I have a mini-DVD of a hunt that a friend sent to me.  I'd like to put the hunt video and some pics I took together to make him a DVD.

I have a Mac. How do I go about transferring the contents of the mini-DVD to my computer?

Thanks!!

Jerry

Jerry, video on a DVD is MPEG2 codec but the file extension is .vob not .mpg. Most editing programs won't recognize .vob files but you can simply manually change the file extension to .mpg and load them in your system.

You can also get DVD ripper programs that will pull the files off the DVD automatically.

Another process, although it takes a little longer, is to hook a miniDV cam to your desktop DVD player, set your cam to VCR mode, and play the DVD while recording to your cam. Your cam will record the video in AVI format which you can then pull into your computer and play or edit. If you still have that Canon Optura50 miniDV cam it will do the passthrough.

DVD is a terrible aquisition format because of the high compression. When you compress video you are in fact discarding data. When the video/audio in decompressed in your editor the lost data cannot be recovered. There will be quality lost in the transfer and more lost again if/when you burn back to DVD and further compress the files.

BTW, what the heck you doing with a MAC? You a yuppy or something?  

Tom i don't know what we are going to do with Jerry.  first he sells all his Nikon equipment and buys Canon and now he goes and starts using a MAC for all his editing.    

QuoteOriginally posted by paleFace:
Tom i don't know what we are going to do with Jerry.  first he sells all his Nikon equipment and buys Canon and now he goes and starts using a MAC for all his editing.      

Yep, had an epiphany, I did.    :D

Thanks Tom!  I'll give it a whirl!

Jerry

QuoteOriginally posted by Tom Mussatto:
Jerry, video on a DVD is MPEG2 codec but the file extension is .vob not .mpg. Most editing programs won't recognize .vob files but you can simply manually change the file extension to .mpg and load them in your system.

Y

Tried it.  Quicktime says it's not a movie file when I try to open it.  

I still have the Optura. I hate to lose the quality, but I'll give it a go.

Jerry, you don't want to open the file in Quicktime or Windows Media Player. Open the files in the program you are editing and coding with to burn to a DVD.

What program are you editing with? If your Mac came with iMovie try putting the files on the iMovie timeline. It should read them.

This is the message I get when trying to import into iMovie:

The file could not be imported: The file "Macintosh HD/Users/jerrygowins/Desktop/CANON DVD/VTS_01_1.mpg" can't be imported; QuickTime couldn't parse it: -2048

Ya gotta love those Mac's.    Looks like the Mac/Microsoft wars continue.

Might have to go to plan B and passthrough your cam. Your cam will convert to AVI and iMovie will read that fine. Don't worry about the loss in quality. That happened when the DVD was made in the camera, it just won't show up until you pull it into your cam and the files are transcoded to AVI. It's going to happen no matter how you get the video off the DVD. This is why MPEG2 to DVD is a terrible acquisition format if one wants to edit the video in any way.

If plan B fails move on to plan C.  

I've got a PC laptop with Nero software. I may try that.

Weez