# How do I copy a DVD to my computer?



## Rollofthedice

When I pop it into my computer the box that opens does not list copy as one of the options (this option does come up when I put in CD's, though).  The DVD is actually some comedy sketches, I don't need or want to copy movies or anything.  

I recorded these on a Hi-8 camcorder, then onto a VHS tape, and then a friend recorded it onto DVD.  I'm now trying to copy this DVD onto my computer.

Help needed, please.

Thank you.


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## magicman

I'm not sure that I follow you when you say about the box that opens. Are you talking about this kind of box?






Click start, and select "My Computer". Right click on the icon that represents your dvd drive in your computer, and click open. If your friend has created a dvd-compliant disk, you'll see two folders, AUDIO_TS and VIDEO_TS. Open the VIDEO_TS folder, and inside there will be several files of various file types. The files that end in .vob are the files that contain the pure video content. Copy them as you would any other file on your computer.


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## PC eye

If you still had the vhs tape onhand you could utilize a vcr and a video capture card with analog inputs for video and sound that installs into a pci slot. The capture process would convert the incoming mix of video and any sound? into MPEG II format. You can choose from a list of freeware video players to view them afterwards.


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## blake67T

PC eye said:


> If you still had the vhs tape onhand you could utilize a vcr and a video capture card with analog inputs for video and sound that installs into a pci slot. The capture process would convert the incoming mix of video and any sound? into MPEG II format. You can choose from a list of freeware video players to view them afterwards.



Do you currently do this?  I have been thinking, not too seriously, about making my desktop a TIVO in essence by buying a PCI tuning card and hooking the cable right to the PC and tuning channels to the PC and record it, only thing bothering me is hard drive space when you jst record live tv, can get big files that way!  

Just wondering which brands to look at as bad or good quality capturing kits?


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## The_Other_One

PVR's can be set to lower recording quality(for the rewind feature) so they don't take up too much space on your drive...

As for good brands, I have a WinTV PVR-150 MCE and I don't think you could get anything much nicer than it!  It has built in MPEG 1 and 2 encoders so it keeps really nice quality/frame rates.  The MCE edition also has sound recording capabilties.  Most other such devices require you to use the sound card.


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## PC eye

blake67T said:


> Do you currently do this? I have been thinking, not too seriously, about making my desktop a TIVO in essence by buying a PCI tuning card and hooking the cable right to the PC and tuning channels to the PC and record it, only thing bothering me is hard drive space when you jst record live tv, can get big files that way!
> 
> Just wondering which brands to look at as bad or good quality capturing kits?


 
 If you plan on repeated captures and plan to store them on the drive you may want to consider having a second drive on the system for storage space. Even with the three different recording levels with the AVerMedia Ultra TV PCI350 tuner/capture card used here 185gb of video captures total saw low disk space warnings and a massive system slowdown. The primary on any drive needs space for swap files used for virtual memory.

 With captures and later deletion you shouldn't see too much of a problem with low disk space warnings and slowdowns. Currently I am taking a good look at the Ultra TV PCI1500 seen at http://www.aver.com/multimedia.html The present card will eventually give out. So why not upgrade before it does. This one here has been used in three different builds already. To date I wouldn't go with another brand since this make has proven itself over and over again. Take a look anyways.


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## bigsaucybob

> I'm now trying to copy this DVD onto my computer.



Not to ruin anything, but if this is an actual movie DVD with copy right laws. It is illegal to copy the DVD onto your computer, no matter what you plan on doing with it.

I dont know if maybe its like you home video or something, but I'm just saying.


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## elmarcorulz

bigsaucybob said:


> Not to ruin anything, but if this is an actual movie DVD with copy right laws. It is illegal to copy the DVD onto your computer, no matter what you plan on doing with it.
> 
> I dont know if maybe its like you home video or something, but I'm just saying.



He said its been from hi-8 camcorder, to VHS, to DVD.


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## PC eye

For home made videos the process of burning to dvds depends on the type of file format seen on the hard drive itself. For mpeg I + II files there are usb as well as pci capture devices. Once the file is in mpeg II preferred the process of file conversion and write to disk is performed by the software used.

 Now that all of this has been done the process of copying the video segments to the hard drive can easily be done by dragging the disk contents into a folder already created to receive them. Playing them once copied onto the drive is a different matter. A virtual drive to mount the files would be the only thing that work without a program to reassemble them.


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## bigsaucybob

elmarcorulz said:


> He said its been from hi-8 camcorder, to VHS, to DVD.



He could have recorded the movie. You never know, I was just stating.


