Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

AuburnTiger

macrumors member
Original poster
Nov 27, 2005
59
0
As some of you may remember, I asked advice on what external dvd burner I should get for my iBook. Well I got my Lacie in today, and I'm dissapointed.

I guess the major thing is that I'm not able to back up my dvds. I was going to start on my Joss Whedon tv sets, but it won't allow me to copy them! It says they are protected and I'm not allowed to copy them. I'm not sure if this is my dvd burner or the software I'm using (Toast Lite 6.1).

Another thing was just my fault I guess. Turns out I bought all regular dvds, when I need to buy dual layers. I didn't know there were two different kinds. Oh well.

Anyone have any advice? Thanks for the help so far.
 

swiftaw

macrumors 603
Jan 31, 2005
6,328
25
Omaha, NE, USA
AuburnTiger said:
As some of you may remember, I asked advice on what external dvd burner I should get for my iBook. Well I got my Lacie in today, and I'm dissapointed.

I guess the major thing is that I'm not able to back up my dvds. I was going to start on my Joss Whedon tv sets, but it won't allow me to copy them! It says they are protected and I'm not allowed to copy them. I'm not sure if this is my dvd burner or the software I'm using (Toast Lite 6.1).

Another thing was just my fault I guess. Turns out I bought all regular dvds, when I need to buy dual layers. I didn't know there were two different kinds. Oh well.

Anyone have any advice? Thanks for the help so far.

All DVD's of films are tv shows are copy protected. You didn't think that the film studios would just allow people to copy their products did you?

If you are interested in making legitimate backup copies, look into software called MacTheRipper to rip the DVD's to your hard drive, then you can use Toast to burn it to a DVD.
 

Jigglelicious

macrumors 6502
Apr 25, 2004
421
0
NYC
AuburnTiger said:
As some of you may remember, I asked advice on what external dvd burner I should get for my iBook. Well I got my Lacie in today, and I'm dissapointed.

I guess the major thing is that I'm not able to back up my dvds. I was going to start on my Joss Whedon tv sets, but it won't allow me to copy them! It says they are protected and I'm not allowed to copy them. I'm not sure if this is my dvd burner or the software I'm using (Toast Lite 6.1).

Another thing was just my fault I guess. Turns out I bought all regular dvds, when I need to buy dual layers. I didn't know there were two different kinds. Oh well.

Anyone have any advice? Thanks for the help so far.

Dual layer discs are available and hold 8.5GB, however they are still very expensive, and easily cost 10x more than a normal single layer disc. For example, I just recently purchased 100 8x single layer media for $27. Meanwhile, a 15 pack of dual layers cost $37.
 

mrichmon

macrumors 6502a
Jun 17, 2003
873
3
Jigglelicious said:
Dual layer discs are available and hold 8.5GB, however they are still very expensive, and easily cost 10x more than a normal single layer disc. For example, I just recently purchased 100 8x single layer media for $27. Meanwhile, a 15 pack of dual layers cost $37.

The Dual layer discs require hardware support in the DVD drive to burn the dual layer discs.

Also, you will find that commercially pressed DVDs (especially movie DVDs) have a slightly larger capacity than DVDRs with the same number of layers. The capacities are listed here: http://www.dvddemystified.com/dvdfaq.html#3.3
 

MRU

macrumors Penryn
Aug 23, 2005
25,370
8,952
a better place
swiftaw said:
If you are interested in making legitimate backup copies, look into software called MacTheRipper to rip the DVD's to your hard drive, then you can use Toast to burn it to a DVD.

Mac The Ripper is free, get the latest verison - just google it.

However most of your discs will be more than 4.4gig as they will be dual layer so you need to re-compress them to fit on to your Single Layer DVD's.

To do so you need Roxio POPCORN is you want to re-compress and burn with toast 6.1

However if you buy Toast 7.01 then you don't need popcorn as the new toast allows you to recompress within it (bascially they built in the compressor from popcorn into the new Toast).
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.