HELP Please - want to copy family videos...

Can anyone help me with this?

I am copying old family VHS tapes to DVD for Christmas gifts to my children. The Sony dubbing deck I use allows me to make these copies fairly easily. Now that I have made a few DVD's, I tried to play one on the computer (played on the iMac okay), but the problem I have is to "save" the DVD to hard drive, edit them, then make 3 copies for my children.

I am totally confused how to "save" a DVD. It seems the iMac OS (current OS system) will not allow me to do it. I have searched these forums and read about software that would allow me to do this, but admittedly I am very confused.

So my question is - do I need to purchase a specific software? and if so, which software would be best for this application?

Thank you in advance. You all are my "smart people" network

Dave in Virginia

I This this is what you want. It says Leopard(older version of OSX) but it should follow the same.

How To Make Copies of DVDs

Thank you

Thank you Ramimac 1.

That is a lot of information to digest, but I'll give it a try. I appreciate your response.

Dave in Virginia

Ramimac's link will enable you to make a copy of your dvds so that you can make further dvds. If you want to edit the footage that is on your dvds then use Handbrake. This will produce a video file which you can then edit in iMovie.
HandBrake

Just remember, the resolution on VHS video is pretty poor, so your finished project is not going to be any better.

Handbrake will take the already-compressed footage from the DVD and compress it AGAIN, causing further quality loss.

What you really want is this: DVDxDV ($26): https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dvdxdv-regular/id411934891?mt=12

HELP-Video burned to DVD will not play on other DVD player

I am in the process of recording old family video VHS tapes to DVDs for our children's Christmas presents. We have 20 DVDs recorded.

As someone suggested, I downloaded "Handbrake" to successfully upload one of the newly recorded DVDs to my iMac. I then put an empty DVD-R into slot, then clicked on the movie in the hard drive "burn to disc". It burned a successful copy. I can play this copy in my computer DVD drive.

THE PROBLEM - the newly recorded DVD will not play on the DVD player we have connected to our television. However, it will play while in the computer.

Any ideas what I am doing wrong? I would sincerely appreciate your guidance.

Thank you.

UPDATE:

I used the link provided by Ramimac 1. It scanned on the final step and everything looked good, but at the end of the scan a window appeared "Unable to create "Family Christmas 1987.cdr" (Input/Output error)

I tried 3 times with the same results.

I then downloaded "Handbrake" as someone also suggested. Handbrake enabled me to successfully download the DVD. It plays from the hard drive. Now, the problem I have is to burn the video to a DVD that will play on the other DVD player we have connected to our television. I can burn a DVD by right clicking on the downloaded video in hard drive, then clicking "burn to disc" - it will burn to the blank DVD which is actually playable in the computers hard drive, using Quicktime. But that DVD will not play on the the DVD player we have connected to our television.

The family video I downloaded using Handbrake is stored on my hard drive as a .m4v. When I play in my DVD player connected to the television, I get the following image:

This technology is impressive and continues to amaze this old Grandfather. I just wish I could figure things out a little better

Thanks for your help.

Threads merged - No need to create a new thread about a continuing issue..

I then put an empty DVD-R into slot, then clicked on the movie in the hard drive "burn to disc". It burned a successful copy.

Click to expand...

I can burn a DVD by right clicking on the downloaded video in hard drive, then clicking "burn to disc" - it will burn to the blank DVD which is actually playable in the computers hard drive, using Quicktime. But that DVD will not play on the the DVD player we have connected to our television.

Click to expand...

That's because all you have done is burn a copy of the video file to a dvd, and made a "data" DVD. What you need is a "Video" DVD to able to play it in a DVD Player.
As your Mac doesn't have iDVD, download a copy of Burn from here. It's free.
Burn - Home
Run Burn and you'll get a window like this:



Drag and drop your video file into it, select Video and DVD-Video and hen click Burn and that should work.

However, not all DVD Players will play all DVDs made on a computer.