Backing Up DVDs, What's the skinny?

[Nephi]

I am considering the purchase of a DVD burner. One of my reasons is that I want to back up my DVDs onto blank DVDs. I have done some work backing up DVDs onto CDs. This involves ripping, encoding (a process that takes 10-12 hours on my 600mghz machine) and burning.

Does DVD backup with a DVD burner involve encoding?
Will it take just as long until I get a faster machine?
What software do I use?

You get the idea. Before I buy this new Plextor drive, I need more info.

Anyone???

[mlepine]

Nephi,

I'm backing up my DVD's using an AOpen 4400 burner & I'm almost certain that the Plextor will do better because it is capable of backing up CDG also.

The software I use for DVD back up is, XCOPY. You might need a more powerfull computer to do a good job, at least 1GHZ cpu with a minimum 256 ram is recommended but more would be better! I make my back ups in less than an hour including a movie that has over 7 gigs!!

Your DVD's can be played on most new branded DVD players and with Windows Media Player or any DVD players. I believe that in a near future Hoster will be supporting that format?

DVD is the way to go, you will also be able to back up songs that are stored in your hard drive, imagine the amount of song you could back up when they're compressed using Hoster?

Regards

[Nephi]

Thanks.