(free?) software to copy video clips and images from DVDs

Cafe Society
1

I have several DVDs from which I would like to take short clips and/or still images. (These are not commercial DVDs and were given to me by their creators for this purpose, so I wouldn’t be breaking any laws and their shouldn’t be any kind of special copy protection on them.) I use to use have Pinnacle and Nero software that I could do this with, but the versions I had are not compatible with my current computer and I am not really in a position to purchase upgrades or new versions. Any free or really, really cheap options would be appreciated.

2

I am a Mac guy, but it looks like you can use DVD Shrink, which is free.

3

Thanks for the suggestion, but I don’t think that does what I need. Maybe I should be more specific about what I actually want to do.

I have several DVDs with projects in which I have appeared (student film projects, independent shorts, music videos, etc.). I would like to take just the bits which show me to the best advantage, which might be 15 seconds out of a 15-minute film, and be able to show those as clips. If I can stitch the clips together into a “reel,” so much the better. And if I can also take individual frames to use as stills on my Web site, better yet.

I guess that’s a lot to expect for free, but maybe I can still go the really, really cheap route. If anyone knows of free software that can be used to take still images from video but doesn’t the video editing functions, I’d be interested in that too. (Playing the video and doing a regular old Prt-Sc type screen capture does yield satisfactory results.)

4

For frame grabs from DVD I use VLC. It’s a spectacular media player that has that built in function.

I have a few tools that I could rejigger a video clip out of an mpeg stream but they’re not user friendly. MediaCoder has the functions in it but there’s no convenient visual feedback. You’d have to know precisely when you want to start and stop. You’d also need something to rip the DVD like DVD Decrypter so that you have the MPEG stream decrypted first and then use a tool to build the DVD (which it sounds like you have many options for that).