[itsgrady]

I have a new I-Mac and would like to know if I-DVD let's you copy a DVD? If not what software is good?

[angelmb]

I haven�t a DVD-R Mac, but I think you can not 'copy' a DVD with iDVD, iDVD is aimed to create your DVD. To copy a DVD for private use I think you can check two apps:

- DVD2oneX

- DVDBackup

I can not info about them since as I said my Mac has not an internal or external dvd burner, sure someone here can info you.

[angelmb]

links:

DVDBackup 1.3
http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/18599

DVD2oneX
http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/19238

[7Macfreak]

THIS might be useful

[DAlex]

Originally posted by itsgrady:
I have a new I-Mac and would like to know if I-DVD let's you copy a DVD? If not what software is good?

If you right click (or ctrl click) the dvd in the finder, the contextual menu allows you to copy the dvd to your HD. It creates a folder called video_ts (which you can rename to the dvd name). Apples DVD player will open and play the movie from this folder.

The video_ts folder can be stored on another HD too. I'm slowly building up a collection of films for my daughter on her computer. HD space is cheap now so why not!

There are other apps for ripping/burning dvds that allow you to remove the extra bits so you only have the film to reduce file size but that's a different story (see the other posters links).

DAlex

[Riddler]

I just burned my first back-up of the Matrix using DVD Back-up, DVD2oneX, and Toast. I have a Dual 533 G4 and DVR-105 and the process took about and hour and a half.

I was amazed at how easy the whole process was, DVD Back-up removes all the copy protection and copies the DVD to HD, DVD2oneX squishes the video down to 4.4Gb then just burn it to a DVD-R in Toast.

I danced round the living room after seeing how amazing the quality was, I used Moive Only mode in DVD2oneX as I don't bother with extra's and i honestly could not a see a difference between the copy and the original!

Definitely hang out at the DVRHelp forum, lots of cool people there.

[Arkham_c]

Originally posted by Riddler:
I just burned my first back-up of the Matrix using DVD Back-up, DVD2oneX, and Toast. I have a Dual 533 G4 and DVR-105 and the process took about and hour and a half.

I was amazed at how easy the whole process was, DVD Back-up removes all the copy protection and copies the DVD to HD, DVD2oneX squishes the video down to 4.4Gb then just burn it to a DVD-R in Toast.

Does it keep the menu system, etc? If so, that's really cool.

[ccrider]

yes, you can keep the menu system if you wish, but the finished product's quality will suffer. There's an option in the software.

For the best quality, you want to back up just the movie, which in a lot of cases (especially movies like the matrix which has the movies and all the extras on one disk) creates a disk that is nearly indistinguishable than the original. Just a note about dvd2one, it does not, from I understand, actually reencode the movie- it removes B-frames and such to bring the movie down to size. This is why the conversion time is so quick.

I'm not sure of the specifics on how it's done, but that's what I've come to understand.

If you want actually "transcode" your dvd to another format, such as divx, you'll need "forty-two" or "ffmpegx" to reconvert.

With forty-two, you don't need "dvdbackup"; you simply run dvd player to retrieve the encryption key, quit dvd player, run forty-two and choose the titles and chapters you want to convert.

I successfully backed up the entire futurama first season collection (multiple titles) to divx at 512 x 384, playable on my laptop, down to 1.4 GBs from 3 dvd-9 disks at a quality that is incredibly nice.

forty-two is donation-ware, dvd2one is not- I suggest you pay for it, I did.

fyi

[Riddler]

ccrider... how easy was it to convert to DIVX? I haven't tried forty-two since the 1.0 release, did you use that or summit else?

[Jansar]

Actually, squishing the movie with the menus doesn't make it look bad at all. The only problem I have is that my DVD-Rs are not very responsive for some reason and the movie craps out on me.

So, sorry to ask another question here, but what is the best (or your favorite) media available?

