How do I repeat a scene on a loop on my mac dvd player?

October 8, 2008 2:22 PM

So here's the deal. There is a beautiful scene in one of my favorite movies, The Unberable Lightness of Being, that I would like to put on repeat and play indefinitely. However, this scene starts at the very end of one chapter and goes on through to the end of the last chapter, so I can't just put one chapter on repeat without omitting other parts of the scene. How do I, using the MacDVD player, or any player for that matter, take a slice of the movie (roughly 4 minutes long) and put it on repeat and preferably save it to my desktop? Thanks
posted by leybman to Computers & Internet (8 answers total)

Handbrake the whole movie, use QT Pro or even iMovie to isolate the sequence, and drop it in your screen saver. Then it will play when you're not using your computer.

You can also use QT player on loop and enjoy for as long as you like.
posted by cjorgensen at 2:28 PM on October 8, 2008

As CJ said, rip it and edit yourself a loop. Get the whole world of DVD "chapters" out of your way.
posted by rokusan at 2:29 PM on October 8, 2008

1) First pick a desktop media player that supports looping playback - VLC does, Quicktime probably does.
2) Rip the DVD to an AVI with MPEG-4 ASP video and MP3 or AC-3 (passthrough) audio using handbrake.
3) Use Avidemux to set Cut Point A at the beggining of the desired section and Cut Point B at its end (making sure to hold down shift to seek to keyframes to ensure audio sync), make sure both video and audio dialogues are set to "Copy", go to File> Save Video..., and pick the location you want to save the clip.
4) Check the results in your media player.

N.B: If you're prepare to delete the entire ripped movie and save only the clip, use something like 2500kbps VBR 2-pass video encoding at full original frame resolution to eliminate any quality loss.
posted by Inspector.Gadget at 2:31 PM on October 8, 2008

You only need Handbrake and QuickTime Player to pull this off.
posted by rokusan at 2:50 PM on October 8, 2008 [1 favorite]

Assume the answers above are sufficient to extract the clip to a file, have you considered putting the file in a digital picture frame and hanging it on the wall? They're very cheap these days, and they pretty much all support video clips.
posted by -harlequin- at 4:18 PM on October 8, 2008

I just want to note that if you really do love this scene you may want to think more about the long term effects of having it on an eternal loop playing over and over. It may become less special to you if you're exposed to it constantly, and you won't get the same rush of emotion to it that you feel after absence has made your heart grow fonder. I get this way with poetry that I post in my office sometimes -- I really have to concentrate in order to take in the meaning of the words that have become overly familiar to me. Anyway, take this for what it's worth, and good luck.
posted by onlyconnect at 4:22 PM on October 8, 2008 [1 favorite]

I was planning on doing something similar recently, but with a longer span and some relaxing clip of some random long playing (~1-2 hours) ocean/nature film

So, find the clip you want, and rip into avi/divx, and use a digital picture frame that has the capability to play divx files for playback off a SD card (pandigital.net) and let it play on loop.

Won't clutter your workspace on your lcd/crt, and would be nice distraction to gaze into at my windowless cubicle, and since its running off the picture frame on a SD card, it'll be totally silent. (or you can embed the ocean sounds.. ) and fairly low power usage.
posted by edman at 6:11 PM on October 8, 2008

Did you get it to work? I can come up with more solutions if needed. If it did work you can add "resolved" to your tags and the world gets to see a neat little green check mark next you your question.

Oh, and I refrained from making my, "I did this with my favorite 3 seconds of a porno" joke because this wasn't in the blue, so I really feel I deserve a "best answer" nod as well (I'm collecting those).

Seriously, if you didn't get it to go, give a shout. If I had the movie I'd do it for you. Well, you know, if the MPAA wouldn't have me killed for doing it.
posted by cjorgensen at 7:15 PM on October 9, 2008