jw0rd.net

This guide will walk you through ripping a DVD movie to your hard drive, building the ISO, and then burning that ISO to a dual layer disc (all for backup purposes of course).

Software Required:

DVD Decrypter – http://www.dvddecrypter.org.uk/
ImgBurn – http://www.imgburn.com/index.php?act=download

Hardware Required:

Burner that supports DVD+R/-R DL
Blank DVD+R/-R DL media (I only use Verbatim +R)

Once DVD Decrypter is installed, open it and set the appropriate mode, Mode -> ISO -> Read.

Select the source drive, take note that DVD Decrypter recognizes both layers and the break point:

Number of Layers: 2
Track Path: Opposite Track Path (OTP)
Linear Density: 0.293 um/bit
Track Density: 0.74 um/track
First Physical Sector of Data Area: 196,608
Last Physical Sector of Data Area: 16,567,183
Last Physical Sector in Layer 0: 2,225,151

Layer Information:
Layer 0 Sectors: 2,028,544 (50.17%)
Layer 1 Sectors: 2,015,120 (49.83%)

Go to Tools -> Settings -> ISO Read Mode , verify that “create mds file” is checked.

Set the Destination output for your .iso

Click the Decrypt button and the let the .iso build

Once it completes you will see the .iso and .mds in the output directory you specified. The .iso is the actual image data and the .mds is the media descriptor file that contains the layer break info.

At this point you can eject the DVD, you have a full backup copy of it on your hard drive. You can play back from that image file by mounting it with media emulation software such as Daemon Tools. For DVD playback I personally like VLC media player.

Daemon Tools: http://www.disk-tools.com/download/daemon
VLC Media Player: http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

Once you have both installed there’s just a few quick steps to get going.

Enable a device through the Daemon Tools taskbar icon:

Mount your image file (select the .mds or .iso, doesn’t matter):

You should now see an additional device (In this case D:\ is the physical drive that still has the DVD in it, F:\ is the virtual drive that Daemon Tools created with our image mounted)

Open VLC media player, go to Media -> Open Disc and select the virtual drive. Your DVD should now be playing from the image file you created.

So now that we understand how to rip the DVD to an image file and play it back on a virtual drive, how do we burn the image file back to a blank dual layer disc?

Open ImgBurn and go to Mode -> Write.

Select the source .mds file, update the Write Speed to what’s printed on the media, and click the Write icon.

If you don’t get any warning related to layer breaks prior to the burn process starting everything was done properly. That’s it!