Ok, I am just getting started at the whole DVD-R thing. I want to know how easy this going to be before I buy my DVDR this week. I have used smartripper to backup a copy of a movie I own. I think it just ripped the movie files .vob and stuff like that. I can play this on my PowerDVD software from my hard drive using those files and it doesnt appear to have the subs and all the crap I really dont want anyway (just the movie). Now can I just take those files and burn them to a DVD-R to play them on my Apex DVD player or do I need to do some more steps? BTW all the ripped files are showing up to be 4.03 Gigs. I am using WinXP Pro and plan on buying a Pioneer DVR-A04. I will play my DVD-R on my Apex 660 and Apex 1100. Also is the Pioneed DVR-A04 and the Pioneer DVR-104 really the same drive or is that so crap the stores try to tell you? Suggestions on GOOD and CHEAP blanks are welcome. (I know GOOD/CHEAP may not go together on that issue) Thanks for the help and thanks for the GREAT site!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I agree, this is a great site and mostly because of dRD honest replys. I bought a Pioneer DVR-104 (YES it is an OEM version of the retail DVR-A04) thinking that it would be a breeze to copy DVDs. YES and NO. If the movie is below 4.3 GB, then I use DVDDecrypter and make an ISO image. Easy burn using the same program. A little more involved that just copying to you hard drive and then buring it to DVD. Using nero, all the original files have to be in the correct folder and so on... But if the movie is bigger than 4.3 GB, then more work is going to be necessary. There are a few good articles here http://www.afterdawn.com/articles/ and more in others, (do a google search, you'll be surprised). The author of IFOEdit has a good website. I've bought cheap and better media from http://www.meritline.com they have different grades and different prices. The DVDPro media was a good deal. Go to afterdawns dvd media forum and do a search there for that media.
