Introduction

CloneDVD 2 is my favourite tool for backing up my DVD-9 movies into a single DVD±R disc. What I like is the easy interface and the fast and good-quality encoding engine plus the ability to add or remove video and audio streams, like extras or trailers,  and still keep the menu

The only problem is that it does not include a CSS ripper for commercial DVD’s, so you'll need to get an on-the-fly ripper like AnyDVD or DVD Region-Free. You can also use the usual rippers like DVDDecrypter or SmartRipper, but these require even more space on your hard drive, plus extra time to perform the actual rip of the DVD. Its all down to personal choice in the end though

Method

Start CloneDVD2, and you’ll see the following screen

 

This is CloneDVD's first screen. Copy DVD Titles (1) lets you select what you want to copy and what not. Clone DVD (2) is actually the same thing, with all the disc pre-selected. Write Existing Data (3) allows you to use CloneDVD burning engine in order to burn a disc from DVD files or ISO/UDF images that already exist in your hard disk. We are going to select Copy DVD Titles (1)

 

 

In the next screen you'll need to load the DVD. In the top right corner you'll see this small button the arrow in the picture above shows. Click it to open the DVD

 

 

Browse  to the VIDEO_TS folder of your DVD, depending on if you are using on-the-fly ripping or have previosuly ripped the entire DVD to your system first, select it (1) and then click OK (2) in order to load the DVD

 

When the DVD is loaded you should see this. In the Video titles area (1) you can select which titles to keep and which not. You'll have to select the main movie and then by selecting each title and previewing it in the area in the left decide what to keep and what not. If you want to keep the DVD's menus, then select Preserve menus (2). In the color slider (3) you can see the final quality your DVD will encode to in comparison to the original. It's pretty low but it will rise in the next step since we are going to remove some audio tracks we don’t need. It's a good idea not to let it fall under 50% or the final quality will not be too good. Now click Next (4)

 

Here you can select which audio languages to keep (1), in which audio encoding format (2) and finally which subtitle languages to keep, if any. You can also select director's comments audio tracks. What I suggest is that you select only 1 language and 1 encoding type so that you will get a better final quality. Have a look in this example. I selected only English language and Dolby AC3 encoding and the final quality has now improved to 82% (5) than 58% that it was before. Have a look in the stream configuration window (4) to make sure that everything is selected as you want it to be and then click Next (6)

Here is the Output Method window. First you'll have to select between output to DVD files (1), ISO/UDF image (2) or DVD writer (3). Usually you are going to select the last one to have CloneDVD burn your DVD right after it finishes encoding, unless you intend to use your own personal choice of burning software. Then you can select your DVD burner if you have more than one (4) and set the label the finished DVD will have. By default this is set to the same one the original DVD had, but you can change this if you want. Finally set the folder that CloneDVD will create the DVD files into and select if you want it to delete them automatically if not. When you're done click Go!

NOTE

The temporary directory that CloneDVD 2 will use must be the minimum needed to burn a full DVD, if you intend to do what I do and set aside a directory or even better single partition, this must have an absolute minimum of 4.7GB. If you work along the lines of allowing about 4.8GB, then you’ll have enough free space so that you don’t run short

 

CloneDVD will now encode the DVD files and then burn. Finally, after a period of time, which depends entirely on your DVD burner and the media you are using. This can be anything from less than 10 minutes to just over 60 minutes per DVD, assuming that you are burning a full DVD. Obviosuly if its not a complete DVD, then it will take less time