DVD Burning and Ripping: A Primer, A Glossary

Burning and ripping: the two terms have become nearly synonymous in the DVD copy vernacular, but they are separate and each performs a different function.
Ripping is defined as the literal action of transferring the data from one format (say, a DVD) directly to your hard drive or some other drive. Burning, then, is the transference of data from the hard drive to a writeable format – DVD-R, iPod, etc.

All software reviewed on this site contains the technology that makes it possible to both rip and burn data to the platform of your choosing. Platforms differ from program to program, but that is why we include a side-by-side chart detailing the minutiae of each piece of software – so you can take into account your hardware and memory availability and find exactly what you need. Many of these are also available via download, so you can get started in the short amount of time it takes to pay for the service and download it to your machine.

If you’re new to the whole burning and ripping experience, we’ve included a primer on disc formats as well as a concise glossary to familiarize yourself with the terms you might encounter along the way.

DVD Formats and Sizes (capacities)

DVDs are made in several different physical formats and sizes. The format usually used for movie releases is known as a DVD-ROM (ROM = Read Only Memory) which refers to the fact that data can only be read, not written. Modifications to this basic technology make recordable DVDs possible:

• DVD-ROM: ROM stands for ‘Read Only Memory’, which is typically stamped in a DVD press, as opposed to burnt, and can only be read. Mass-produced DVDs are all created on DVD-ROM disks.
• DVD±R means ‘Recordable’ and can usually be written to just once in a long, continuous write in a DVD burner.
   
• DVD±RW: Re-Writable, which are disks that are rated to be burned up to 100 times;
• DVD-RAM: Random Access Memory, which can be used almost like a portable hard disk, with any one spot on the disk surface rated to be written to up to 100,000 times.

There are a number of additional formats with slight variations from these main types. The old Compact Disc (CD) format originally boasted (an unheard-of) 640 MB of storage space and was later upgraded to 700MB as the technology evolved.

DVDs are manufactured with a number of different storage amounts beginning with 4.37GB, differentiated by a numerical suffix that roughly translates into the data capacity of each:

• DVD-5, 1 side, 1 data layer per side, 4,700,000,000 byte capacity
• DVD-9, 1 side, 2 data layers per side, 8,540,000,000 byte capacity
• DVD-10, 2 sides, 1-1 data layers per side, 9,400,000,000 byte capacity
• DVD-14, 2 sides, 1-2 data layers per side, 13,240,000,000 byte capacity
• DVD-18, 2 sides, 2-2 data layers per side, 17,080,000,000 byte capacity

Almost every movie DVD-ROM is a DVD-9, and the countless majorities of blank DVD±Rs are DVD-5s.