Copying DVD's on Mac

My latest project has been trying to copy a complete movie DVD (with the menus, special features, etc all intact) on our MacBook Pro.

(*DISCLAIMER - THIS INFORMATION IS INTENDED FOR PEOPLE WHO ARE TRYING TO MAKE A COPY OF A DVD THEY ALREADY OWN*)

So the system I am working on is a MacBook Pro (the mid-2008 style) with the 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Processor. It also has a built in Dual-Layer DVD drive (Dual-Layer DVD's are what all movies are made on now, as they can hold up to 8.5 GB instead of the 4.7 GB that a regular Single-Layer DVD can hold). I am running Mac OSX 10.5.5

I did some searching all over the internet on how to go about copying this DVD, but most of the information I found involved purchasing the program called Toast from Roxio. Having already owned a similar program from Roxio called Popcorn, I wasn't interested in spending any more money - so I worked for a couple days and finally found this free alternative.

If you do have a Single-Layer drive, there are many ways out there that you can still burn your retail movie DVD and fit it on a single disc. You can remove features, compress the movie with programs such as Popcorn, etc. There is a lot of information about this kind of thing that can be found with a quick Google Search. My focus, however, will be on simply copying an entire DVD with a Dual-Layer DVD drive. I am focusing on this because most new computers are coming with Dual-Layer DVD drives now anyway. The easy way to tell if your computer's DVD burner is Dual-Layer? Get into your system settings, whether you are running Windows or Mac OSX, and look for the initials 'DL' somewhere in the description for the DVD burner.

There are three programs you are going to need to copy a retail movie DVD. All three are free.

1. MacTheRipper
-This program allows you to rip the movie from the DVD to your computer, and it removes all of the copy protection. The program is free and is easy to use. Apparently there is an 'Enhanced Version', or something of the like, that you can get a download link to if you make a small donation to the people at MacTheRipper. I myself just downloaded the free version, and it works perfect for this application.

2. DVD Imager
-This program will allow you to take the data you ripped from the DVD and convert it to a .img file in UDF format. What this does is put that data into a form that, when burnt to a DVD, will load properly in DVD players as a DVD movie disc, as opposed to a data disc.

3. Disk Utility
-No link for this program, because it comes free with Mac OSX. To access it, go to Finder-->Macintosh HD-->Applications-->Utilities. It should be there as 'Disk Utility'. When you put in a blank DVD to be burnt, it will also pop up a menu asking what you want to do with the DVD. 'Open with Disk Utility' is one of the available options in the drop down menu.

The actual ripping process is fairly straightforward.

-Load MacTheRipper and insert the DVD you wish to copy. There are some options that you may have to tweak (the RCE Region for one). You can also choose here if you want to rip the entire DVD or just a certain section (for example, you can rip only the feature, or the actual movie, if you wish). There is a very good manual that comes with the program. Read through it from the start and you will have no problems. As long as the size of the rip shown is under 8.5 GB, you should be good to go with a Dual-Layer burner (and appropriate DVD's). When you have everything set, hit the GO! button at the bottom.

DVD's will take awhile to rip. Depending on how big the disc is, it can take anywhere from about half an hour to an hour. So you will want to find something else to keep you busy while the disk is ripping. Please note that when the file is done ripping, you may get a message pop-up that says something about 'BAD SECTORS'. I did have this message on the one movie I tried. In the end, I ignored it, and it still worked.

-Once the data has been ripped, it will be placed on your hard drive somewhere that you specified (often in your Movies folder). You will notice, if you ripped the full DVD, that there will be a bunch of files and folders inside the folder that is named after the movie. There will for sure be a VIDEO_TS folder, which is the most important. There likely will be a folder called AUDIO_TS and files such as AUTORUN.INF showing too.

-Now you will want to open your DVD Imager program. DVD Imager comes with a version for Mac OS 10.2-10.4 and a separate program for MAC OS 10.5 - pick whichever is applicable and open it. The application will load, and you will see a couple of options at the bottom with the small buttons to choose which you want. The options are VIDEO_TS Folder mode and Disk Copy Mode. For our purposes, ensure that Disk Copy Mode is selected (I believe it is selected by default anyway).

-What you will want to do now is go find the folder that was created when you ripped the DVD (the one with the VIDEO_TS and other folders in it). Take the VIDEO_TS folder only, and drag it to DVD Imager. Drop it on the stack of DVD's shown in the picture (when you mouse over it while dragging the VIDEO_TS folder, you will see a green box with a + sign show up in it). Drop the folder, and it will be added to the program. You should then be able to choose 'Create Image' at the bottom. The program will take it's time and make an image file for you. The image file will be large. If you copied the entire DVD, it could be close to 8 GB.

-Once DVD Imager is done and you have a .IMG file of your movie, you are ready to burn. Insert your blank DVD. The ones that I am using, that I hear are the best for Dual-Layer movie DVD burning, are:

Verbatim DVD+R DL
8.5 GB
8x speed
240 min

These Dual-Layer discs are NOT cheap. It is almost $50 for a stack of only 15 of them, working out to over $3.00 per disk. In trying to find a way to properly burn these DVD's, I wasted 7 of them. Use my instructions so you don't have to waste a bunch of them too.

When the DVD has been put in the Super Drive, a pop-up menu will eventually show up. You are going to want to choose the option that allows you to open the 'Disk Utility'. Now this part is actually pretty straightforward.

Take the .IMG file that you made in the last step, and drag it to the left hand side of the Disk Utility program. It will show up in the list on the left. Click on that file, and go to 'Burn' at the top. As long as you have a Disc in, it will recognize it and allow you to burn (or you can enter one at this step). The program will then go through the process of readying the data, burning it to the DVD, and verifying it. This is another time-consuming procedure. I didn't track exactly how long it took last night, but my best guess would be around an hour or a little more.

-YOU ARE DONE! You should now have a perfect copy of whatever movie you set out to copy. Try the DVD in your Mac's SuperDrive (use the DVD Player application that came with OSX), and then try the movie in your regular DVD player that is hooked up to your TV. You should be set. While testing my DVD last night (again, off the original rip, it did mention bad sectors), I noticed the video went slightly fuzzy for about 2 seconds on one of the opening warning screens - but after that, it was perfect. I had ripped the entire movie including Theatrical and Extended Versions, Menus, Special Features, etc. - like a complete retail DVD.

It literally took me countless hours over several days, plus money wasted on DVD+R's, to finally get this to work. There is VERY LITTLE information on the internet about copying a DVD this way. Most of the information focuses on using the programs Toast or Popcorn by Roxio. These are expensive programs that are prone to crashing. I have Popcorn myself - when trying to drag a VIDEO_TS folder to it, as it mentions on the feature list IS supported, it will crash the program every time.

The way that I showed you will allow you to copy your DVD's for FREE, other than the money you spend on your DVD+R's. Hopefully you can find this useful.