DVD copying.

I believe it's all down to the 'format' (not 'formatting' etc) of the contents of the media. To be a video DVD it has to conform to the format standards of a video DVD, rather than just be a data DVD with video files on it?

Same with a bootable OS disk or optical or USB etc.

Cheers, T i m

Sometimes you need to "finalise" the disc, copying/pasting them only puts a temporary copy on hard disk, not actually burnt to the DVD?

That'd be my guess, or alternatively that in the first case the disk isn't ISO 9660. There's nothing that special about DVD-video; it just needs to be a ISO format disk with the files in the right folders, IIRC.

Oh dear. What is on the original DVD? If its a movie you need a bytle level copy

I dont thinks so

drive, it

The time taken for the copy is probably quite a give away and the noise... "finalise" writes a header block than enables non-pc type players to recognise the disc properly.

Niether do I. Something needs to tell the player what the disc content is. A DVD carrying video/sound files and associated menus/setup dialogs or a DVD carrying just computer data or ... This may come from the header block that "finalising" the disc writes.

I know that I need a specialised program to burn a playable DVD from files.

but 'dd' works to rip the entire shebang to an iso file which can be dd-ed back to another disk

If of course its copy protected you have to rip it and then use a dvd creation tool

No, it comes from the files in the filesystem, which are, at the end of the day, just computer data, just like a file on your hard dive could be plain text, executable code, a Word document, or video.

The menus etc are controlled by the .IFO files, and the .VOBs contain the actual video. I was wrong about ISO9660 though.

You have to be sure you finalise them much like a cd or they only work on the drive that made them. Brian

Not quite, but from memory, if you copy the files to another dvd, they are like a multi sessiong standard, ie always left open, but if you copy the whole, as one entity from the hard drive, you often get the choice, depending on the software, orf finalising or not.

Brian

yes, I was probably confusing two different issues with windows and disc burning, one is finalisation, the other is that (some versions of windows?) are only building up a list of what files to burn, and don't actually burn until you tell it do so ... I don't have a windows box with DVD burner handy to check

simple answer if he has two DVD players is to boot linux and use dd.

There is DVD cloning software available for Win7, either direct drive->drive, or drive->isofile->drive

I just use AnyDVDHD[1] - it makes all disks appear as unprotected disks, so you can make direct copies etc without having to rip first. It means you can use handbrake to transcode DVD etc direct to a single AVI/mp4 on a NAS etc.

Is it simpler than bittiong a live dvd..ah.

Um. Yes.

Uses one dvd drive. Silly me.

Use two drives if you've got them, though to minimise the chances of making a coaster, I'd tend to go via an iso image, so possible with just one drive.

Yup. Dave apparently has two drives BUT that means he has to use iso intermediaries unless he isntalls linux or uses a win tool

You snipped it. Do you ever read posts before replying?

It's not.

Still not quite sure why one works but not the other, though. When simple copying didn't work, I Googled it. And got the tip about copying to the desktop first. Then from that to the blank DVD. Other than that, nothing different at all. Is there some form of hidden data that gets copied that way?