2 Ways to Back Up Your Blu-Ray Movies

March 08, 2011, By Donna Buenaventura 1 comment

You've bought all your kids' favorite movies on Blu-Ray, costing you a small fortune in the process. The constant watching, taking in and out of the case opens you up for scratching. You have to back up your collection. Lucky for you, there are a couple of ways to protect your videos, and I'd say it's a good idea to get your collection backed up as soon as you can. It's also nice to have a backup disc for watching movies when you travel, without worrying about losing or scratching your only copy.

Caveat: You may not be able to back up every Blu-Ray disc in your collection – it will depend on the copy protection of the disc. An error or information message will display during the copy process if the disc can't be backed up. Knowing this before you start will save you some aggravation.

To solve this issue, you may need to pay for additional usage rights, such as the right to burn or create a backup to another Blu-Ray. Or, you may need to refresh the media user rights and make sure the player is able to download the license needed to access copy-protected content on a Blu-Ray disc.

In this situation, you can decide if paying for backup privileges is really worth the cost, or if you should take your chances and risk having to replace Finding Nemo by buying a new copy. That said, very often you can back up discs without this hassle.

You'll also need to buy blank Blu-Ray discs before starting your backup project, and make sure your computer can play Blu-Ray discs (see below). The last thing to do is to get software that can handle backing up Blu-Rays properly.

Option 1: Backing Up with the Help of Proper Software

Before you do anything, use the free BD Advisor tool by Cyber Link to check the ability of your PC or player to play back or view Blu-Ray disc contents. The tool will only detect if your player has the ability to watch bonus content on the Blu-Ray disc and if you have a software player and disc drive that is capable of playing BDs.

Next, use AnyDVD HD and the free ImgBurn software or DVD Fab software to decrypt Blu-Ray or HD DVD movies. These programs will decrypt and copy the Blu-Ray contents to your hard disk or burn them to another disc.

Note: AnyDVD HD and DVDFab are roughly $100 apiece so you'll have to decide whether the cost of the software outweighs the replacement value of your discs.

AnyDVD HD allows you to watch a Blu-Ray disc without DRM-compliant hardware using a software player. DVD Fab is the program you really need to back up a Blu-Ray disc. Using DVD Fab is easy. Simply insert the Blu-Ray disc, launch DVD Fab and choose the method of backup: DVD to DVD, Blu-Ray to Blu-Ray, DVD to Mobile or Blu-Ray to Mobile.

Keep reading for option two.