Problems with a Newbie

[big_brian]

I want to start converting my DVD movie collection to a hard drive and play it on a media player (home theatre), tablet or computer. I downloaded a copy of the DVD fab 10 and of course everything looks greek to me. What is the easiest setting I should use to start off with? I tried it once and copied a DVD movie to the video folder and it is in two files - a video and audio files. I can get parts of it to play but was hoping to have an interface just like a DVD movie.

Can someone help me (an senior without much computer/video skills??) out with which settings to use?

Thanks for all your help
Brian

[signals]

If you want the movie to play just like the DVD disc would, use DVDFab's Copy function in Full Disc mode. The player should be pointed to the folder that DVDFab creates and told to open it or (inside the folder) look for the VIDEO_TS folder and tell your player to play that or the VIDEO_TS.IFO file that you will find inside it. It's a little hard to tell you how to play it without knowing what player software you have. You can use DVDFab Media Player for free to play content from a hard disk folder. There is a link to the User Manual for DVDFab in my sig, below.

[big_brian]

Thanks!!! I looked thru the manual and unfortunately I couldnt figure it out. It may be the media player? - tried windows media play and it couldnt find the DVDcopy. Then used cyberlink power media play and could play just a segment. I will download the DVD media player and try it. It may be just me and not knowing how to set it up. Thought it would recognize it easier than this. Thought I had everything pointing to the right folder and it would list the movies I had available.

[signals]

After you install and start DVDFab Media Player, click on the small arrow to open the selections and click on Open Disc Folder as shown, then select the folder that shows the movie you want to play.

[cholla]

I will. start with Windows Media Player.
I dislike it so much I disabled it with "Turn Windows features on or off".
If I remember correctly opening the VIDEO_TS.IFO as signals suggested is the only way WMP will work.

Most other media players work similar to DVDFab Media Player as signals picture shows.
If you have a folder with several movies in it all you need to do is select the movie title folder.
The player is smart enough to select what it needs inside the title folder & play the movie.

I had to boot into my XP OS to use the Cyberlink PowerDVD I have .(Old version that won't work with newer Windows). It has a "pulldown" mid-right. It has a selection "Open DVD file on hard disk drive".
Select that.
Navigate to the movie title folder. Open it & select the VIDEO_TS folder.
There is a "Menu" icon click it & select Title Menu.
Then Play.
That's how the version I have does it.

[big_brian]

Thanks for the info on windows media player - couldnt figure out why it wouldn't play. Have installed DVDfab media play and will use it. Will start downloading a few movies and see how it works. I've got over 300 DVD's to copy. Have a 2 TB NAS drive was hoping to use. Which DVD software would you guys recommend for purchase. At this time I have no Blu ray. Thanks again for all your help.

[cholla]

DVD Copy should do all of what you are now doing.
It will give you DVD compliant folders & files.
These can be played from a hard drive.
I wouldn't compress the movies to DVD-5 but leave them DVD-9.

There are a lot of things you can do & it depends on what you want & need.
For example if you want a Menu you need to use Full Disc or Custom mode.
There is no Menu option for Main Movie.

If you want to convert from your DVDs DVD Ripper is good to have.
That way you can rip to other formats .MP4 or .MKV for example.
With those you can usually have a much smaller single file & have close to the same quality as the DVD Folder .
Just a warning as a Newbie you can run into various problems doing conversions.

You can find some tutorials on the DVDFab site for the various programs.
I suggest you give some of those a read & see if there is a program you need.

[signals]

For simple and easy, the DVD Copy module is all you need. Use either Full Disc or Main Movie copy modes. Follow the steps shown here.

[big_brian]

THANKS alot for all the info!!!! Now I will copy and see what trouble I can get into. Hopefully this is an easy process. Thanks again Brian