copy DVDs to hard drive?

[yolg49]

I recently purchased an X41 and had heard that since there's not a built in optical drive there's a way I can copy DVDs to the HD when traveling so I don't need to bring the dock with me. Is this true? Can someone tell me how it works? Thx.

[Ground Loop]

Find two programs: DVD Decryptor, and Daemon Tools.
One rips the DVDs to your hard disk, and the other "mounts" them to make them look like they're in a virtual DVD drive.

Then, any DVD player software will play them off the virtual drive.

This is far better than playing them off spining DVD, because it takes less power to spin the hard drive during the movie.

[brainpicker]

Can someone tell me how it works? Thx.

There was a thread here that might help: http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... highlight=

Also, Orbitz can probably help you with this if you send him a PM with specifics. He's a nice guy.

Yak

[richarddd]

If you're going to watch DVDs on your X41, the best way is to use DVDDecryptor to copy the DVD to your HD, then use AutoGK to compress the movie. A full DVD can easily be compressed to 700mb or 1.4gb with no visible loss on quality on your X41. Google AutoGK for lots of info. www.doom9.org is a great resource.

[Orbitz]

Thanks Yak

I wasn't sure originally how the X40 would fare with DVD's from the HD (never tried it with a 4200 rpm HD before) but as the experts in that thread pointed out it works very well...tho I just use DVDShrink to rip and compress them for my lappy...DVD Decryptor / Daemon Tools are both excellent but you might find they have a little steeper learning curve to get comfortable with. One point tho is that some DVD's can be a little bit of a challenge to rip because of encryption issues...when you run into one of these DVD Decryptor usually will do a better job I have almost 200 DVD's ripped to my home system...proably 25 of them required a good bit of dinking with to get them ripped. In answer to your orginal question tho...it works great. Btw..the software mentioned in the link is free and links can be found at doom9.org along with all you ever wanted to know about DVD's..and them some