DVD to Imovie

Hi all, This is my fist time on here i.v just changed over from windows to mac and learning my way so my question is I have a home video i have converted to DVD now can I edit the DVD in Imovie so I could upload a section of the video to You've been framed. Any help would be great and would also stop the kids going on at me to get it on there. Thanks

With it being a home movie, to be able to edit it in iMovie, you'll need to get the video out of the DVD and into iMovie. To do this will require two major steps -

1) ripping the dvd
2) importing into iMovie.

Step 1 is fairly easy since you're dealing with a home movie dvd, just download a program called Handbrake (handbrake.fr) which is free, and use it to rip the video. It has no decryption capabilities so it won't rip store bought/rental dvds (plus the discussion of doing that is prohibited here). Use handbrake to rip the video (set the source to the DVD from the source dropdown button, if you want to increase the video quality, that's fine but 60% should be ok, then click start - the default settings (mp4, auto audio, etc.) should be fine.

2) once it's done ripping and converting (might take a bit), you should be able to import it into iMovie through (I think) the file dropdown which has an option for importing video.

Thanks i'll give it a go. Thanks for your help ;D

i'v used handbrake to convert to mp4. But imovie does not let me import the movie so that i can edit it ??. When you go to the import the file is light gray any ideas?

I'm doing a quick convert now of an avi file using two different presets in Handbrake, it's possible that you may need to select a different preset to work right with iMovie, once it's done and I have a chance to try it I'll let you know (I usually use final cut, and although I know you can convert and get it into iMovie, I don't do it often enough to remember the settings to make it work right)

Thanks I'll look out for your post i have also tried to import as a avi file but still get the same Thanks again for you help.

Greetings.
You haven't mentioned which version of iMovie you're using, but the following should help:

iMovie 09 accepts
DV
AIC
Motion-JPEG
Photo-JPEG
MPEG-4 (Supported profiles)
H.264 (Supported profiles)
Apple Animation (Movie '09 only)
Apple Video (iMovie '09 only)

iMovie '08/'09 will not accept files containing extraneous data tracks such as:
'Tween
Text
Chapter
Closed Caption
Secondary audio such as AC3
etc.

iMovie '08/'09 Will not accept files that rely on proprietary/third-party components such as
DivX
WMV
XviD
etc.

Cheers Mitcherooney

Mitcherooney does point out good information.

Now if you did a default profile, without any changes, you should have ended up with an mp4 that has a single audio track out of handbrake that should be supported. I can't comment on earlier versions, but I know on iMovie '08, I took a file I exported with handbrake 0.94 to a mp4, default config (ie: not adding additional audio tracks or subtitles, etc.) it imported into iMovie just fine, plus the file wasn't grayed out.

What version of iMovie are you using? I kind of assumed you were using '08 or '09 which was a mistake (I should have asked earlier) but if it is '08 or '09 it shouldn't gray out a file with extension .mp4 - even if it will fail on the import (ie: an mp4 with an unsupported profile/config), it should show a .mp4 file as possible to import, and the default setting on handbrake 0.94 does import into iMovie '08 (and should work on '09 as well) without a problem (obviously assuming you selected mp4 and didn't fiddle with the settings. You could try, on the settings panel, selecting Apple -> Universal and see if that works. I did test that setting as well, and it created an mp4 that I was able to import as well.

I'm using imovie 09 only had the mac since boxing day. Yes i did use default which did make the move mp4. thanks

Ok, I'll have to wait until I get home to see if I can reproduce what you're getting as the only Mac I have that has iLife '09 on it is my mini...

WooHoo i got it to work i started again and converted the dvd to avi. To see if that worked (nope) so then uses a program called prism and converted the avi to mp4 and bish bash bosh it worked. High five!!!. Thanks for you time to try and help me out ;D