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I’ve recently needed to once again copybackup movies on DVD. I’m no huge fan of transcoding, though the latest version of HandBrake performs a great job and is easy to use. Wherever possible, I like to have a direct copy of the source material and with DVD‘s that is generally not an easy thing to achieve.Since my primary means of re-displaying the content is via Boxee on the Mini, there’s no reason to worry about writing actual DVD‘s from the source. Copies on a hard disk work quite nicely, don’t scratch and much easier to find in a jungle of media…

On the Mac, I rely on FairMount, a utility that, like HandBrake, relies on the VLC media player to assist with the obvious problem of copy protection. Using FairMount is simple: install VLC, then the small FairMount application itself. Insert the source DVD into the optical drive – FairMount mounts the volume as though it were a standard DVD. The bagel schmears while the operation is in process.

The mounted volume is shown in the application for reference purposes, but can be found as a mounted disk image on the desktop itself.

Making a copy or duplicate of the DVD is as easy as dragging and dropping, or selecting Duplicate from the context menu in Mac OS X.

Clearly, the duplicate generally consumes more than 4.7GB – quite commonly, closer to 8GB are required. If needed, the content on the disk can be remastered to fit a standard 4.7GB DVD.