[teacherman]

I'm new to working with DVD's. I have an eMac with a Superdrive at work. I want to edit material out of my DVD's so that I can show the movies in my classroom. I have 512mb ram and a lot of hard drive space.

Thanks,

Can this be done with free software (if not what and how much)?

[k_munic]

besides it's illegal ;-) :

get the mpeg2 playback plug-in from Apple's website for 20$

get Streamclip for free… here:
http://www.alfanet.it/squared5/mpegstreamclip.html

[teacherman]

If I understand the law, you are able to edit your own DVD's. cleanflicks.com does it under the guidelines that it is controlling the material that it's "club" members view.

[k_munic]

we are talking about commercial DVDs…?

in most territories, they have a technical copy protection, you're not allowed to override.
in some territories (Germany), you're not even allowed to NAME tools for overriding copyprotection… (but you are allowed to do a "personal copy"… weird, isn't it ;-)? )
in most territories, copyright laws don't allow to "change" (=edit) the content of any "opus"…
in most territories, you own the DVD, but not its content…
in many territories you're allwowed to do personal copies or override copy protection for "universal studies"… weird again…

but, it depends on where're you livin… Panama, Iran, Germany, Canada…
don't trust any legal advice on a forum

[teacherman]

I sent www.cleanflicks.com an email and asked them the differenence between buying/renting thier copy or editing my own.

Thier immediate response was that they were currently being sued and it was illegal for me to edit my movies.

Thanks guys,

I quit here.