DVD Burning Tips

The process of "copying" a DVD is a misnomer. Duplication of an original DVD movie involves three steps: (1) Ripping the DVD, (2) Transcoding the DVD, and (3) Burning the DVD to blank DVD media.

Copying the DVD is simply reading the data on a DVD and "ripping" or extracting the data from the original DVD to a temporary location on your computers hard drive.

Transcoding the DVD - in simple terms - is the process of converting the "ripped" data into a format suitable for placement (burning) on to a DVD-R.

Burning the DVD is etching (writing) the transcoded data onto blank DVD media.
 

To Burn a DVD you will need:

• A PC with a DVD Movie copy application installed. See our Test and Review Chart of guidance in selecting an application best suited to your needs.
   
• A built-in DVD/DVD-RW drive or an external DVD Burner.
   
• Blank, writable or rewritable DVDs to store all your information (each DVD-5 DVDs have a capacity of 4.7 GB and the dual-layered DVD-9s have a capacity of 8.5GB.
   
  • Don't know how to choose blank DVDs? Take a look at our Beginners Guide to Buying DVD Media
     
  • The Best of the Best - Taiyo Yuden DVD Media
     

Additional Tips

• Prior to launching any DVD movie copy application, we recommend rebooting your computer; especially if you were running other applications such as word processors or surfing the web. This act flushes out hemmed up memory.
   
• Temporarily disable your screensaver during the DVD copy process. Screensavers are small applications that consume valuable CPU cycles that otherwise can be used for your DVD copy application. DVD copy applications are CPU and memory intensive.
   
• Do not run any applications concurrently while the DVD copying process. In other words, do not use your computer to run other applications when you are copying a DVD.
   
• Make sure you have plenty of memory and hard drive space.
   
• Disable wallpapers. This frees up additional memory.
   
• Set Windows to run for "Best Performance." This can be done by going into the Windows Control Panel/System/Advanced tab and checking the "Adjust For Best Performance" radio button. This frees up memory and your computer will run faster.

Note: In the past DVD ripping, copying, and burning process took a very long time. In some cases, depending on the potency of your computer, 10 hours or more.

With today's more powerful computers and dvd copy software the entire task can accomplished in less than an hour; and, in many cases, less than 30 minutes. 

Our number one pick, 1Click DVD Copy Pro is one such application that has been proven to copy a full movie, with extras and menus in less than 30 minutes. Results will vary slightly depending on your computer configuration. See our Test and Review of 1Click DVD Copy Pro here.