How To Rip My Dvdonto Imac Hard Drive

[neilberkowitz]

I have recently converted all my old videotapes onto DVDs.

 

How do I rip these DVDs onto my iMac hard drive?

 

Neil

[mike457]

You should simply be able to copy the video_ts folder from each DVD, since there should be no copy protection on disks you have made yourself. The real question becomes how do you want to play them back? If you are only going to watch them on the computer, then DVD player or VLC will work fine. If you want to convert them to another format for playing on an Apple TV, iPad, or iPod, then you can either do that through Toast or Handbrake.

[neilberkowitz]

You should simply be able to copy the video_ts folder from each DVD, since there should be no copy protection on disks you have made yourself. The real question becomes how do you want to play them back? If you are only going to watch them on the computer, then DVD player or VLC will work fine. If you want to convert them to another format for playing on an Apple TV, iPad, or iPod, then you can either do that through Toast or Handbrake.

 

Thanks for your prompt response, Mike!

I have not been able to even copy the DVD, but I would like to be able to edit the DVD, and add my own music.

 

I have purchased Roxio Toast Pro, but don't know how to use it to achieve my purpose.

Any advice would be welcome.

Needless to say, I am not tech-savy, so I need simple, clear, comprehensive instructions.

Thank you,

 

Neil.

[tsantee]

Thanks for your prompt response, Mike!

I have not been able to even copy the DVD, but I would like to be able to edit the DVD, and add my own music.

 

I have purchased Roxio Toast Pro, but don't know how to use it to achieve my purpose.

Any advice would be welcome.

Needless to say, I am not tech-savy, so I need simple, clear, comprehensive instructions.

Thank you,

 

Neil.

There are some different ways to proceed. The easiest is to open Toast 11, click the convert tab and choose DVD disc. When your DVD is recognized click the Save button and choose AppleTV at the Best quality and let the Mac do its work. When done you can import the video to iMovie. In the iMovie import window choose Move files rather than Copy files so you don't end up with two copies written on the hard drive.

 

These processes take a lot of time.

 

If you only want to import portions of what's on your DVDs or would like to edit out pieces of the video to shorten the amount of time it takes to convert and import the movies, then do this instead:

 

Open Toast, click the Convert tab and choose Video Files as the format. When the Convert window appears you'll see a Media Browser on the right. Click and hold on the Video tab and scroll down the list to select the name of your DVD just below "DVD". You then will see the individual recordings (titles) on the disc. Select any that you want to convert and click the + button or drag them to the main window. After several seconds a window appears where you have the opportunity to fine tune what you want to convert. It's hard for me to explain this window so you'll have to do some trial and error. Here you can select the stop and end points of each video as well as mark any segments within the videos that you want excluded from the conversion.