[Sarah31]

Originally posted by Riddler:
ccrider... how easy was it to convert to DIVX? I haven't tried forty-two since the 1.0 release, did you use that or summit else?

i use transcode myself. it has recently been ported to OS X and there are just a few minor bugs but it is much much faster at converting than ffmpeg and forty-two/mencoder. i was also never satisfied with the results of those apps either as ripping at the highest quality provided much larger files than transcode with far less quality.

most would not want to use transcode right now though as it is a commandline app with no front end as of yet ported. on the other hand it is free and so are all of the divx related plugins (as of right now xvid and ffmpeg's mpeg4 (divx) plugin)

[itsgrady]

Thanks for the information. I did the following. I copied the DVD (movie) with DVD Back-up, then I used DVD2oneX to get the information I wanted off the DVD. I watched the movie with DVD Player and it did fine, then I tried to burn the DVD with Toast (twice). Both times it stopped. The first time it stopped during the coping the DVD and the second time it was so close to verifying the movie--it stopped right before it finished. I did renamed the VIDEO_TS folder to movie with the same title the DVD Back-up program gave it. Am I doing something wrong? I don't want to waste any more blank DVD-R. Thanks for any help you can give.

[ckohler]

You can't change the name of the VIDEO_TS folder on your DVD movie disc. That is a required part of the DVD spec and your DVD player will be looking for it.

Second, I too had trouble buring a movie DVD the first time but when I set my SuperDrive to burn only at 1x speed it finished fine.

[itsgrady]

If I download more than movie to the same folder what about the folder names?

[nredman]

Originally posted by angelmb:
links:

DVDBackup 1.3
http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/18599

DVD2oneX
http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/19238

does dvdbackup work with external dvd-r burners...i have an ibook with a cd-rom and was thinking about getting a dvd-r burner to try this with my dr who dvds...is it possible with an external firewire dvd-r...even if it did my ibook would probably take days to compress the file with dvd2oneX

[Ilja]

for a second I thought it said "How to Copy a DVD for Pirate Use"

[pdot]

Originally posted by Ilja:
for a second I thought it said "How to Copy a DVD for Pirate Use"

arrhhh, darn those pirates.

Well, Disk Copy works fine for viewing DVDs from your HD if that's what you're looking for.

[Jeff Jones]

@Sarah31

What is that software you mentioned -- "transcode"? I suppose it's not the MinxTranscoder, or is it? Do you refer to the Linux program "transcode", and if yes, where can you get an OS X port?

JJ.

[Sarah31]

Originally posted by Jeff Jones:
@Sarah31

What is that software you mentioned -- "transcode"? I suppose it's not the MinxTranscoder, or is it? Do you refer to the Linux program "transcode", and if yes, where can you get an OS X port?

JJ.

yes i am referring to the linux/bsd application simply named transcode. you can get it :

here

0.6.6 should compile cleanly BUT:

1. you need to apply the 'aud_aux....' patch found on the same page before compiling


2. use this line for when you go to "make":

make CC=" cc -no-cpp-precomp -D_INTL_REDIRECT_MACROS"

3. i have another patch you can apply that fixes 50% of the exiting problem.


(as i mentioned there are a few bugs yet to solve)

i also recommend installing the current version of XviD foung at xvid.org.

[Putta]

Originally posted by itsgrady:
Thanks for the information. I did the following. I copied the DVD (movie) with DVD Back-up, then I used DVD2oneX to get the information I wanted off the DVD. I watched the movie with DVD Player and it did fine, then I tried to burn the DVD with Toast (twice). Both times it stopped. The first time it stopped during the coping the DVD and the second time it was so close to verifying the movie--it stopped right before it finished. I did renamed the VIDEO_TS folder to movie with the same title the DVD Back-up program gave it. Am I doing something wrong? I don't want to waste any more blank DVD-R. Thanks for any help you can give.

Sorry this is a little late but...

Just use DVD imager (1.2 was released on versiontracker a few days ago). Drag the VIDEO_TS folder generated with DVD2OneX onto its icon and it will create a DVD video disc image. Then burn the disc image with Disk Copy and it works fine.

[ccrider]

Originally posted by Riddler:
ccrider... how easy was it to convert to DIVX? I haven't tried forty-two since the 1.0 release, did you use that or summit else?

I had some problems in earlier versions, but it seems to work pretty flawlessly now. I think it needs to be in the root of your applications folder to work properly. I had problems when it was in a different folder.

