Okay, I've created a DVD.

Now I want to save all the elements in case I ever need to recreate the DVD, and I want to get them all off of my hard drive.

I've laid off the graphics onto a data DVD, and I've recorded the videos back onto DV tape.

But is there a way to save the DVD structure? the links and button placement, etc?

I've been trying to learn what a "disc image" and ISO files are for, but no luick so far.

How do you archive your elements?

Thanks ~ Bob

The only way to archive the navigational structure is to save your project file. The details may depend on what authoring program you use.

If you want to change the project later then Adam is right - you have to save your project files and the original elements. But you are right that you can also make a disk image - it just won't help you change the DVD later. Check the manual/help file for the software you use and figure out how to write a disk image to your hard drive. It stores the VIDEO_TS and AUDIO_TS folders that go onto your disc in a format that's ready to be written to DVD. If you archive the disk image then you can bring it back and write more DVDs directly from the image. When you want to create more DVDs, you'll have to use a program that can write in UDF (I believe this stands for Universal Disc Format) and then DVD players will be able to read it.

Many higher-end DVD authoring programs (basically anything nicer than iDVD) can also write disk image formats that are standard for replication: DDP and CMF. I don't think these are useful formats if you want to recover the data to write to DVD-R, but they are standard formats for archiving and mastering. I just started archiving on DLT because that's what our replicator likes, but I don't know if this format will persist much longer, and it requires additional hardware. DLTs, however, supposedly last for 30 years.

I work on Macs, but I am guessing if you are trying to write an ISO that you work on Windows. If that's not the case then let me know and maybe I can offer more advice.

thanks for the responses.

I guess I am less interested in making changes to the DVD, and more interested in just being able to reload the data back onto my hard drive and make more DVDs at a later date.

I'm using DVDit, and it has the option for creating a Disc Image. I just wasn't sure what a Disc Image was used for.

Bob

It's easy to extract the files from a DVD. My method is to keep a copy of the Video_TS & Audio_TS folders on an archive FW drive. When I need to make additional DVDs, I just drag them into Toast. (The audio folder is empty, but still required by some players.)


>>I guess I am less interested in making changes to the DVD, and more interested in just being able to reload the data back onto my hard drive and make more DVDs at a later date.<<

If your DVD isn't copy protected - which it won't be if you're burning it at home, you can just make a direct disc copy of the finished dvd. Of course if something happens to the archive DVD you could lose that info. The solution could be to have 2 archive copies of the dvd, and store the video_ts and audio_ts files on a HD drive, as Vic suggested.

I usually back everything up onto data dvds - media files, NLE editor projects, rendered mpeg2 file, DVD authoring project and archive copy of DVD.