music video lovers are stuck going through menus to play the tracks we want, plus continuously ejecting & inserting DVDs. It's nuts.

Thanks again.

Maybe you have just answered one of lifes mysteries, why do they make carousel DVD players, I always wondered who would need to watch 5 movies in a row without the inconvenience of changing the DVD.

I guess with one of these babies you could bung in a stack of DVDs and program it to play only the tracks you want.

Most hardware capture cards with analog inputs are able to take signals from Macrovision protected VHS and any DVD via S-Video (y/c) or composite and the audio outputs. I am converting all our old VHS movies to DVD this way. The thing to remember is store bought DVDs are replicated, not burned and usually on DVD-9, which as its name suggests, holds almost 9 gigs. You will never attain the same quality level on a bootleg you burn yourself. This is why we bought Lord of the Rings, Matrix etc.

Try DVD-X Copy Express. They say it works very well.

JJK

Doug:

Have you had a peek yet at vcdhelp.com?

There are a lot of techniques/tools and a forum over there, re: DVD rips/re-encodes. Lots of free/inexpensive tools available to do exactly what you want. Vegas will not rip vob's from a DVD, but once you do that with some freeware, you can edit/re-encode with Vegas, then author with DVDA, Ulead MF, or something else.

Good Luck

Frenchy

Actually if you have the ATI all in wonder card there is a small piece of software that will disable the macrovision on the card so you can record anything on them, even macrovision encoded VHS and DVD's. I can't remember where I found the program, I think I got it somewhere on dvdrhelp.com

This is the post I was refering to, but the link doesn't work anymore to get to the software:

http://www.dvdrhelp.com/forum/archive/t162879.html

Actually, I started thinking lately about getting a DVD carousel to use as an audio component. You could play hundreds of hours of MP3s from one of them critters.

But you're right, I can't imagine watching 5 DVD movies in a row.

bd

I don't believe that you can burn MP3's to DVD's and have them play back in a set top player. From what I understand you can only do that to CD-R's, but still 5 Cd's filled with MP3's is still lots of music.

I couldn't speak for other DVD players but the one I have will play MP3 off DVD, complete with on screen menu. 4.3 GB of music, that's more than I want to listen to.

But this guy is a bit of an oddity, it'll also play raw mpeg1/2 files of CDs and DVDs. Quite handy for me but then as not much else has that capability largely just self indulgent.

>>Try DVD-X Copy Express. They say it works very well.

It works excellent.

The latest version of DVD XCopy Express will take a 9 gig DVD and put it on a 4.7 disk.

I personally see absolutely no loss in quality.

It works as advertised.

I'm not sure the carousel is the answer for the following reasons:

1. You are limited to selections from only 5 discs.
2. The time it takes to load and program along with the unit's delay in starting the next disc in line (aren't you forced to go through DVD introduction screen & DVD menu whenever a DVD is loaded anyway???).

I contacted the makers of DVD X-Copy & X-Copy Express and they told me their products cannot do this.

I wasn't aware of the VCDHelp forum. Thanks!

I guess I meant it more along the line of fitting an 8 gig disk on a 4.7 disk.

Sorry if I was off the track.

My guess is that the DVD police pulled the post. You know, DVD X-Press legally sells the same concept of allowing a person to be able to back up discs they purchased and own. The industry assumes that the world is full of bootleggers and the innocent suffer because of it. Personally, I don't watch movies so I have no interest in having DVD X-Press for any reason. But I purchase legitimate music video DVDs like crazy. If they don't allow people like myself to enjoy their products to the fullest extent and allow us to protect them, then I don't know why we should continue to give them our money. I'll find my entertainment elsewhere.

You can do it with Pinncle Instant Copy and DVD Decrypter as well. Rips the DVD to your hard drive then Instacopy will take a DVD 9 and turn it into a DVD-5 size. Usually takes a couple hours on a pretty fast machine.