Opinions on Backup software, need yours as well

[mybootcom]

Thus far I have been using 321 Studios DVD Xcopy Platinum to backup my collection. It was pricey but it's been working pretty well.

Recently, however, I've run across a whole string of titles that it has issues with. (Pirates of the Caribean, Beatles Anthology, etc) The problem, according to 321, is that their software has problems with "undercompressing" when it's a complex title with a ton of features so the end result won't burn onto a DVDR.

They're supposed to address it in the next 4.x version of their software but who knows how long we'll have to wait or how much it will cost.

At any rate, so far I've been able to copy just about everything after messing around with settings in DVD XCopy. If it won't copy in Platinum or Express, then I open it like it's a damaged DVD in their attached "DVD Rescue" program and that usually does the trick.

However, there have been a few titles that didn't even work on Rescue or that I didn't want to burn all of the features or whatever.

So I've tried the DVDShrink / Copy2DVD with mixed results. At least once, unexplainably, Ive ended up without any audio or the wrong audio. And another time I made a coaster with major write errors (something that has never happened with 321 Studios stuff.)

So finally to my question now that you know my DVD-burning history:

I know there are a ton of programs out there: DVD2One, CloneDVD et al. But does anyone have a suggestion for a program that will burn DVDs to one DVD, no splitting, and that's fairly foolproof? That won't make coasters? And doesn't require a ton of legwork and jumping through hoops to get a decent copy?

I need something to fall back on when I can't get anything of 321's products to work for me. For instance, right now I'd like to backup my Beatles Anthology DVD purchases and 321's will NOT back it up, no matter what I try.

[JoyBoy]

Out of all the '1 Clicker' Apps out there, I like InstantCopy the most. Check it out.

[belveder]

I have read on another dvd forum a lot of people complaing about DVDXCopy, supposedly one of the better ways is AnyDVD with CloneDVD or ANYDVD with DVD Shrink

I just cut a 1 hour 55 minute movie down to 115 minute using ANYDVD and DVDShrink keeping all the English menu's & Chapters and all the sound

Hope this helps

[mybootcom]

Originally posted by BountyWarrior
Out of all the '1 Clicker' Apps out there, I like InstantCopy the most. Check it out.

Thanks much for the tip, friend. I downloaded a copy of InstantCopy last night. At first I was kind of bummed that it isn't truly a "1 Clicker". That is, it won't decrypt/decode a CSS-Encoded DVD. But if you think about it, that's kind of a smart move on their part considering that 321 Studios just lost their initial court battle with Hollywood as of yesterday

At any rate, DVD Decrypter is a nice program. Ripped a particularly troublesome DVD of mine to my hard drive and then I pointed "InstantCopy" at that directory and 1-clicked. It takes considerably longer than other copy programs Ive used. But hey, it worked like a charm on the DVD I was attempting to backup. If it continues to do a great job, it's 'teh win' for me. I'd rather it take a long time and work the first time, personally. Rather than risk making coasters or waste time with the buggy DVD XCopy. (PS: I really wanted to like their software because they reside in my town, St. Louis, and a friend works for them... but hey, it's too much of a pain in ass.)

Originally posted by belveder
I have read on another dvd forum a lot of people complaing about DVDXCopy, supposedly one of the better ways is AnyDVD with CloneDVD or ANYDVD with DVD Shrink

I just cut a 1 hour 55 minute movie down to 115 minute using ANYDVD and DVDShrink keeping all the English menu's & Chapters and all the sound

Thanks for the tip. I will be sure to check these out as well.

-Craig, myboot.com

[Sams choice]

I also have DVD-X Copy Platnium but have not run across any copyright movie that Express or Rescue couldn't do yet but I haven't tried the 2 movies you couldn't backup. Had to use Rescue to backup a copy of Inhabited since thats the only movie I found so far that Express couldn't do.

I just recently bought Intervideo DVD Copy which seems like it might be good software. It has an option of backing up DVD's to DVD, VCD, SVCD, and DivX. The only option I've tried so far is Dvix and the picture quality looked very good using Windows media player, almost as good as DVD. You can fit a whole movie on 1 CD-R with extreme quality. Unfortunalty I don't have a home DVD player that can read Divx but from the looks of things it will be the next big format for home DVD players to be able to read. Sounds like their already popular most everywhere else but in the USA, and not too many home players will support the format here until later this year according to an article I read on the net about Divx. . I was pissed to find out that both of my newest players couldn't read the format, I wish I would have waited and bought one that could read Divx but at the time I didn't know much about it.