OK I got this Pioneer CD/DVD RW Model DVR-111D/BK, I also bought 50 Sonic DVD-R 8X blank DVDs. Both I got at shop4tech.com. Did I state the the drive was out of the "box"
I'm new to DVD burning and would like to know what is the best way to burn movies I down loaded to my hard drive, onto dvd's that will play in my standalone DVD player? I've made about 15 to 20 "coasters" don't mind that but I want to move up to a higher quality of DVD blanks.....I've been trying different trial versons of software, quite a few freeware. What out there that will get me results. I like the try before I buy...So any and all recomendations welcomed......and thanks in advance!!
Are you encoding the video to MPEG-2? What programs are you using to burn, and what steps are you performing in that process? It's great to know what model writer you have and what not, but much more info on what exactly you are doing, and what is not working would enable people to better understand, and correct your problem.
Never heard of Sonic media. Try Sony, Verbatim, or Taiyo Yuden 8X +R, preferrably those labeled Made in Japan. Burn at 4X to start, speed up once you get the process down. I don't recommend going over 8X for burning Video. Always check support to see if your firmware is up to date.
AnyDVD is the decryption software favored by most. http://www.slysoft.com/ It works in the background to bypass copyright protection and there's an included ripper that processes for DVD compliance. The ripper can come in handy for some of the heavily protected new releases. It's also kept updated faster than the others, or has so far.
DVDFab Decrypter is a decent freeware ripper (decryption software).
DVD Shrink is free. You can burn for free with DVD Decrypter or ImgBurn. When you install Shrink, go into Help and check out the guide links, they're still good. Slysoft has CloneDVD 2 that complements their AnyDVD well. Nero 7 has the Recode 2 for transcoding plus a lot of burning software and utilities. For my backups I use AnyDVD + DVD Decrypter (Slysoft settings) to rip, DVD Rebuilder with Cinema Craft Encoder to encode, and Nero Express to burn. I like the quality of a true encoder. For a quick job I use Recode. If you can't get a good backup with some of those, it's not the software.
As Jigen asked, what software have you been trying to use?
The basic steps of a DVD backup is decrypt, transcode, and burn. The key to any DVD backup is bypassing the copyright protection to get a good clean source that is DVD compliant (decrypt). Compliance is usually only an issue with some of the newer heavily protected releases where the copyright protection causes compliance errors. So, when backing up factory DVDs, you have to have a good "cleaned" source. After that most of the decent transcoder or encoder apps will process the files for burning and most of the decent burning software can handle the burn (transcode and burn). Some backup software includes a burner, such as the CloneDVD 2. Recode uses the Nero burning software built in.
