OK all, as with all things Linux I spend a long time reading before making a post myself.

So to date my understanding is that when I wish to back up my nieces favourite DVD'd I need to first rip the VOB files, then compress the files then burn them, I have so far managed to rip using Video-dvdrip, compressing I believe is done with DVD shrink under wine then burn using something like K3b.

I still have to properly read and investigate all the settings on Video-dvdrip as I sure it is not right at the moment, but after this ramble my question is

All the posts I see talk about shrinking from DVD-9 to DVD-5 I take it most films are DVD-9, do I still need to shrink down with the advent of recordable dual layer DVD's, will they be automatically recognised as such?

Uhh, no dude. No.

OK, do you want to copy the DVD or do you want to convert it to a smaller sized SVCD format? If you want to just copy it, then getting a DVD-9 burner, like this:

http://www.liteonamericas.com/us/DVDRW_832S.htm

would make your life a lot simpler. Also, calculate the days it's going to take you to convert the DVD's, and the math tends to be in the drive's favor.

If you want to convert to SVCD(mpeg2) which looks practically as good as the 4.7 GB DVD format, then just 3 clicks in VideoDVD:rip will give you that. Actually, it's like 1 or 2 clicks now.. but, anyway.

And the DVD-9 to DVD-5 just ends up looking like a SVCD from my experience. In fact, SVCD's tend to look better from my experience. Good luck. That's about all I know at 3:30 am.

aaaahhh. All this reading and it seems I have the wrong end of the stick, ok can you talk me through from when I have a copy of the original in my hand to when I have a copy of the original in the other hand?