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## PC eye

Here's one article about mounting iso or other types of disk images on an XP system.
*Microsoft has an unsupported virtual CD-ROM program. Why buy alcohol or Daemon Tools?*

Alcohol and Daemon Tools are excellent software packages that allow users to mount ISO files as virtual CD-ROMs. Yes, there is a way to use that ISO without burning it to a disk. 

Although I love these tools, Microsoft has a free, 60kb program that does the same thing! Of course, it is not supported... and it's not as friendly as the software listed above; however, it works and it's free. 

Here's the download link: 
winxpvirtualcdcontrolpanel 

Here's the readme: 
</SPAN>*Quote:*Readme for Virtual CD-ROM Control Panel v2.0.1.1 

THIS TOOL IS UNSUPPORT BY MICROSOFT PRODUCT SUPPORT SERVICES 


System Requirements 
=================== 
- Windows XP Home or Windows XP Professional 

Installation instructions 
========================= 
1. Copy VCdRom.sys to your %systemroot%\system32\drivers folder. 
2. Execute VCdControlTool.exe 
3. Click "Driver control" 
4. If the "Install Driver" button is available, click it. Navigate to the %systemroot%\system32\drivers folder, select VCdRom.sys, and click Open. 
5. Click "Start" 
6. Click OK 
7. Click "Add Drive" to add a drive to the drive list. Ensure that the drive added is not a local drive. If it is, continue to click "Add Drive" until an unused drive letter is available. 
8. Select an unused drive letter from the drive list and click "Mount". 
9. Navigate to the image file, select it, and click "OK". UNC naming conventions should not be used, however mapped network drives should be OK. 

You may now use the drive letter as if it were a local CD-ROM device. When you are finished you may unmount, stop, and remove the driver from memory using the driver control.
http://www.tech-recipes.com/windows_tips620.html


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## blake67T

bigsaucybob said:


> He could have recorded the movie. You never know, I was just stating.



This thread is not about the copyright laws, back on subject please


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## blake67T

PC eye said:


> If you plan on repeated captures and plan to store them on the drive you may want to consider having a second drive on the system for storage space. Even with the three different recording levels with the AVerMedia Ultra TV PCI350 tuner/capture card used here 185gb of video captures total saw low disk space warnings and a massive system slowdown. The primary on any drive needs space for swap files used for virtual memory.
> 
> With captures and later deletion you shouldn't see too much of a problem with low disk space warnings and slowdowns. Currently I am taking a good look at the Ultra TV PCI1500 seen at http://www.aver.com/multimedia.html The present card will eventually give out. So why not upgrade before it does. This one here has been used in three different builds already. To date I wouldn't go with another brand since this make has proven itself over and over again. Take a look anyways.




in the even i do this i will be doing 2 things for sure, one, buying a 200-400 GB hard drive for the recording, and make it slave, and also burn the recording to DVD.  the sell tivo, that would be my pc, and they sell dvd burners that you can cook up to your tivo, so i dont see a problem with it.


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## PC eye

You end up wanting a pair of 500gb drives for what you want to do there. That is about how fast drive space can be taken up. Tuner cards with a vcr program will record video in mpeg II format. Here dvds are made from older analog sources like vhs camcorders that still work or what can be patched in so that weddings, birthdays, and other occasions can be seen in dvd format.


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## Angel.of.Death

bigsaucybob said:


> Not to ruin anything, but if this is an actual movie DVD with copy right laws. It is illegal to copy the DVD onto your computer, no matter what you plan on doing with it.
> 
> I dont know if maybe its like you home video or something, but I'm just saying.



Nah, hes good. But if the DVD recorder HAS encrypted the data, use DVD DECRYPTER to copy the files to your HDD.

DONT USE IT TO SO ANYTHING BAD, LIKE BIGSAUCYBOB SAID...


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## mennaye

How do I copy a DVD{copied from my camcorder] to my computer Hard Drive to enable me to edit out unwanted portions ie pictures taken of my foot or sky.


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## PC eye

For capturing from an external analog source and omitting certain parts the only method that will work is simply making one capture and then stopping at or immediately after the portion to be edited out. From there you start a second capture to continue on seeing a different segment following each point.

When creating a burning project and going to cut the length on each segment to then burn to disk you then clip off the unwanted parts on one end of an mpeg II or avi file with the edit option the program has. I've haven't run into any program that allows merging two or more segments once captured that way however.

There is an alternate option that does means suffering on picture quality there. You simply record with a vcr patching the camcorder into that and pause when those portions come up. The dub is then fed into the capture card on the pc to see the editing already done. The pausing will leave marks along the way.


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