How to copy a homemade DVD?

[Ben E Lou]

OK, so my intern has made a great DVD of pics and video from a trip we did 2 weekends ago. However, his DVD burner on his laptop took an hour to burn it. We'd like to make a few copies of it. How do we copy it? He used iMovie HD to make the DVD, and using My Computer to look at the files on it, the main file is a .VOB.

Also, is there any way to make this a little smaller? It is only 6 minutes long, and is ~378Megs. Ideally, we'd like to copy the entire DVD as a DVD, but we'd also love to create an AVI or WMV file that could be downloaded.

--Ben

[Anthony]

you could always use WinAVI, although i'm not sure it supports .vob files, i doubt it'd be a prob.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by Hell Atlantic

you could always use WinAVI, although i'm not sure it supports .vob files, i doubt it'd be a prob.

Just downloaded it, and it does convert .vob files. It is working right now. THANK YOU!!!

--Ben

[Ben E Lou]

Heh. They've got a good way to "encourage" you to buy after you try, that's for sure. Here's the video.

Considering how big that sucker was, getting it down to 29.1MB for web purposes is going to be worth the relatively small loss of quality, and I reckon we'll be buying this software, unless someone else points us towards something better.

[Anthony]

video came out good (excluding the obvious). i like that 8mm camera look when the kids were in the mud pool.

[Easy Mac]

Originally Posted by SkyDog

Heh. They've got a good way to "encourage" you to buy after you try, that's for sure. Here's the video.

Considering how big that sucker was, getting it down to 29.1MB for web purposes is going to be worth the relatively small loss of quality, and I reckon we'll be buying this software, unless someone else points us towards something better.

This is the all free way

Well, DVD Decrypter, though technically no longer available, should be able to rip the DVD to the computer. Set it to where it is IFO mode I believe. Then just click the DVD icon at the bottom to rip it. Then open AutoGK and click on the little file icon to navigate to where you ripped the DVD. Then on the other file icon, navigate to where you want to save it. Now go down and select the size you want the file (generally for TV shows (no commercial), a 22 minute show is about 180 mb, 60 is around 360 mb, so for 6 minutes it should at best be 50 mb, but smaller is fine given the general quality). Also, in the Advanced settings you determine if you want to output as an Xvid or Divx avi file. Either will work on most people's computers (Windows will download the codec if not). I think you still have to pay to encode in Divx, though they gave it away for free for a little while. Xvid comes free with AGK. So then just click the Add job button and click start. It takes about 60 minutes on my computer for a 22 minute tv show, so it should take maybe 20 minutes.

Here is a good guide.

PS, i know DVD decrypter works on commercial dvd's, so i assume it would work on home made ones.

[moriarty]

I've never used any of these tools, but I've heard people recommend DVD Shrink and DVDxCopy as well. These might be more for copying commercial DVD's though.

[Ben E Lou]

Thanks for the tips, guys. I was just reflectin that I've been doing this full-time now for over 14 years, and it is quite remarkable how much things have changed during that time with regard to A/V stuff. I remember putting together a video for the first YL meeting ever in the Osborne High School community. Dubbed that sucker with 2 VCR's. My roommate (who was also my best volunteer leader) and I thought we were big-time a year or so later when we actually figured out how to copy the finished product onto another tape with music laid down on it. Kids were amazed at that video. Thanks for helping me stay on the cutting edge here.

[Ksyrup]

I've just started messing around with the DVD burner that came with my new computer. My first project was to take a bootlegged video concert and create a DVD out of it. I was shocked at how good it came out - I even took a screen capture from during the show and made a halfway decent-looking title screen out of it, complete with chapters for each song. RAWK!

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Easy Mac

... though technically no longer available ...

Would that be because they were basically ordered to cease & desist, as a violater of anti-piracy laws?

And, if that's the case, does it really seem like a good idea to recommend a product with such a questionable status for a Christian youth organization?

[Ksyrup]

I still have the Streambox Suite if anyone is interested...

[Easy Mac]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

Would that be because they were basically ordered to cease & desist, as a violater of anti-piracy laws?

And, if that's the case, does it really seem like a good idea to recommend a product with such a questionable status for a Christian youth organization?

I would think that since it is used for non-commercial purposes, it's not illegal. If Skydog were to distribute the video via bittorrent, would that be a bad idea? 80% of BT traffic is of copyrighted material. So long as it is being used for benign uses, I don't see a flaw in recommending it.

[JonInMiddleGA]

As a tool that includes the ability to circumvent copyright protection, it's on shaky ground at best, just seems like it'd be sending the wrong message especially given the nature of the group.

Probably irrelevant anyway at this point, since he seems to have gotten it solved with WinAVI

[gstelmack]

If the video is a home burn to DVD, it's not encrypted.

The Roxio suite I use for all my burning needs includes a DVD copier, a DVD ripper, and a video package that will convert to whatever you need for distribution. I'm pretty sure Nero does as well.

[Ben E Lou]

My first effort at this... I still have some work to do to get better, and now I can't decide which video software I want to purchase. My handheld camera takes pretty decent .mov files, and winavi doesn't decode those very well. Anyway....

http://www.younglifenorthdekalb.com/...all%202005.wmv

[Antmeister]

Originally Posted by SkyDog

My first effort at this... I still have some work to do to get better, and now I can't decide which video software I want to purchase. My handheld camera takes pretty decent .mov files, and winavi doesn't decode those very well. Anyway....

http://www.younglifenorthdekalb.com/...all%202005.wmv

Nice job. Quality is still there, but I do have a question. Is this the downloadable version? Because it is still huge. You can significantly drop the file size by reducing the audio quality as well as the video size and that should make it significantly smaller. Plus I noticed that you are only looking to have them as avi's or wmv's. Have you considered mov's or is that out of the question?

Anyways nice job and if you need help with reducing the file size, I could send that puppy through my software until you buy your own.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by Antmeister71

Nice job. Quality is still there, but I do have a question. Is this the downloadable version? Because it is still huge. You can significantly drop the file size by reducing the audio quality as well as the video size and that should make it significantly smaller. Plus I noticed that you are only looking to have them as avi's or wmv's. Have you considered mov's or is that out of the question?

Anyways nice job and if you need help with reducing the file size, I could send that puppy through my software until you buy your own.

Actually, I can make the downloadable version smaller than that. I got a little carried away on quality. I can get it down to around 10MB. I'm showing the best-quality DVD (that is about 320MB) on Monday night.