As this gets asked a lot, I put a little guide together for fast linking or even quoting.
Link to this thread: How to backup/copy/rip video DVDs to your HDD and transcode them to another format.
Code for link to this thread:
from How to backup/copy/rip video DVDs to your HDD and transcode them to another format.
https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/11131326/
Also of interest: How-To: Automating DVD & Blu-Ray (Backup, Encoding & Tagging) for Mac OS X 10.6
Link to this thread: How to backup/copy/rip video DVDs to your HDD and transcode them to another format.
Code for link to this thread:
Code:
[plain][URL="https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/825323/"]How to backup/copy/rip video DVDs to your HDD and transcode them to another format.[/URL][/plain]1. How to copy (rip) the content of video DVDs to your HDD
As commercial video DVDs use a copy protection scheme called CSS (Content Scramble System), additional software is needed to copy the content of a video DVD to your HDD, which is called "ripping". There are several applications to accomplish this.
1.1. MacTheRipper 2.6.6 (free)
Insert the video DVD into your DVD drive and open MacTheRipper and click the GO button, after which you can select the place you want the video DVD's content saved to.
As this version of MTR is quite old, it will not read many modern DVDs.
As this version of MTR is quite old, it will not read many modern DVDs.
1.3. Fairmount (free) - needs VLC 32-bit to decrypt the CSS (thanks to Satori for that information)
1.4. Mac DVDRipper Pro (9.95 USD)
Insert the video DVD and select a destination folder, then press the RIP button.
2. How to transcode the MPEG-2 encoded video DVD material for use on your computer after you ripped the video DVD.
As video DVDs take up a lot of space (up to 8GB), one can transcode (changing the format and encoding) the MPEG-2 encoded video into MPEG-4 encoded video via Handbrake, which might only take 1GB of HDD capacity away, while still looking good.
Handbrake currently offers to read VIDEO_TS folders, the folder on the video DVD with all the material (menus, video and audio) inside, and transcode the footage to something smaller. Currently variants of the space efficient and highly qualitative MPEG-4 codec are used, H264 or Xvid for example.
The current version of Handbrake offers two container formats, .mkv and .mp4, older versions also had the .avi container to transcode to.
.mkv and .mp4 containers accept the H264 codec, also used for the QuickTime trailers on Apple's Trailer page.
Handbrake also offers PRESETS for you to choose from. There are for the AppleTV, iPhone and iPod Touch, iPod and some more.
For more information about properly using Handbrake, either go to the Handbrake Community, read the Handbrake Guide or use MRoogle to find dozens upon dozens of threads about this.
Handbrake currently offers to read VIDEO_TS folders, the folder on the video DVD with all the material (menus, video and audio) inside, and transcode the footage to something smaller. Currently variants of the space efficient and highly qualitative MPEG-4 codec are used, H264 or Xvid for example.
The current version of Handbrake offers two container formats, .mkv and .mp4, older versions also had the .avi container to transcode to.
.mkv and .mp4 containers accept the H264 codec, also used for the QuickTime trailers on Apple's Trailer page.
Handbrake also offers PRESETS for you to choose from. There are for the AppleTV, iPhone and iPod Touch, iPod and some more.
For more information about properly using Handbrake, either go to the Handbrake Community, read the Handbrake Guide or use MRoogle to find dozens upon dozens of threads about this.
3. How to transcode the MPEG-2 encoded video DVD material for use on your computer without ripping the video DVD.
If you don't want to rip the video DVDs first, and just use Handbrake for transcoding the video, make sure to install VLC Player to circumvent the CSS I mentioned earlier.
Make sure you have the 64-bit version of both applications installed, or the 32-bit versions. Both applications will not work together, if one is 32-bit and one is 64-bit.
VLC Player 64-bit (VLC 1.1.3) - VLC Player 32-bit (1.0.5 and lower)
Handbrake 64-bit Intel, 32-bit Intel and 32-bit PPC on this page, so choose the right one.
Make sure you have the 64-bit version of both applications installed, or the 32-bit versions. Both applications will not work together, if one is 32-bit and one is 64-bit.
VLC Player 64-bit (VLC 1.1.3) - VLC Player 32-bit (1.0.5 and lower)
Handbrake 64-bit Intel, 32-bit Intel and 32-bit PPC on this page, so choose the right one.
4. How to copy (burn) the ripped DVD contents onto another DVD.
After you ripped the DVD to your HDD (see 1.), you'll notice, that there is a VIDEO_TS and an AUDIO_TS folder inside the folder created by the ripping software to store the ripped contents in. These two folders are necessary for creating a video DVD, thus they have to be burned to the DVD you chose to use as backup.
As video DVDs often contain more than 4.7GB of data, you have to use so-called Double Layer (DL) DVDs with a capacity of 8.5GB to burn the video onto. Single Layer (SL) DVDs can only store 4.7GB of data, thus only short videos are having enough space on them.
You can either use DVDRemaster (40 to 50 USD) to use SL DVDs for ripped DVDs, that are bigger than 4.7GB, or you can use Burn (free) to burn the data onto either SL or DL DVDs without further re-compression. (thanks to balamw for that information)
There is also Toast Titanium to use.
As video DVDs often contain more than 4.7GB of data, you have to use so-called Double Layer (DL) DVDs with a capacity of 8.5GB to burn the video onto. Single Layer (SL) DVDs can only store 4.7GB of data, thus only short videos are having enough space on them.
You can either use DVDRemaster (40 to 50 USD) to use SL DVDs for ripped DVDs, that are bigger than 4.7GB, or you can use Burn (free) to burn the data onto either SL or DL DVDs without further re-compression. (thanks to balamw for that information)
There is also Toast Titanium to use.
from How to backup/copy/rip video DVDs to your HDD and transcode them to another format.
https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/11131326/
Also of interest: How-To: Automating DVD & Blu-Ray (Backup, Encoding & Tagging) for Mac OS X 10.6