DVD Burning 101 for Macintosh

August 4, 2008 2:52 PM

I was hoping someone could recommend a one-stop DVD burning software for my Mac. I am wanting to make dvds that will work on my regular home player...I am running the latest operating system. My hopes are to have it be able to put a movie on a DVD-R and not invest in more expensive DVD-dual layer discs. Unfortunately, I am not good at using three different types of software to rip, edit, and burn, and hence the request for one all in one package. I know Wondershare does only dvd burning to dual layer. I have seen Fast DVD Copy but not sure how good it works, though it looks nice. Any suggestions? I appreciate all advice and wish all respondents and awesome week. Thanks.
posted by snap_dragon to computers & internet (8 comments total)

I like VisualHub. It can do conversions to DVD.
posted by mrbill at 3:05 PM on August 4, 2008

Why not ilife?
posted by empath at 3:51 PM on August 4, 2008

I know a lot of people really like DVD2OneX, but I think we'd need more information about your "edit" requirement--DVD2OneX will take a commercial dual-layer DVD and compress it juuuust enough so you can burn the contents to a regular DVD and still take advantage of the extras and menus. But it doesn't allow for "editing" per se.
posted by bcwinters at 4:06 PM on August 4, 2008

Roxio Toast is pretty much the standard when it comes to disc-burning software on the Mac. There are many cheaper solutions, but if you want something simple & straightforward in one application, that's your best bet.
posted by designbot at 4:13 PM on August 4, 2008

If you're looking to "back up" (i.e. make a copy of) a commercial DVD, you will — unless I am mistaken about DVD2OneX — need two pieces of software. One is a ripper; the other is a compressor/imager. The first piece of software "rips" the DVD and decrypts it, the latter reduces the bitrate of the video so it will fit on a single-layer DVD, and produce an image that you can burn with Disk Copy or Toast.

I don't think that any compressor (like DVD2OneX) actually does the ripping and decryption, because that's the part that's illegal in the United States because of the DMCA.

One ripper that you hear recommended on Usenet a lot is MacTheRipper. A very old version of it is freeware, but for a recent version I think you need to pay for it.

Alternately, if you don't actually want to make a copy, but instead just want to put a DVD on your hard drive in compressed form, to watch later, use Handbrake. It does everything in one shot (it's maintained outside of the U.S., thank god).
posted by Kadin2048 at 6:25 PM on August 4, 2008

Toast, sadly, won't copy scrambled (i.e. commercial) DVDs. So you are always going to need ripping software. And many commercial DVDs have copy-protection which no Mac software deals with well. There are betas of MacTheRipper 3.0 floating around, but they are iffy. The best solution is probably to run Windows ripping software in a virtual machine. Once you're doing that, of course, you might as well also run Windows recoding and burning software.
posted by kindall at 6:29 PM on August 4, 2008

I use Mac The Ripper and Roxio Popcorn. They're both dead simple (literally one button each).
posted by dobbs at 7:19 PM on August 4, 2008

Visual Hub won't copy DVDs but I will check into other suggestions. Like Mac the Ripper and Roxio Popcorn...thanks folks.
posted by snap_dragon at 10:52 AM on August 5, 2008