Heartland

I need to copy some DVDs for a trade I'm sorting out... I've got the blank discs, and my laptop has a DVD burner type drive, but I need some software that can make some high quality exact copies - what do you guys all use?

Thanks

I use Nero

Yep, Nero indeed

No freeware that can do it?

Isn't nero free? I don't burn dvd's myself,but when I bought my pc it came with nero already installed.

Nero just comes free with some drives. I use CDBurnerXP (http://cdburnerxp.se/) which is free and doesn't come with all the crap that Nero bundles.

Basically you want to extract an ISO from the source DVD and then write that to your copies. This will give you more or less an exact duplicate of the original. Might be problematic if the original is copy-protected though.

If the dvd`s are copy protected,then look for dvd shrink.

If they are not then cdburnerXP,will do the job.

You will also need to be aware that your dvdrw`s will probably be either dvd-5 or dvd-9(simply single layer or dual layer)
A dvd-5 holds 4.37gb of data(although it states 4.7gb on the disc and wrapping)
A dvd-9 holds 7.95gb of data(on the disc will be 8.5gb)

If your source dvd`s are more than 4.37gb then you will need to use a dual layer disc or use dvdshrink but you will sacrifice some quality in the compression to fit a single layer disc.

Videohelp.com will give you guides to follow.

I use DVD Decrypter - lovely, very simple, quick, free.

If you wanna go for a paid solution, AnyDVD and CloneDVD work perfectly.

I was using several freewares in the past and found them all very easy to use & worked great.

DVD Cloner (Does exactly that)

DVD Shrink (lets you remove unwanted parts of DVDs - menus, subtitles, or dubbing in foreign languages, also lets you compress quality of original movie to fit more onto a disc).

DVD43 (gets around the Region issue and runs in the background when you play any DVD)

DVD Decrypter (removes copyright coding).

DVD decrypter

Remember though, if the source DVD is dual layer, you'll need to burn onto 8gb discs in order to make a 1:1 copy. If the source is less than 4.3gb you'll be fine with standard dvd-r's

Thanks for the replies

Currently on ImgBurn - seems to be doing the job. Burning copies of DVDRs for trading, so not got any copyright issues. Might be worth keeping this as a reference thread in weeding though..?

Yah ImgBurn is good & really easy to use.

In the last few months, I encountered DVD's that DVD decrypter would not accept. For these DVD's I used DVDFAB, which is not exactly free, but does what you need for every DVD even when the free trial period is over and you do not buy the product.

After running DVD Fab, I then use DVD shrink for the actual burning, but that one also requires nero or similar product to do the work.