First let me say that I am very new at burning DVDs. I am trying to find a reliable piece of software that will allow me to make a backup of my purchased DVD movies. I have a three month old and know that she will by accident scratch one or more DVDs. I would aus the afterdark DVDxCopy program but I am using Window ME and it doesn't support ME only 2000 and XP.
To Make Direct Copies of DVD-5s, I suggest DVDDecryter. It is by far the easiest point and click option out there and it is free. It also only takes about an hour to get the Image and and burn it back to DVD. No Data is lost and the quality is not effected as far as I can see... For DVD-9s, you need to read all of the other posts.
One of the best places to go to is fukrulez.com. They have like 4 different ways to backup your dvds. Very easy to follow step by step instructions.