UPLOAD
The Incredible
Shrinking DVD
Back up multiple
movies on a single
disc.
By Richard Kadrey
I own a lot of DVDs, and like all expensive pieces of software, I like to back
them up. Even though copyright law allows you to create a backup for personal
use, movie companies don’t want you to do this, which forces you to sneak in
through the back door. Here are a few ways to get started, if you own a Mac.
To do anything with your DVD, you have to get the
data onto your hard drive. Since most DVDs are
copy-protected, you’ll need software that can read
all of the disk’s content. Mac TheRipper is incredibly
good at doing just that. Not only can it copy most
disks, but it can also remove such pesky roadblocks
as region codes and Macrovision, old-school copy-protection code.
In the rare case when a disk’s copy protection is too
complex, try FairMount. This clever piece of software
tricks your computer into seeing a DVD as an external drive and allows you to copy the contents of that
“drive” to your machine. FairMount is slow, so you’ll
106 Make: Volume 13
want to try Mac TheRipper first.
Now that your DVD is on your hard drive, there
are several things you can do with it. The first and
simplest is to copy the data back onto a recordable
DVD. You can also convert the movie portion of your
disk into an iPod format or an .avi file, playable on
almost any computer. Converting formats is a nice
option since it can take an 8GB DVD and reduce
the movie portion (but not the extras) to around
700MB and still leave it perfectly watchable. If
you’re traveling and don’t want to carry a pile of
discs, at 700MB, you can burn several movies onto
a single data-formatted DVD.
Illustration by PARS/E design
