I have heard that this is the best way to view DVDs as it saves battery use. Over the winter holidays I will be making some long airline flights and would like to watch some movies. The trick is... is there a way to copy it so that the menus etc are still intact. I need to be able to activate the subtitles, Japanese in this case, for my wife. Is there a special utility or program I should use for this. I am looking to copy DVDs I already own so piracy is not an issue here. I just don't want to have to carry the DVD packs around with me if I can avoid it. Cheers in advance.
If you search for a few threads on copying DVD's you'll get your answer in a few different ways - but just leave the disk image on your HDD and watch that instead. Just mount it with Toast when you want to watch it.
My steps to create a DVD copy.
1. DVDBackup to remove the encryption and region codes (Others say Mactheripper - but I like this one better)
2. DVD2oneX to resize the DVD to a consumer size (4.4GB)
3. DVD Imager to make an DVD Image
4. Burn with Toast
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the crap is piled high ... now trying to keep up
I have very little on my HD at the moment other than music and I intend to erase the films after the flight. That being said I did get MacTheRipper this eve. Haven't tried it yet. When you copy the main from the DVD onto the HD does that include the subtitles?
Yardarm, I would recommend getting an external drive to copy off your back-up movies. Once you have gone to the trouble of pulling the movies off disc, you might as well strore them for future use or safe-keeping. Large drives are becoming quite innexpensive these days although the really big drives can still be pricey.
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If you just want the movie files witout special menus and features, there is a quick and dirty way to copy them over with little fuss and no ripping. Warning: you may be surprised how quickly this can be accomplished.
Simply copy all files with a .VOB extension off the DVD to your HD. Some might be special features like interviews with the make-up artists and hairdressers and you can dump them if you want.
subtitle files should be .SRT files; copy them too/
the application VLC will play .VOB files just fine.
In VLC preferences, under Subpictures, there is a field labelled "Use subtitle file" where you can select the .SRT file to use.
You have to do change this for each movie.
You can play the VOB files off the DVD with VLC before you copy them if you want to be sure of what they are. They are usually named sequentially, in the format VTS_03_1.VOB, VTS_04_1.VOB, etc. The last in the sequence are usually the features.
It will save some battery power but don't expect it to be the same as typical computer usage. While viewing the DVD, the video card is doing quite a lot of work and sucks up a fair bit of power.
I have two batteries for my powerbook so I should be able to get through 2 long films or possibly 3 regular ones. I was thinking about the external drive for the future. Funny I was just thinking I should post to ask about it before I saw your message Macified.
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