[4candles]

From a technical point of view, there is a big difference between burning an image file and burning the files contained in a VIDEO_TS folder, but fortunately most burning software makes this difference transparent.

An image file is simply a copy of ALL the data on the DVD - starting from the first sector, and continuing until the last.

In addition to the actual contents of the files on the DVD, other information such as the filenames, timestamps, locations of the different parts of the files on the disc etc are stored on the DVD. How this information is stored, and how the actual files are arranged on the disc, is dependent upon which "filesystem" is used when burning the DVD. A DVD-Video compliant DVD must use a specific type of "UDF" filesystem and the files must be arranged in a specific order on the disc in order for hardware players to play it.

If you do what most people do and simply copy the contents of the VIDEO_TS folder to your hard disk, and then create a new DVD containing those files, then an image file of the new DVD will NOT be identical to an image file of the original DVD - different software will create the filesystem slightly differently.

This is where problems can happen - if your software doesn't produce the filesystem in a DVD-Video compliant manner (or you don't tick the right boxes), then the DVD may not play in all hardware DVD players. Fortunately, the most common burning software (Nero on Windows and Toast on the Mac) seem to do the right thing automatically, even if you tell the software to author a "data DVD".

But not all software does, and there is some burning software that doesn't even have an option to burn a DVD-Video compliant DVD from a VIDEO_TS folder.

If you want an EXACT one-to-one copy of a DVD, then the only way to do it is to create an image file from the DVD, and then burn that image file back to another DVD. In this case, the burning software doesn't need to arrange the files in a filesystem - the image file is just burned directly to the sectors on the DVD.

But in practice, it doesn't matter - assuming your burning software creates the disc image compliantly.