I have a few questions about brning some DVD's. I normally use AnyDVD and CloneDVD on my desktop computer. It first copies the movie (I assume onto the HD), then I remove the movie and put in a blank DVD to burn it to, and it usually takes about 45 minutes for this process, as I only have 1 DVD Drive/Burner on my desktop.
Well, I recently got a laptop with a dvd drive on it (no burner) and I was wondering if there is a way to put the DVD in my laptop and burn it on my desktop computer at the same time, and what would this entail (cables and such to link the two computers together), and if anyone knows if this would speed up the process at all, or if it's not even worth it.
Well, I always heard that you can burn stuff faster if you have a dvd drive and a dvd burner in your pc. I just figured this would be about the same thing if I could hook the two together...
You are so lucky. I've gone through this whole scenario myself quite recently and will gladly detail my experience. Ready?
1. Get yourself a good router. D-Link, Linksys...doesn't really matter so long as you are able to connect both computers without a hassle and very little effort, then that is what is important. Make sure that you'll get 100mbps throughput on Ethernet since bad cables tend to limit speed (this can be argued though).
2. Get yourself a pair of good pair of RJ-45 cables. I can't stress this enough because if you end up with cheapies you'll end up paying for it with bad connections, crappy burns and just plain ol' aggravation.
3. Do not use wireless. It is slower and if the wind blow in certain directions you'll lose the connection. No sh*t...if the next door neighbor turns on their hair dryer you'll know.
4. Always use Ethernet. See number 3.
Okay, so that's the networking part of it. What you'll need to do is hook up one of the cables to the back of the laptop and then hook the other end to one of the free ports in the back of the router. Make sure you're hooking it up to one of the numbered ports and not the cable port where your internet goes. Otherwise you won't get a connection and you'd be pretty hard-up trying to figure out what went wrong. It's safe if the port has a number.
Do the same thing with the desktop. Hook up the other cable to the desktop and the other end to another numbered port.
This is where it gets tricky.
If you don't have Windows XP then you are SOL because I'm not going to get into every system and how to share stuff that way. If you do have Windows XP then great.
1. Open Windows Explorer on the laptop
2. Right-click on a folder where you'll be putting your burns
3. Now click on "Sharing and Security..."*
*If this option is not available then you will need to click on Start\Settings\Network Connections\Network Setup Wizard. You'll need to give your computer a name and a workgroup. Give both computers the same workgroup name and the laptop say the name "LAPTOP" and the desktop say "DESKTOP". You can name them whatever you want "Johnny Rotten 1", "Johnny Rotten 2"...whatever.
4. There should be an option in the folder properties that says "Share this folder on the network". Click it to enable it.
5. Give the folder a shared name...something like "Share".
6. Click the "Allow network users to change my files" option to enable it. This will allow you to copy to the folder from the desktop.
7. Click OK to accept it.
What you have done is open a share so that the desktop machine can grab and put stuff in the folder via a network connection.
Now do the same on the desktop. This will then allow you do dump stuff in the desktop machine's folder from the laptop.
OK...so where are we now? You've physically connected your computers together, given them names, and shared folders...you now need to make your connection via Windows.
1. Open up Windows Explorer from the laptop.
2. Click on Tools\Map Network Drive...
3. Do you remember what you named your desktop computer? This is where you put in the info. Put in "\\Desktop\Share". The word Desktop being the name of the computer and Share the name of the folder you are sharing on the desktop machine.
4. Remember the drive letter.
5. Click Finish
6. This step may or may not be neccessary depending on how you set up your computers from Windows Setup: Enter the login name. Dude, you're on your own here. Usually it's the name of the profile you use to log into the machine. You may also need to enter the workgroup you previously put in from the network connections step.
If it was successful you will have a drive "mapped" to the desktop machine's shared folder. You can now put stuff into it like photos, docs, images...you know...things like that.
Now here's the fun part.
You want to use the burner on the desktop computer from the laptop that doesn't have a burner. Hmm...
This is how I did it.
I used DVD Decrypter to back up my movie into a temporary folder (I chose File mode to do this), then I used Nero to create an image file with Recode. The image file has an .nrg, but really it's an ISO image. Once you create the image (1 file) on your laptop, move it to the shared folder on the desktop computer. Basically, copy the image and drop paste it in the mapped drive that is the shared folder.
Once the copying completes you'll have the image on your desktop machine. You can then use Nero again or any other app that burns ISO images to burn the image from the shared folder.
That's it!
If you run into any problems it will more than likely will be in the networking side of it as opposed to the burning portion. I've backed up quite a lot of my movies doing...hopefully it will be of help to you...hopefully.
Thank you soooo much for this info, you have helped me tremendously! I am going to try this out and see what results I come up with. As for burning movies, what kind of time does it take you to do so using this method? Just wondering if it will be quicker than just burning on the PC alone...
Thanks again for this valuable information! I really do appreciate it!
It does add to the time of burning simply for the fact that you are transfering the images from the laptop to the desktop. It averages about 10 minutes a movie. So...if you could live with an extra 10 minutes then it would be worth your while to think about trying it out...at least just for the experience.
I usually burn everything on the desktop but sometimes it's not avaliable - hence the laptop. My choice is the desktop for all my burns since it's convenient and I don't have to worry about the image transfer.
