Extracting Footage from a DVD

So you burned a movie to DVD last year and want to snag some of that footage without trying to find the original MiniDV tape.

Cinematize (www.miraizon.com), and DropDV (www.dropdv.com) can each extract the MPEG-2 video files stored on DVD discs. You can then import the footage into iMovie. DropDV is the more straightforward option (it converts everything, whereas Cinematize offers more options for choosing which footage to grab), so I'll use that as the example program here.

To extract video from a DVD:

1.	Insert a DVD disc into your Mac. If the DVD Player application launches, quit it.
2.	Open the DVD's volume on the Desktop and locate the folder called VIDEO_TS.
3.	Open the VIDEO_TS folder and locate the MPEG video files, which end in the suffix .VOB (Figure 7.27). Figure 7.27. Video and audio on a DVD are stored in the VIDEO_TS folder as .VOB files.
4.	Drag the .VOB file onto DropDV. Depending on the movie's length, the conversion process could take a while (Figure 7.28). Figure 7.28. DropDV converts MPEG-2 formatted video files to DV files in a minimal interface.
5.	Drag the .DV file that was created to your iMovie project to add it.

Tips

• Keep in mind that video you pull from a DVD is compressed, and will therefore be of less quality than the original. But sometimes that's better than not having any footage at all.

• Be good, use copyrighted video footage legally, and only extract video from discs you own or have the rights to use. You know the drill.

Copy-protected DVDs

Some DVD extraction utilities won't work with commercial DVDs that have copy protection applied, but there's a workaround. Download the free utility HandBrake (handbrake.m0k.org) to pull even "secure" footage off most discs.

You can then use DropDV or Cinematize to convert the footage from MPEG-2 to DV format. Obviously, I'm not advocating movie piracy here. But there are legitimate occasions when you might want to use a section of a movie (in a multimedia school report, for example), or copy a movie that you own to your laptop's hard drive to watch later without toting along a sleeve of discs when you travel.