-Backing up and burning your DVDs-

When they first came out, DVD burner drives were very expensive; now they have been out for a while, and the prices have come way down. With prices ranging around $60-75 for 2-4x burners, there really isn't any reason not to get one.

To make good use out of your DVD burner, there is a program called DVDShrink which can be used to backup and burn your DVD collection.

1. First put your DVD you wish to backup/burn into your DVD drive.
2. Open up DVDShrink and click Backup!.
3. Choose the directory to backup the files.
4. You can also choose to burn directly to DVD all in one process. To do this, click the Burn tabe and choose which drive to burn to. (Note: If you are using the same drive to read and write, it will prompt you to insert a blank DVD into the drive after the backup is complete)

This is a great way for backing up DVDs that you own.. or *cough* rent.

Also, if you have movies that you have in other forms besides the actual physical DVD, there are way's in which you can convert them using some different programs to make them burnable. Check out this awesome article at afterdawn.com which explains extensively what to do and which programs you will need (it also has download links!).

Someone told me that Blockbuster offers blank DVD cases for real cheap if you just go in and ask, haven't tried it out yet but if you are looking for a way to safely store your backups of DVDs, this just may be the ticket.

Enjoy!

-jw