Digital Focus: Making and Copying Your Own DVD Videos

Feature: Making and Copying Your Own DVD Videos

DVD discs look a lot like CDs, but they're very different animals. Take almost any CD--one you made yourself or a commercial audio CD, for instance--and insert it into your computer's CD-RW drive. You'll probably be able to make a perfect duplicate of the disc or copy its contents to your hard disk.

DVDs are another story entirely. Thanks to antipiracy efforts, you can't use your computer to duplicate a video on DVD--even one you made yourself. That's a pain, because you might need to do burn extra copies of a DVD you made yourself. One copy of a corporate training video won't go very far, for instance, if three coworkers want to see it at once. Or what if you make a dozen copies of a disc and later discover you're just one short?

Burn an Image

There are a few ways to make copies of completed DVDs. The most obvious method, of course, is to start your video editing software, reload all of the production files, and then produce another copy from scratch. But that's an insanely slow process: It takes hours to create the disc image and start copying to DVD, as you learned the first time you made the DVD. And what if you've already deleted your raw video files? They take a lot of disk space, after all. Then you're stuck. There's got to be a better way--and there is.

When you burn your DVD, be sure to save a copy of the video as a "disc image" on your PC's hard disk. Virtually all video editing packages have this option, though few people use it--or even know what it does. A disc image is an exact copy of the files as they appear on the finished DVD. This lets you discard your old video clips and production files, since you don't need them anymore. Of course, a disc image can take a lot of space (up to 4.7GB, in fact), but once you've got the image, you can return to your video editing program and make additional discs at any time by loading the previously created content.

In general, I recommend that you always save a disc image on your hard drive as an insurance policy. Before long, however, you may find your hard disk filling up with those huge files. So once you're absolutely, positively sure you don't need more copies of your DVD, you might want to delete the disc images as well.

Use a DVD Copier

There's another option: Suppose you want to copy a DVD you created a year ago, and you no longer have the original video or production files. What can you do? Install a DVD copier like DVD Cloner or DVD X Copy, which can make duplicates of commercial and home-brewed DVDs.

But beware, many of the products in the DVD copying business are kind of sleazy: They often make low-resolution Video CD copies of DVDs, and you don't find out unless you read the fine print. Be especially wary of products that advertise primarily through spam and pop-up Web ads. Programs like this are largely aimed at pirates who want to steal and copy commercial DVDs. Instead, stick with a reputable program like DVD Cloner or DVD X Copy, which I've used with great success.

This much is true: Since DVD copiers give you the power to copy DVDs with impunity to a certain extent, using the software responsibly is up to you. (DVD X Copy inserts electronic controls into copied movies that make widespread piracy impractical.) Understand that there are serious legal and ethical questions associated with copying commercial DVDs, and buying one of these programs doesn't give you the right to distribute or make copies of rental films. Instead, you might think of your DVD copier as an insurance policy that allows you to duplicate your own DVDs.