Importing DVDs

[Rennie Klymyk]

Download this:

https://www.squared5.com/svideo/mpeg-streamclip-mac.html

“everything is broken”

[Dndobson]

If it’s encrypted, get Mac the Ripper
If not, or aftert using mac the ripper, use MPEGStreamclip to convert to DV or some other QT.
Import that file.

[Phillip Van west]

[dndobson:] “If it’s encrypted, get Mac the Ripper”

Bad idea to tell someone how to break the law. No matter how easy or obvious it may seem to you.

Just my 2 cents. And Cow policy.

pvw

Phil Van West
Terra Nova Productions LLC
Denver, CO
Video Production/Post-Production

G5 DP 2.5GHz / 4.5 GB RAM / 2x250GB SATA / OS 10.4.7 / FCP 5.1.1 / QT 7.1.2

[Rennie Klymyk]

[pvanwest] “Bad idea to tell someone how to break the law. No matter how easy or obvious it may seem to you.”

Just because you hack an encpypted file doesn’t mean you are breaking laws. I have a sony dvd recorder that I use for transferring clients work on dvd. I can connect it to vhs, dv and today I’m doing a 3/4″. If the client wants, say, 5 copies, I usually would burn the 1st on the sony and the others in toast on the computer. However for some reason the files the sony produces play in my G5 with dvd player but the actual folder appears empty when you open it on the desk top. Mac the Ripper will hack my sony disc and give me the vob files I need to make the copies at 8X on the computer and I can dump the ugly menu.

(FWIW -this sony GX-315 is a piece of junk compared to my old philips 985 rest it’s soul)

I share your distaste for piracy though. I personally own a library of about 400 dvd movies all of which I buy new or used for anywhere from $2.99 – $30.00. I would never waste my time copying these when you can get them so cheap with the coversets, bonus discs and pressed quality made from film. I guess there are always people who do it because they can, but what a waste of time. Sony and the other manufacturers are so fearfull of this activity that the technology is being held back for us, the legitimate users and producers of our own content. We should have had HD-DVD and blueray burners in the computers a year ago. 99% of the cow herd are legitimate users of their own content and we’re being held back because of the piracy occurring outside our industry.

“everything is broken”

[Toby Wilkins]

“Bad idea to tell someone how to break the law. No matter how easy or obvious it may seem to you. “

Ripping a rented DVD to avoid buying a copy is obviously theft, worse if you choose to upload it and/or share it. As a filmmaker myself I find this kind of piracy distressing. There are some legally defensible reasons to rip a dvd you actually own, for your own use, but this obviously not what we’re talking about here on this site aimed at graphics and editing professionals.

There are many legitimate reasons an editor may need to rip something from a protected DVD source. Ripping from a scene for an actor’s reel, or the filmmaker’s reel, or to create a rip-o-matic pitch reel for a new project, or to use as a temp source, or a whole host of other reasons. While technically, doing so without “written permission of the copyright holder” may be a legal grey area, many editors do so on a daily basis as part of their jobs in this industry. Where would George Lucas be without this ability? I hear he has editors assemble entire feature film rough-cuts using shots from existing movies.

But to get back on topic, this seems to be a very random and totally annoying bug with the way FCP imports qucktime files. I have been running into this problem for years, several versions of FCP, several version of QT, Handbreak, everything. Converting clips to 10 different formats in an attempt to find a solution. I have not found a consisten solve yet.

One glimmer of hope is that clips converted (M4V to ProResLT for example) using Toast (V9 or better) seem to import with more reliability than those converted in QTP. Testing is on-going, but all signs point to Toast as the solution.