Go on Simon, You know you want to

I've gone for it.  It was about £1 cheaper at Watford, but their delivery times are not very good lately.  At least I know it will be here by Thursday.  

All I need to do now is decide what software to use.  I'll only be using it for backing up purposes, of course.  

 Not me, mate.  I wouldn't copy movies, as pirating causes untold damage to the film industry.  Unless, of course, it's for my own personal use.  I suppose if I hired a DVD and didn't get a chance to watch it, due to unforseen circumstances, I wouldn't feel too bad about copying it to watch at a later date, but I think even that is still technically illegal.  

Well, obviously I'll need to test it fully.  

Usual packages to use:

1. DVD decryptor. This will read the original disc in and strip the naughty CSS protection off it. You will of course need a LOT of space on your NTFS formatted hard drive. (Especially if you use the file option and select "all files")

2. DVD2ONE. This will take a DVD-9 disc layout and shrink it down to a DVD-5 disc that you will then be able to write out. (Another program that does the same is "Instant Copy")

3. Nero. To write the newly fitting set of files out to your DVD-R.

You could, of course, just use dvd decryptor to extract the film and leave off all the extras and that usually will fit on a disc.

Or so I am reliably informed.

Simon, put me first in the queue and I won't report you to trading standards.

well man how bout this. You iron out the details on the best progs and steps to copy a dvd that satisfies you the best and post them here. Meaning as when the drives themselves get to a reasonable enough price for my lazy self you would have finished all the grunt work on the actual copying.