Can someone point me to a good source(s) of information surrounding copying DVD movies to DVDr media? I'm aware of the divx rips and SVCD, but I want to know if lossless copying can be preformed on a PC w/ the proper hardware.

Here are a few topics (naive questions) I would like to learn about:

Lossless duplication of movie DVDs
-Can one simply copy a DVD in a drive-to-drive fashion like an audio CD?
-If not, how? Ripping to mpeg-2 first, then burning to DVDr?

Formatting of movie DVDs
-How many gigs fit on a "movie" DVD (e.g. something one rents from blockbuster)?
-Is it protected (formatted) in a way that will prevent duplication like this new audio protection I have been reading about?

Assuming this is possible, how does one deal w/ the menus and links to extra features, scenes, etc.? Are these simply ripped as their own respective mpeg-2s? I need info

Thanks all, this place rocks

AFAIK, DVD movies are mostly, if not solely, on dual-layer DVDs. So there's no lossless 1:1 copy possible, since dual-layer DVD-Rs are not available.

yes most dvd's are dual layer. but any dual SIDED dvds are able to be copied. but most are dual layers anyways.

Not only that, but I have read that DVD-Video also contains the CSS encryption keys in a place on the disc that cannot be burned onto consumer DVD-R's (maybe before the lead-in?). Try www.vcdhelp.com and search for "movies under 4.7GB" in the forums. I recall that they had a huge list of movies that could (theoretically) be copied w/o re-encoding the VOBs to a lower bitrate. That's about as close as you can get to a 1:1 copy at this point, I'm afraid.

PS-- most movies I've seen are DVD-9's (single sided, dual-layered). Some short movies are 4.7GB or less and will fit onto a sinlge-sided DVD-R if you rip the VOB's and burn them with an authoring program such as My DVD or Ulead DVD Studio, etc..

(Edit: Added DVD-R capacities)

You may try:
http://www.doom9.org
go to Guides->DVD and miniDVD->Copying a DVD-9 to 2 DVD-R's
(cause I don't think DOOM9 likes linking to any content beside main page directly...)

what i did with dvd-4.7 was i ripped using smartripper which took css out and burned the vob's and nfo files back with nero. even menus worked

Heh. Is this discussion even legal?

Of couse. Everybody here is using it only to backup their precious movies, isn't it, people?

Section 1202(2)(A) of the DMCA:

Nope

...but then again, jaywalking is illegal too

I think encoding a DVD-9 to lower bitrate MPEG-2 to fit on a DVD-r would result in seriously degraded image quality...

Perhaps encoding to a MPEG-4 format would be better, but I guess you can't use it on standalone players...yet.

This must be from USCA (United States of Crazy Americans).
In my nice little country ist is perfect legal to make personally backups of DVD and CD's.
as long as you have a "license" (bought the original product

Actually there is a rumor going on that it is legal to copy CD's you have borrow at the library...

Same here... Things like that make you wonder if America really is a democratic nation...

it is ! and The People (which consists of people, lobbies, etc. etc.) make up such laws... but I think it is a project of legislations, though (Sven's quote) ?