How do I extract movies from a homemade DVD?

August 30, 2010 3:09 PM

My Dad burned me a DVD of home movies. Is there an easy, free way to extract clips in a common format?

My Dad burned me a DVD on his Mac, and I want to extract and share clips from it. Is there an easy way to do this? Like, pull clips off in AVI or MOV format, with sound?

I'm assuming that there is no copy protection on it, but that's just an assumption. I am completely ignorant about DVD ripping. The root file system of the DVD looks like every other DVD I've ever bothered to nose around in:

AUDIO_TS
collateral
VIDEO_TS

and all kinds of BUP and IFO and VOB files in there. Also, Vista identifies the File System of the DVD as "UDF" if that's helpful.

Here's the menu I get when I pop it into my Windows Vista Home laptop. This may be informative with regards to its structure - I don't know. I don't have a Mac available, FWIW.

So I'm wondering if there's an easy way to pull stuff off of this DVD (using MS Vista Home OS) and share. I'm worried that the answer will be, "If you could do that easily, then you could pirate every DVD you rent from NetFlix, so, NO, you can't." Any clues welcome. Thank you.

posted by sidereal to Computers & Internet (7 answers total)

Best answer: Handbrake
posted by chrisamiller at 3:14 PM on August 30, 2010

If you can't rip your home movies with HandBrake alone, run it through DVDFab first. Make sure to get your dad's permission to make copies of his intellectual property.
posted by Sys Rq at 3:15 PM on August 30, 2010

Response by poster: Intellectual property may be an issue, because Daddy-O himself may be skating close to the edge, reproducing NASA gummint footage. I should look into that.

I'll check out Handbrake, thank you.
posted by sidereal at 3:22 PM on August 30, 2010

Government footage is PD. Use it as you will.
posted by Ideefixe at 3:24 PM on August 30, 2010

If you run into problems, it might be easier for him to burn you a data DVD-- instead of loading up video clips into iMovie and/or iDVD, just popping in a blank DVD (possible even just a CD-R) and dragging the video files onto it in Finder. As it is, you're doing the reverse process from what he did to make the DVD.
posted by supercres at 3:29 PM on August 30, 2010

VOB2MPG can extract the vobsets on a DVD, and knit them back into their original MPEG-2 files. This, as supercres says, is effectively turning the DVD back into the data your father made the DVD from.
posted by Devoidoid at 4:14 PM on August 30, 2010

Response by poster: Mission accomplished.

Thanks to chrisamiller for the tip about Handbrake. It easily converted the whole mess to an enormous m4v. I am currently attacking it with QT Pro and a blunt axe, but I repeat myself.

Thanks to Ideefixe for assuaging my concerns about property and domain. Of course it's PD. I guess my Friendly Sarcasm detector wasn't online when Sys Rq was having his/her fun with me :) Well played, sir or madam.

VOB2MPG bookmarked for later use, Devoidoid, much appreciated.

supercres, I'll sacrifice a goat for you tonight on general principle.
posted by sidereal at 6:18 PM on August 30, 2010