Rip an homemade DVD-Video without re-encoding on Mac OSX Lion

I have an home-made DVD-Video (without any copy protection whatsoever) and I'd like to import its content to iDVD on my Mac OSX Lion system to make new menus and cut some of the video sequences to make them shorter.

As far as I know, DVD-Video is MPEG2 and iDVD should be able to work on MPEG2 source material - of course not in VOB format. I could use Handbrake to rip the DVD but it forces me to re-encode it to MPEG4/H.264, iDVD should accept it but will re-encode a second time when I burn the final DVD. I'd like to avoid all this re-encoding and keep as much quality as possible from the original DVD Video.

I found some other (free or shareware) software that promise to do what I want but the ones I found require Apple's MPEG2 Quicktime component that costs €20 and I'd like to avoid that expense just to do some new menus.

I have MacPorts installed and I'm fluent on the command line so any option will do, GUI or console.

I could I rip that DVD without re-encoding? What container / file format should I target to make iDVD happy?

Luke404

Posted 2011-09-27T17:48:13.730

Reputation: 517

I have exactly the same need, just for importing into Final Cut Pro. – thSoft – 2011-11-03T10:08:53.527

Answers

MakeMKV will rip & decrypt a DVD to an MKV file. I'm not sure what formats iDVD will accept as input, but the most you'd need to do would be to use some tools to remux the MKV output into whatever you need.

Perian might be all you need to give iDVD MKV support for import.

afrazier

Posted 2011-09-27T17:48:13.730

Reputation: 21 316

It's trivial to convert MKV to MP4 container format using, e.g. Subler. – Frans – 2016-02-03T17:33:49.343

This is a Windows-only application. – thSoft – 2011-11-03T10:07:37.367

@thSoft: No, it's also available for OS X. Check the Download page. It does require Leopard, but doesn't indicate if it supports PPC. – afrazier – 2011-11-03T14:17:40.843

Ah, I see. Unfortunately, Final Cut Pro can't import MKV either. :( – thSoft – 2011-11-03T21:45:50.020

You can use VLC's export wizard, but it is not guaranteed that iDVD will support the target container format.

thSoft

Posted 2011-09-27T17:48:13.730

Reputation: 470

1Been there, tried that. I used MakeMKV to copy (without re-encoding) from the DVD's VOB format to the Matroska container, then used VLC export wizard to copy (without re-encoding) from Matroska to MPEG / MOV / whatever container. iDVD will open the end result but it will get played at wrong video speed and missing / garbled audio. – Luke404 – 2011-11-05T13:48:11.107