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RMD68

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jan 7, 2007
283
10
I am new to Handbrake and I wanted to know if the program could in any likely way cause damage to a DVD and how high of a risk is it? Besides the legal action that could be taken is it a risky idea, which I'm in no way advocating, to rip rented DVD's? I wanted to get more use out of my PSP and I figure movies would be a good way to go.
 

clevin

macrumors G3
Aug 6, 2006
9,095
1
commercial DVDs are read-only, so no software can cause damage to your DVDs.
 

epochblue

macrumors 68000
Aug 12, 2005
1,671
0
Nashville, TN
Short of spitting your DVD out onto pavement or something (or getting something stuck the drive...), I don't think it's possible for a computer to digitally do damage to a DVD.
 

gnasher729

Suspended
Nov 25, 2005
17,980
5,565
I am new to Handbrake and I wanted to know if the program could in any likely way cause damage to a DVD and how high of a risk is it? Besides the legal action that could be taken is it a risky idea, which I'm in no way advocating, to rip rented DVD's? I wanted to get more use out of my PSP and I figure movies would be a good way to go.

No. However, I use Mac The Ripper to copy the DVD to the Mac first. The reason is that it only takes a few minutes, and the DVD drive is only running for that short time. With Handbrake, the DVD drive is running the whole time, and especially with H.264 and two-pass encoding for highest quality, this can be very long and will wear out the DVD drive.

Using Mac The Ripper also has the advantage that you can copy several DVDs, then set up Handbrake to convert them overnight.
 

Eidorian

macrumors Penryn
Mar 23, 2005
29,190
386
Indianapolis
I use an external 16x 5.25" DVD drive when I use MacTheRipper or Handbrake. It's probably the easiest bottleneck to resolve.
 

serina

macrumors newbie
May 12, 2018
2
0
I am new to Handbrake and I wanted to know if the program could in any likely way cause damage to a DVD and how high of a risk is it? Besides the legal action that could be taken is it a risky idea, which I'm in no way advocating, to rip rented DVD's? I wanted to get more use out of my PSP and I figure movies would be a good way to go.
It totally wrecked my school dvd! I don't know what to do! I payed a lot of money for my education to be correspondence meaning my classes were recorded on dvd :( I wanted to download a copy of the dvd's many classes so I could put them on my phone and have them on the go.. i used hand break and VLC and they totally made it so that my mac book air now says it can not play my school dvd ! I am dying.. I feel like hitting myself omg! its os bad and on top of them not working now.. I deleted all the hand break and VLC programs and it still says my dads can't be played as well as the hand break and vlc being total **** because it wouldn't even go into the two parts of the dvd menu and download both sets of my 7 classes.. I'm so ****ed.. i am seriously so stressed out .. I know why most students want to commit suicide now holy ****.. someone please help me ..
 

flyinmac

macrumors 68040
Sep 2, 2006
3,579
2,465
United States
It totally wrecked my school dvd! I don't know what to do! I payed a lot of money for my education to be correspondence meaning my classes were recorded on dvd :( I wanted to download a copy of the dvd's many classes so I could put them on my phone and have them on the go.. i used hand break and VLC and they totally made it so that my mac book air now says it can not play my school dvd ! I am dying.. I feel like hitting myself omg! its os bad and on top of them not working now.. I deleted all the hand break and VLC programs and it still says my dads can't be played as well as the hand break and vlc being total **** because it wouldn't even go into the two parts of the dvd menu and download both sets of my 7 classes.. I'm so ****ed.. i am seriously so stressed out .. I know why most students want to commit suicide now holy ****.. someone please help me ..

Ok..... if you’re not joking, because at first glance I took this as sarcasm, then the first thing to do is calm down. Then we can try to asses what happened.

First... neither handbrake or VLC can cause damage to your actual DVD disc. First thing I would try is playing the disc in a real DVD player that is directly connected to a television.

I believe from what I’m gathering, that if you are having trouble playing the DVD on a computer, and that you have a software problem going on with the computer.

Also be aware that if the movie is on a Blu-ray Disc, then you need a Blu-ray player (which no Mac ever shipped with), and software that can play a Blu-ray. Or you need a Blu-ray player hooked up to your television.

If none of that is the problem, then we need specific details to try and help you.

What is the URL / website address that you downloaded handbrake and VLC from? There are a lot of download sites that inject malware into programs that they offer for downloading. So caution should always be taken to make sure you only get the software from the actual person who wrote it.

The computer, which computer? Year, and model.

Such as:
MacBook Air (13-inch, Mid 2011)
Model Identifier: MacBookAir4,2

What exact operating system are you using? The exact version. Something like:

MacOS El Capitan 10.11.6

MacOS High Sierra 10.13.4

Windows 10

Etc...