You have to download various binaries to get it to work, but the author makes it very easy. There's many other converters (ffmpeg, DivxRay, etc.), but I like the ease of use of this app. Just remember to always access the "more" function and make sure you choose the right title and chapters.

I'm sure others will disagree but after playing around with most every one, forty-two is the best (and cheapest) option for me.

[Sarah31]

Originally posted by ccrider:
(and cheapest) option for me.

transcode is free thats pretty darn cheap and it does more than just dvd ripping.

[SSharon]

I'm surprised no one has mentioned Handbrake as an option to convert DVDs to divx files. It takes a while (I do two-pass) but does a nice job of going from a full size dvd to a 700mb avi file that can be burned to cd. It won't help you burn dvd copies but it may help some people here like me that really only watch movies on their computers and therefore don't need the disks to be playable in set-top boxes.

[betamike]

Do any of these programs support saving subtitles? I used a few programs a while back, but none of them could save the subtitles (well, one of them would save the subtitles, but it would be in a file I couldn't retrieve them from )

[mishap]

Originally posted by betamike:
Do any of these programs support saving subtitles? I used a few programs a while back, but none of them could save the subtitles (well, one of them would save the subtitles, but it would be in a file I couldn't retrieve them from )

ummm... a file with subtitles? are we still talking about copying dvds?

[nJm]

I've been using a program called 'Fast DVD Copy'. It does all three steps - copies the DVD to the hard disk, removes encryption/region coding, squashes it down to 4.4gb and burns it. To backup a 6gb movie to a 4.4gb DVD-R on my firewire burner (at 4x) the entire process took about 2 hours (iBook G4 1Ghz, 512mb). You have the choice of leaving the original alone, or removing bonus features/languages etc to improve the video quality of the copy.

[Big Mac]

I hate to be a kill joy, but the courts have sided with the MPAA on this issue, contravening fair use rights for DVDs. So it is considered illegal to copy DVDs, even for personal use. You probably don't have to worry as long as you aren't distributing the files, but one should proceed with caution.

[betamike]

Originally posted by mishap:
ummm... a file with subtitles? are we still talking about copying dvds?

Yeah. I was trying to rip a DVD along with the subtitles, but I program I used would save the subtitles in a file. This obviously didn't help all that much, since it didn't contain any of the timing information or anything of that sort. I was hoping some kind of program would allow subtitles to be saved within the video file (I think ogm can have them, probably other file formats support it as well) so the subtitles could be viewed while watching the video.

[mishap]

Originally posted by betamike:
Yeah. I was trying to rip a DVD along with the subtitles, but I program I used would save the subtitles in a file. This obviously didn't help all that much, since it didn't contain any of the timing information or anything of that sort. I was hoping some kind of program would allow subtitles to be saved within the video file (I think ogm can have them, probably other file formats support it as well) so the subtitles could be viewed while watching the video.

ahh i see. then, we are not talking about copying dvds anymore.

[betamike]

Originally posted by mishap:
ahh i see. then, we are not talking about copying dvds anymore.

Oh.. oops sorry, I'm off topic.

[ingeniero]

Originally Posted by angelmb

I haven�t a DVD-R Mac, but I think you can not 'copy' a DVD with iDVD, iDVD is aimed to create your DVD. To copy a DVD for private use I think you can check two apps:

- DVD2oneX

- DVDBackup

I can not info about them since as I said my Mac has not an internal or external dvd burner, sure someone here can info you.

Does anyone have any experience with Roxio Popcorn as a replacement of DVD2oneX. does it speed up the process?

[OreoCookie]

Use Handbrake. It can create QuickTime-compatible movies (mpeg4). If you run Tiger, you can even use the amazing h264 codec. I ripped my Ghost In The Shell DVD at 700 kbit full resolution with pretty no (none!) loss of quality after enabling 2-pass encoding. It made the movie even smaller!

[typoon]

I use Mactheripper then I use Roxio Popcorn To burn it. That seems to work well for me. If I'm burning them for use on my HD I use Handbrake.

[Kristoff]

Anyone else use Fast DVD Copy?

It looks nice, and I prefer an all in one, single step solution rather than a cobbled together workflow involving different packages. But at $99 I'd like to make sure it works properly without issue.

