Remember that shrinking a DVD to fit is not the same as archiving your DVD to protect your investment. In some scenarios, it is analogous to backing up your CDs to MP3 - the music is there, as long as you're going to listen using your "earbuds".
Usually you could backup, say, only the english sound track with the main feature video track, and usually fit that onto one DVD without any loss of quality (bits). THis is just bare bones, but original quality. Other methods involve compresssion with a loss of quality.
Some of these programs allow you to back up your complete DVDs. Now you can even archive them on something closer to their original media - Dual Layer DVD, which is becoming available at an acceptable price at BB etc.
I just got a Plextor DVD burner for the PC (PX-740A). It handles all current DVD formats, comes with Nero, and comes with 20 free disks for about $100. Very high quality company. Something like this is going to be necessary to really get control of your DVD collection.
If you want to really get into it and do it with free software, start with Doom9.org, and when you burn out, you will at least know more about it. Someone should have a site on how to do this stuff in a straigforward way, and thoroughly, but it is a lot of work and a changing landscape.
Anyone have any good step-by-step guides? I will eventually post what I come up with. (I am more concerned with burning my DV tapes and VHS tapes to DVD right now)
