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DVD Ripper for El Capitan

Avatar Trevor Hewson
I have a DVD (transcribed from video8 tape to DVD by a transcription service). I want to use one of the videos (which is a .VOB file) in a Keynote presentation, possibly topping and tailing it in iMovie first.

Any suggestions on a (preferably free, and ideally from the App Store) app to use? The file is a little over 1GB so I'm anxious not to waste too much time with so-called free apps that turn out to be trial versions that keel over after 5min of video.

Re: DVD Ripper for El Capitan

Avatar Douglas Cheney
There is on the App Store a program called Free MP4 converter which I have used and found very good

Re: DVD Ripper for El Capitan

Avatar Trevor Hewson
Thanks Doug. In the meantime, I've managed to convert the file to a .m4v using VLC, which until now I'd regarded only as a very versatile player. I've also managed to import this into iMovie but iMovie seems to have lost the soundtrack. I suppose it might be possible to play back the .m4v and use it as a voiceover in iMovie but I'm sure there must be an easier way.

Re: DVD Ripper for El Capitan

Avatar Tony Still
Trevor,

Have you tried Handbrake?

Very capable. I suggest you get it from its own site as it's not on the App Store and it must be a tempting target to the bad guys for all those little 'extras' that you won't want to receive.

Re: DVD Ripper for El Capitan

Avatar Trevor Hewson
Thanks Tony. What formats should I be aiming at to play nicely with iMovie? There were other export options in VLC but I just used the default.

Re: DVD Ripper for El Capitan

Avatar Tony Still
Trevor, you may need to experiment. The aim being to lose as little quality as possible in the import transcoding.

I believe that VOB is essentially MPEG-2 so that would be a good place to start: all the formats are compressed so this might save a decompress/recompress cycle with its associated information loss. The format includes both video and audio. Try not to change the frame rate, resolution or aspect ratio (your source material is presumably 4:3 SD so likely to be 704(or 720)x576 pix).

Second choice is probably H.264/MPEG-4 but I think that might involve transcoding.

Best of luck
 
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