Also... since MacBook Air computers do not have a built-in DVD drive... what is the exact brand and model number DVD drive that you are using?

How much memory is in the computer?

If you’re using High Sierra, then are you using a SSD drive? Is it formatted with HFS+ or APFS

Some MacBook Air computers had a standard spinning mechanical hard drive. Some have Solid State (SSD) drives. If you have a SSD and upgraded to High Sierra, then you may likely be using APFS, which has been glitchy.

What exact steps, slowly and calmly, and detailed, did you take from beginning to end?

And same details on any other machine you have involved in the process.

Lastly, based on name, details, and writing style... are you my sister??? Lol. I’d go by the profile picture, but those are rarely the actual people. Especially mine. Lol.

If you have a family that took you in, giving you 4 additional brothers, bring the whole setup to your eldest brother.
 
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serina

macrumors newbie
May 12, 2018
2
0
Ok..... if you’re not joking, because at first glance I took this as sarcasm, then the first thing to do is calm down. Then we can try to asses what happened.

First... neither handbrake or VLC can cause damage to your actual DVD disc. First thing I would try is playing the disc in a real DVD player that is directly connected to a television.

I believe from what I’m gathering, that if you are having trouble playing the DVD on a computer, and that you have a software problem going on with the computer.

Also be aware that if the movie is on a Blu-ray Disc, then you need a Blu-ray player (which no Mac ever shipped with), and software that can play a Blu-ray. Or you need a Blu-ray player hooked up to your television.

If none of that is the problem, then we need specific details to try and help you.

What is the URL / website address that you downloaded handbrake and VLC from? There are a lot of download sites that inject malware into programs that they offer for downloading. So caution should always be taken to make sure you only get the software from the actual person who wrote it.

The computer, which computer? Year, and model.

Such as:
MacBook Air (13-inch, Mid 2011)
Model Identifier: MacBookAir4,2

What exact operating system are you using? The exact version. Something like:

MacOS El Capitan 10.11.6

MacOS High Sierra 10.13.4

Windows 10

Etc...

Also... since MacBook Air computers do not have a built-in DVD drive... what is the exact brand and model number DVD drive that you are using?

How much memory is in the computer?

If you’re using High Sierra, then are you using a SSD drive? Is it formatted with HFS+ or APFS

Some MacBook Air computers had a standard spinning mechanical hard drive. Some have Solid State (SSD) drives. If you have a SSD and upgraded to High Sierra, then you may likely be using APFS, which has been glitchy.

What exact steps, slowly and calmly, and detailed, did you take from beginning to end?

And same details on any other machine you have involved in the process.

Lastly, based on name, details, and writing style... are you my sister??? Lol. I’d go by the profile picture, but those are rarely the actual people. Especially mine. Lol.

If you have a family that took you in, giving you 4 additional brothers, bring the whole setup to your eldest brother.
Totally not being sarcastic at all. The computer is a macOS Sierra Version 10.12.6. My disk space is almost full sadly but that has never effected being able to watch my school dvds and import my school cd's of lectures. Basically now instead of them popping up and playing like they do on dvd player app or if i so choose it quicktime player app they just sit there useless when I open the cd icon and look at the files, the files show a bunch of random pylon images.. I did select decode when i used LVC or what ever the **** it was but thought that meant read it ...not destroy it.. I do not own a tv or dvd player.. only my external dvd drive player.. and my mac.. also the year is that it was made in 2014. I also watched this video on youtube and did exactly what he said.. using his provided links to hand break and the pylon app ..
 

mpainesyd

macrumors 6502a
Nov 29, 2008
689
168
Sydney, Australia
Totally not being sarcastic at all. The computer is a macOS Sierra Version 10.12.6. My disk space is almost ly what he said.. using his provided links to hand break and the pylon app ..

Unfortunately some DVDs start to deteriorate after a few years and won’t play reliably. It sounds like this has happened to you. It is nothing to do with Handbrake or other software. You might be able to read it on another computer due to slight differences in the DVD reader. If this is the case make a backup copy straight away. See other threads in this forum for tips.

Blu-ray disks are best for long-term storage but, as mentioned above, Macs don’t support Blu-ray without external hardware and software.
 
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flyinmac

macrumors 68040
Sep 2, 2006
3,579
2,465
United States
It sounds to me that perhaps the associated program has been changed. The computer doesn’t know you want the DVD player to start the movie when you insert the disc. So it treats it like a data disc instead of a movie.

Look at the directions here to change the default application for dvd movie discs.

Change the settings to have it start the DVD player when you insert a disc.

https://support.apple.com/kb/PH25126?locale=en_US
 
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