I bet that you have tried to copy a DVD before, but didn’t succeed because it was either copy protected or it failed without clear reason. In a previous post I have described how to copy a DVD to an iPod, but here’s a way to simply backup your DVDs to DVDs. There are two main problems with copying DVDs, one is copy protection and two is that commercial DVDs have larger storage capacity than regular DVDs that you can burn at home. The media industry uses DVD copy protection technology that makes it *very* difficult to copy DVDs, yet most copyright laws allow owners to make backups or their property. There are a lot of wrong reasons for copying or backing up DVDs, but there are also many good reasons. If you have young children then you would know the value of backing up your DVDs and so here’s how to do it using DVD43 and DVD Shrink. For free!. (more…)

You finally caved and got the first season of 24 or Lost on DVD. Now you’re hooked and you would use every opportunity to watch it. Then you realize: “Hey, my iPod! It’s perfect for traveling and for the gym, but how can I copy my DVDs to my iPod?!” . So you do some Googling, but you discover that there are hundreds of solutions out there and, worse, that copying DVDs has become a money making scheme! Besides that, nobody tells you that there are two big technical problems with copying or converting DVDs:

1) Most commercial DVDs are encrypted for copy protection;
2) There are many encoding variables (bitrates, aspect ratios etc.).

It isn’t publicized, but commercial DVDs are normally copy protected with encryption technology (including region codes) and most commercial DVD copy software does not allow users to copy protected DVDs. Without going into the legalities suggested in #1 above or the complexities suggested in #2 above, here is a free solution to copy DVD to iPod. It’s really very easy, but the first time will take a few minutes longer. (more…)