Viewing 5 posts - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)
  • Techy help please. Copy DVDs to tablets/usb sticks/chromebooks etc, formatting?
  • midlifecrashes
    Full Member

    Being a bit of a luddite and just putting a DVD in a DVD player when I want to watch it I’ve just had a waste of an hour faffing trying to make things work. Windows PCs here, no macs in the house.

    What’s the most convenient software these days to take movie off DVD? Either as just movie or whole menu DVD to retain subtitling options? (She’s watching Spanish stuff in Spanish with either English or Spanish subtitles for her homework).

    Next problem we came up against was she got to a 5GB .mkv file on her netbook and tried to copy it to an empty 32GB usb stick. No go, up against 4GB file size limit. How are folk formatting their bigger USB sticks, memory cards for tablets and portable hard drives these days?

    Thanks in advance, I should really have done a bit more video piracy to keep up to date with this stuff.

    Freester
    Full Member

    I’ve been arsing around with this and found the best free method is to use MakeMKV to rip the DVD (software is free for DVD tho I think you have to pay for Blu Ray). Once you have the MKV file use Handbrake to create a file that you can watch.

    Don’t be scared by the interface it’s quite easy and there are a lot of presets suitable for high quality (eg PC) and smaller file sizes for Tablets / Phones etc. It doesn’t retain the menus tho. I am sure you can have a play with the relevant sections to get the right soundtrack etc.

    bensales
    Free Member

    You can do it all with Handbrake. Handbrake will prompt you to download an additional piece of software [to do something technically illegal] first before it can convert the DVD to whatever you like. Chances are there is a Handbrake rendering pre-set for your tablet and you just press Start and wait an hour or so.

    batfink
    Free Member

    bit of an ethical minefield….. but if you already own the DVD, there is an argument for just downloading a digital version in your desired format (from whatever torrenting site you’d like). The argument is that you have already paid for a licence to watch the content, you just want to do so on a device of your choosing.

    The advantage is that it will probably be quicker to do that than to rip/convert (depending on the speed of your connection).

    I’m sure somebody will tell you/me that we will burn in hell for doing this…..

    Matt24k
    Free Member

    I use download link Freemake Video Converter, it’s free.
    It allows you to convert a DVD and many other file types to loads of preset formats with choices of quality and also custom options.
    A good balance of quality to file size using the MP4 file type creates a 700mb file from a DVD. You can go all the way to full HD with high bit rates but you’re wasting your time if you are starting with a DVD as it is standard definition to start with.

Viewing 5 posts - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)

The topic ‘Techy help please. Copy DVDs to tablets/usb sticks/chromebooks etc, formatting?’ is closed to new replies.