I came across DVDSmith Movie Backup quite recently and two things immediately caught my eye… 1) it is free… and 2) it removes most common DVD protections. It’s not easy to find quality DVD backup freeware which also includes a decryption feature. DVDSmith Movie Backup provides a means for backing up DVDs to a “Video_TS” folder (.vob format) on the hard drive, it does not copy DVD to DVD nor does it include any burning facility.
DVDSmith Movie Backup – The software:
The program itself is pretty basic and extremely easy to use, even for those with little or no experience. Download is a relatively small 3.0MB executable which scans 100% clean through Virus Total. Installation is straightforward with zero bundling or nasty surprises to worry about.
Running the program displays a basic interface which presents options in a clear and intuitive fashion:
Choose wether to backup the entire disc, including all menus, or the main movie only, then just follow the included 3-step guide.
DVDSmith Movie Backup – In action:
I chose to backup the “Main Movie” only on a purchased DVD with a running time of 113 minutes. There was no indication of the decryption process but the protected movie copied across to the hard drive without issues. The speed at which the operation completed was really impressive – time to completion taking a mere 7 minutes. The Video_TS folder was in the correct (designated) location, weighing in at 5.33GB. Playback was faultless with excellent quality.
DVDSmith Movie Backup – Conclusions
On the plus side, this freeware provides a very easy method to create DVD backups, especially for inexperienced users. It’s also impressively fast while maintaining high quality output, and the decryption feature appears to be effective… in short, it does what it says on the box. The big minus is the lack of any compression feature which results in rather large output file sizes. With increased hard drive capacities the norm these days that doesn’t necessarily present a huge storage problem but it does mean that, if you wanted to burn a backup disc, in most cases output files would be too big to fit on a standard (single layer) DVD.
Despite this drawback, I still believe DVDSmith Movie Backup could prove to be a pretty useful piece of software for many users, just based on the combination of simplicity, decryption, and speed alone. And, if a user wanted to backup a movie to DVD, they could then utilize the very good DVDShrink freeware… so the steps would be:
- Decrypt and rip to hard drive using DVDSmith Movie Backup
- Import the Video_TS folder into DVDShrink
- Use DVDShrink to compress the movie files
- Then burn to DVD
- Done, and all for the magic price of… free!
Read more about DVDSmith Movie Backup and its features on the home page here: http://www.dvdsmith.com/dvdsmith-movie-backup.html#Overview
Hi Jim Miller,
The “Read More” link for the topic “Further 60+ Free Technical eBooks from Microsoft” leads to this site for DVDSmith freeware.
Greets, RandiO
As from RandiO ..link for iphone clean up comes here as well ..what’s the go Jim
Jp
Sorry about that guys. We updated the Newsletter plug-in just recently and it appears it includes a glitch. If you click on the article title in the Newsletter it leads to the correct article but not so if you click on the “Read more” link.
Hopefully we’ll have it fixed by the time the next newsletter is due. In the meantime, clicking on the article’s title will take you to the correct page.
Again, apologies.
Cheers… Jim
@RandiO – Who’s Jim Miller?? 🙂
Jim,
You could use DVD Shrink which is free to manage those large video files and burn them onto a single layer DVD.
Take Care – Robert Taylor
Hi Robert – Yes, I pointed that out in the last paragraph of the article. Even included a list of steps for utilizing DVDShrink.
Cheers… Jim
The links in your latest e mail are broken. When clicking on the “read more” link I keep getting forwarded to dvdsmith movie backup freeware review???
Karl, We’re aware of the problem. The actual article title links are correct though.
Your Facebook, tweeter, G+ sidebar is very annoying especially when I am reading your articles on my phone it blocks a good portion of the text
I had a freeware copy of Nero and used it along with DVDShrink to make backup copies of most of my DVDs with the exception of the Disney movies because of copy protection. When I upgraded to Win7, I had to reinstall all my software and discovered I didn’t have a disc for the Nero program I had used since 2008!! I think it may have been installed by a tech who worked on my PC and was installing some OEM software and had Nero as well. Can anyone direct me to a site where I can download truly free software that can burn a complete copy of DVDs? I found DVD Cloner Platinum as a “free” download and was thrilled. Then the bad news. The free trial produces this message after you try to back up a movie: “This software is currently running in evaluation mode. This eval copy can only copy 3 DVD discs….This eval ripper can only rip ONE CHAPTER of each selected title. (This info is NOT included on the download site!! http://www.any-dvd-clone.com/lp/anydvdcloner-ad/?utm_source=adwords&utm_medium=cpc&utm_term=free%20dvd%20copying%20software&utm_content=29616205710&utm_campaign=Dvd_Copy_BM_US) After you purchase this product, you will be provided registration name & code which will unlock this limitation. Do you want to order now?” Well first, if I knew in advance that I wasn’t going to get a complete copy of my movie, I wouldn’t have bothered to download the software, waste a disc or my time! Second, I have to watch the “copy” to see how much of the movie was actually copied, which may well be more wasted time. I could really use some help here!
Jim Hillier, you can email me directly as I probably won’t be checking this site on a regular basis. Thanks, E
Hi Eileen – First off I would suggest asking around your family and friends to see if anyone has a Nero OEM disc. Nero is the best option in conjunction with DVDShrink because the transition twixt compressing and burning is automatic and seamless.
Failing that; the best freeware for your purposes would be ImgBurn… it is 100% free: http://www.imgburn.com/
You can read a guide on how to burn DVD files using ImgBurn here: http://www.davescomputertips.com/how-to-burn-dvd-files-using-imgburn/
Cheers… Jim