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Can I rip a DVD to the hard drive?

Z

Zim Bargo

macrumors member
Original poster
Jan 21, 2004
67
0
London
I've got a PB 15" and have tried to save a DVD to the hard drive, both by dragging and dropping it and by copy and pasting it. The copy and paste approach worked to an extent, but it wouldn't play back smoothly and took up 7GB of space as I didn't know how to compress it - archiving it later worked a bit for compression but didn't help it with playing smoothly.

Is it possible to do this without by additional software??
 
You can do this without additional software... the "easiest" way that I've found to do it is to use a program called "HandBrake" which you can find on versiontracker. It will rip and compress the movie. It might not be "the best" compression method or quickest but it works quite well overall.

I usually make a disc image of the disc I want to compress using Disc Utility and then use HandBrake to compress it. This way I don't have to carry my movies around with my iBook nor do I have to drain the battery with the drive spiining...
 
If you simply want a local copy of a DVD, Disc Utility would work. I'm not sure how smooth playback would be -- especially because you're on a PB with a slower harddrive compared to a desktop unit. But it would work and you'd not need additional software.

If you want to compress the movie (make it smaller for smoother playback or make it small enough to fit on a CD/DVD), I'd recommend visiting dvdrhelp.com. They have a little Mac section and everything!
 
I'm assuming you have a Superdrive?

I archive DVD's from my own collection to loan out; using a combination of DVDBackup v1.3 (to rip the entire disc to the hard drive while removing encryption and region) and DVD2OneX (to compress the [potentially dual-layer disc] to 4.3GB, small enough to fit on a DVD-R).

I tried using Handbrake and found the turnaround on the compression to be daunting.. I even did one film (Manhattan) and found the video to be slightly jerky. Honestly, burning a backup to DVD-R is relatively cheap and gives you a nice, full copy.

Just thoughts.

-joe.
 
You can do it with free software

Use OSEx or DVDBackup to rip the DVD files to your hard drive. Both will remove copy protection and allow you to choose which files you copy from any given DVD to save space. You can then view them with DVD Player or VLC.

I use this method with DVDibbler to convert them to Divx type file which is usually around 700-1000MB. That way I can throw 4 or 5 movies on a DVD to watch while I'm on the road.

All this stuff is on both Versiontracker and MacUpdate. Read the instructions for each app carefully before you try it. One more thing: unless you're running a dual G5, this process can be SLOW. Be patient.
 
Another way is, assuming you are a Toast user, to create an image of the DVD and save it onto your hard drive. When you mount the image it is treated the same way as an inserted DVD ... the viewer fires up, you are given the option of viewing from where you left off (assuming you've watched part of it) or starting anew.
 
I use Handbrake on my G5 and it still takes about 3 1/2 hours per DVD! Yes, it's slow... but worth it - i've had no problems with quality or stuttering on the made file.
 
Download DVD Backup first you have to pplay your dvd in the dvd player for like 10 seconds then you run it and remove all copy protection and rip to hd it also removes the region encoding it works well and easily
 
josephx said:
I'm assuming you have a Superdrive?

I archive DVD's from my own collection to loan out; using a combination of DVDBackup v1.3 (to rip the entire disc to the hard drive while removing encryption and region) and DVD2OneX (to compress the [potentially dual-layer disc] to 4.3GB, small enough to fit on a DVD-R).

I tried using Handbrake and found the turnaround on the compression to be daunting.. I even did one film (Manhattan) and found the video to be slightly jerky. Honestly, burning a backup to DVD-R is relatively cheap and gives you a nice, full copy.

Just thoughts.

-joe.
Click to expand...

how do you burn it to a dvd-r that is usable by most standard dvd players then? you just drag and drop it? or use iDvd or what?
 
DVDs for players

bursty said:
how do you burn it to a dvd-r that is usable by most standard dvd players then? you just drag and drop it? or use iDvd or what?
Click to expand...

The best (simplest) solution I've found for making single disc copies that play in consumer DVD players- that someone mentioned earlier- is DVD2OneX. It compresses decrypted VOB files on the fly to fit on a 4.3GB single disc (most commercial DVDs are 7+GB). If you do just the movie without the menus, close-captioning, etc., the quality is usually very close to original quality.

I then use toast to burn a UDF DVD disc. Follow the instructions for disc naming, etc. or it won't work. Also some players are much more finicky than others; the newer, the better.

DVD2OneX is around $50. There may be a way to this with free/shareware, but I tried many without success.
 
iamartboy said:
I then use toast to burn a UDF DVD disc.
Click to expand...

Or, if you don't want to buy Toast, use Disk Utility to make an image of your video ts folder and then burn that, also in Disk Utility. My DVDs, made in that way, play on set top DVD players just fine.
 
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