[Rogue 5]

Originally Posted by typoon

I use Mactheripper then I use Roxio Popcorn To burn it. That seems to work well for me. If I'm burning them for use on my HD I use Handbrake.

I'll second this. For ripping/burning MacThe Ripper has some of the best features and options and Popcorn makes it completely painless. I haven't tried handbrake but have gotten a lot of good reviews on it.

I have only run into one DVD ever that MTR could not rip, it was old and used non-standard .vob sizes. I used fast dvd copy demo to rip it, and then burned it with Popcorn.

[typoon]

Originally Posted by Kristoff

Anyone else use Fast DVD Copy?

It looks nice, and I prefer an all in one, single step solution rather than a cobbled together workflow involving different packages. But at $99 I'd like to make sure it works properly without issue.

I've used a few versions of it. It's pretty slick. I'm not sure if it's worth 99 dollars though. I mean mactheripper is free and popcorn is only 50 dollars. It also gives you several more options for burning as well Such as making them disk images and things. For straight DVD copying I've used FastDVDCopy and it works well. I just don't think it's worth 99 dollars.

[angelmb]

I have tried PopCorn but I was not able to drag and drop some Video_TS folder into it, it says something like it can not deal with the content of that Video_TS folder :-/ Not a great loss since the movie was Ocean´s 12. Of course I had used a ripping app firstly. I have not issues with Sky Captain…

[Agent69]

If you like to play movies from your hard drive, you might like this program:

Matinee

[typoon]

Originally Posted by Rogue 5

I'll second this. For ripping/burning MacThe Ripper has some of the best features and options and Popcorn makes it completely painless. I haven't tried handbrake but have gotten a lot of good reviews on it.

I have only run into one DVD ever that MTR could not rip, it was old and used non-standard .vob sizes. I used fast dvd copy demo to rip it, and then burned it with Popcorn.

I agree now if I could only figure out an Automator workflow to get it to rip on DVD insert then maybe another one to open popcorn and burn. hmmmm

[mikemako]

I use "Fast DVD Copy," it works very well and I am extremely satisfied with it. It compresses the DVD if necessary, and gives you the option to remove extras (such as subtitles, extra languages, bonus material) to free up room for a higher quality copy. Totally worth the $100 bucks in my opinion.

[threestain]

I second/third/whatever MacTheRipper and Popcorn. Or alternatively, FFmpegX and MTR. All work well. Even 0Sex is still good!

[naphtali]

Hey guys.. sorry to kick this thread alive again.

I'm new to DVD burning and stuff, so please bear with me.

I'm meeting a friend this weekend and she'll be bringing along a DVD of her dance performance. I'd like to copy it on my hard drive, with the option of burning it on a DVD for archival later on. I'm not too sure if any copy protection mechanism's been used, but that's not likely since it's a school production.

Will imaging a CD/DVD master with Disk Utility serve my needs?

I'm trying out MacTheRipper now (and Disk Utility later) with one of my bought DVDs but I'm not sure what the outcome will be.

I'll be bringing my PowerBook when I meet her so that I can copy the DVD on the spot. Hopefully I'll end up with something I can easily burn as DVD-R.

Thanks lots!

[typoon]

Originally Posted by naphtali

Hey guys.. sorry to kick this thread alive again.

I'm new to DVD burning and stuff, so please bear with me.

I'm meeting a friend this weekend and she'll be bringing along a DVD of her dance performance. I'd like to copy it on my hard drive, with the option of burning it on a DVD for archival later on. I'm not too sure if any copy protection mechanism's been used, but that's not likely since it's a school production.

Will imaging a CD/DVD master with Disk Utility serve my needs?

I'm trying out MacTheRipper now (and Disk Utility later) with one of my bought DVDs but I'm not sure what the outcome will be.

I'll be bringing my PowerBook when I meet her so that I can copy the DVD on the spot. Hopefully I'll end up with something I can easily burn as DVD-R.

Thanks lots!

How do you want to archive it later? If you want to do it as a quicktime movie I would just use Handbrake. If you want to make it a DVD you might want to just copy it using popcorn or using Apple's built in Disk Utility and creating an image for it. Then you can just archive the image someplace. Since it's a school production I doubt it would have copy protection.

