I’m working in a group for a com class and the idea to include little snippets of video from DVD’s came up. Obviously this is for educational purposes so it seems like something I should be able to do legally. The only problem is figuring out how. What software can I use to capture a few minutes of video from a DVD? Is this something my library or computer lab might offer? I’ve never done this before and will take all the suggestions I can get. Thanks in advance!
Note: These would be mainstream DVD’s and not homemade. Complete with content protection and whatever else they use to keep you from hitting record on a VCR or other recording device.
Also, I tried doing a search with the words DVD and Capture but I couldn’t find anything useful. I appologize in advance if there is already a thread started that I couldn’t find.
Why do you have three steps here? I see no reason he should convert the files twice–he can easily clip out the parts he needs as part of the first re-encode. (I don’t know what software you use, so maybe your process would be different than mine.)
Do be warned that re-encoding the clips takes a while–minimum as long as they would take to actually play, but they can easily take several times as long.
I’m not sure if this topic is deemed appropriate for this board, but on the basis that it has survived a dozen hours or so without lockdown, I’ll just say that I use DVDShrink to do exactly what the OP wants to do. (I used it to extract one chapter from an unencrypted DVD of short animations, so that my kids could watch it without being exposed to some of the others, which were not appropriate for them).
You could use microsoft movie maker. It doesn’t do all different types of files, but does do a fair amount. you might have to download codecs to view different file formats. If you can see it on windows media player, then you can import it to movie maker, and then edit out clips.
Once I posted this I was a bit concerned about it being locked down due to the fact that it has even the smallest hint of copying a DVD. I guess I just thought that capturing a minute or two of video from a DVD to use in a presentation, in an educational setting, wasn’t a big deal and could be done with a little more ease than decrypting the whole thing. That I already know how to do! I also contacted a professor that I thought was doing something like this for our lectures, but it turns out she just has access to a lot of educational videos and clips that a previous professor had compiled.
Stupid MPAA! I suppose this isn’t the place to rant about them though. I guess I’ll just have to tell my group that its not as easy to do as I thought. Thanks all!
By “Reencode” I meant “remux” the mpeg back into vobs. Some burning software does that on the fly, I think. 2 and 3 could be the same step if you know ahead of time which scene(s) you want.
Does DVDShrink allow you to make arbitrary cuts rather than select titles/chapters? If so, this really is the way to go! Very easy program to use.
Yes; you can select start and end points by chapter (and it’s smart enough to know that when you select ‘chapter 2’ as both the start and end points, that you want chapter 2, not a zero-length section), or you can specify arbitrary start and end points; I think they snap to Iframes though.
Ahh, I see. I was thinking that he’d probably be playing the files as an AVI or MPEG on the computer, rather than re-burning them to DVD. I’ve never bothered to author a DVD, though I have software for it (I’d have to transcode the files first–they’re all Divx/Xvid–and I’m too lazy for that).
I guess I had just thought about burning it back to a DVD but that really isn’t necessary. Just MPEG or AVI on a disk that we can play during the presentation would work just as well. I think I read your suggestion wrong Mangetout. That will probably work just fine for our needs.
Perhaps I confused matters by mentioning that I had only used it for extracting unencrypted content; it will do the other thing as well. Two options are available for output of the re-authored content; either as an .iso file that you can burn straight to a DVD with something like DeepBurner, or as Video_TS and Audio_TS folders, containing (amongst other things) .VOB files which are your video content (and will play in most media player programs - VOBs are just MPEG2 files with a few extra features)
FYI, I tried out DVD Shrink for this purpose when I got home and it is perfect for this task.
Your process would be:
[ol]
[li]Save files to disk by using DVD Decrypter or similar[/li]
[li]Save clips by using DVD Shrink:[list=a][/li][li]Open DVD Shrink and select the Re-Author button.[/li][li]In the DVD Browser pane, select the folder where you saved the DVD files in step 1.[/li][li]For each clip, drag the source title from the right pane to the left pane; select the title in the left pane and then click Set Start/End Frames to cut out the clip.[/li][li]When you’re done, click the Backup button. Each clip will be its own VOB file in your output directory.[/li][/ol]
[li]Burn to DVD or playback in PowerDVD / Windows Media Player[/li][/list]
Pretty great!! You can get the aforementioned tools at www.doom9.org.