[naphtali]

Originally Posted by typoon

How do you want to archive it later? If you want to do it as a quicktime movie I would just use Handbrake. If you want to make it a DVD you might want to just copy it using popcorn or using Apple's built in Disk Utility and creating an image for it. Then you can just archive the image someplace. Since it's a school production I doubt it would have copy protection.

Hi typoon! Thanks for the quick reply!

I'd ultimately want to burn it to a DVD-R I guess, so it doesn't take up any space on my hard drive.

I've been playing around with all the three programs you mentioned, and am just apprehensive that they mightn't work for some reason because I will not be seeing her again for quite a while and won't get to take the DVD with me .

Anyhow, if I create a DVD/CD Master of the DVD with Disk Utility I should be able to burn the exact thing onto a DVD-R right?


While exloring Handbrake, I remembered that she doesn't have a DVD player herself, and so hasn't been able to view it (which is another reason why I'm bringing my PowerBook along). Is there any free end-to-end solution to convert the DVD to a VCD?

I did a search on this as well, and stumbled across Forty-Two, only to try and realise that it didn't work in Tiger. It requires Toast for VCD burning too.

If not, is my best bet still using Handbrake to convert the DVD to MPEG-4? It takes a horribly long time :/


Thanks again!

[legacyb4]

Just create a folder structure something like:

DVDS
- movie_name
- VIDEO_TS
- AUDIO_TS

and you should be fine.

Originally Posted by itsgrady

If I download more than movie to the same folder what about the folder names?

[naphtali]

Thank you very much! Am more confident after your replies and playing around with the program

[kathy108]

Ladies and Gentlemen.

The easiest and cost effective way to copy DVD's on your mac is as follows:

Purchase FAST DVD COPY I know its $99 but its worth every penny, you will not need to buy any other software. Forget mac the ripper, DVD2Onex, pop corn (i bought this yesterday and have wasted my money).

The new version of FDC it just brilliant you can copy, rip, rip and compress, remove sound files and subtitles too. Also the techincal backup is second to none and once you have bought the software thats it you just keep updating it when a new version comes out.

I had a slight dilema in that i flashed my superdrive and knacked up the drive so i bought an external Lacie, which was not recognised by FDC so this is why i ended up on this message board and purchased popcorn... and dont need it.

to get around the ex drive issue there is an OSX patch you get from www.patchburn.de/download.html which will solve the this but last night i just did rip and compress with FDC then dragged the video_TS folder into toast , job done.

simple

kathy

[I was David B.]

Originally Posted by itsgrady

I have a new I-Mac and would like to know if I-DVD let's you copy a DVD? If not what software is good?

I use OSEx to copy the movie to the disk (free software) - some minutes on my powerbook
ffmpegX to convert it to video_ts (15 $, also the free demo works) - less than one hour to compress to 4GB
Toast 5 to burn it

No menues this way, just the film. But if you pay for ffmpeg you can use 2 languages instead of one.

[zerostar]

Originally Posted by typoon

I use Mactheripper then I use Roxio Popcorn To burn it. That seems to work well for me. If I'm burning them for use on my HD I use Handbrake.

Ill second that, Takes usually 10 minutes to rip a 7GB DVD and about 15min to burn it to a dual layer DVD with popcorn.

If I need to compress it to a single layer DVD it is around another 20 minutes or so.

(This is on a Dual 2.0 G5 with a Pioneer DVR-109)

[zerostar]

Originally Posted by kathy108

Ladies and Gentlemen.

The easiest and cost effective way to copy DVD's on your mac is as follows:
Purchase FAST DVD COPY I know its $99 but its worth every penny, you will not need to buy any other software. Forget mac the ripper, DVD2Onex, pop corn (i bought this yesterday and have wasted my money).

Kathy,

I use THE FREE Mac The Ripper in combination with Roxio Popcorn. Poppcorn is only $49 and in my extensive testing (around 6 DVD's) is loads faster and more reliable than Fast DVD Copy. (On a G5 anyway)

I have never had a problem with any DVD that popcorn has produced for me and I have made around 200 as of now. And it only cost me $49 in software.