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  1. Hello,

    I am film student who is doing his dissertation on Shane Meadows, (english film director)
    I am making for my project what is called an 'Audio-Visual Dissertation', essentaly
    I am going to be using finalcut pro to make an essay, by editing together pieces of Meadows
    films with a voice over to make an argument about his work..

    Some of his work I have been able to get off of youtube and putlocker which is fine, but
    some is only aviable on DVD, I tried to convert Twenty Four Seven to MP4 using handbrake
    but the film came out badly the sound was fine but the image is full of purple squares and unwatchable.

    My question is essentialy, is it possible to convert a copy of the DVD to MP4 and have it in a watchable quality,
    or if this is illegal, even under educational licence, is this not possible..

    This is really important for my degree, I hope someone can help.

    Thanks in advance.

    Alex
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  2. I'm a MEGA Super Moderator Baldrick's Avatar
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    Yes, it's possible to rip/decrypt dvds with for example dvdfab (now called blufab).

    But if it's legal is a more complex question. Some countries has made it illegal to use programs that break encryptions like in dvds and blu-rays.

    In here it's okey to discuss ripping for movies you own.
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  3. Banned
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    Without knowing your county of residence, we can't comment on the legality. In the USA for example, it is technically illegal to decrypt your own legally purchased DVDs and BluRays for your own personal use but no movie studio wishes to take individuals to court for decrypting for personal use out of fear that it might make the practice legal. Hollywood gambled and lost big time in the famous "Betamax case" and fears another binding legal precedent.

    Even if this is for educational purposes, there might be some restrictions. For example, in the USA there is a legal concept of "Fair Use" but the problem is that it is not specified as to what exactly meets Fair Use, so each court case involving it has to decide whether the situation in question meets Fair Use or not. There was an interesting case a few years ago where a documentary used a very short excerpt of John Lennon's song "Imagine" under Fair Use because Yoko Ono refused to license it to the film (she probably didn't agree with the film's content, although the film had nothing to do with John Lennon). Yoko sued and argued "That wasn't Fair Use" and the court basically said "Oh yes it was". So it just illustrates how a litigious person who owns a copyright can still make your life miserable and go after you if you try to assert Fair Use rights. Basically the shorter to excerpt, the more likely it is to be seen as Fair Use.

    Anyway, your unwatchable video problem is likely caused by you using too low of a bit rate on the video during conversion, but as you provided no details beyond basically saying what you got was unwatchable, all I can do is give you a general suggestion to use a higher bit rate.
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  4. Thanks guys, I will give DVDFab a try and let you know if it worked..

    I am in the UK and think it is the same as the US, it's cool we can talk about it
    thought this thread might get deleted.

    I will also try using a higher bit rate, I didn't give much detail as it's hard to describe, if it does not work
    I will put up a screen shot of what the video looks like..

    Thanks

    alex
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  5. Alex, since this is for legitimate educational use, there is no reason not to go to the copyright holders and ask permission. They may be delighted. You'll have to look them up anyway for your footnotes, and you might get some good interview leads out of it.
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  6. Is there a standard bit rate for ripping dvd to mp4 which you would suggest trying ?
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  7. I have managed through the help of BluFab to rip the dvds and appart from the occasional Blufab logo in the top left corner its done well, does anyone know how to get rid of this? I imagine use a different programme..

    My next question is, I have a dvd with two films on it, does anyone know how I could rip the second film, I can't seem to figure out how I can select what to rip from the dvd...

    Thanks
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  8. Originally Posted by yerrella View Post
    ...and appart from the occasional Blufab logo in the top left corner its done well, does anyone know how to get rid of this?
    Unless they've changed recently, just decrypting to the hard drive does nothing to the video. I can only conclude you both decrypted and converted. Decrypt the movie or full disc and then convert to the MP4 you want using whatever you like (you used Handbrake before). Use BluFab only for decrypting to the hard drive.

    My next question is, I have a dvd with two films on it, does anyone know how I could rip the second film, I can't seem to figure out how I can select what to rip from the dvd...
    If you decrypt the entire disc you should then be able to convert whatever you want using whatever conversion program you like. Or, if this thing doesn't have advanced copy protection, using DVDDecrypter in IFO Mode will allow you to decrypt just that second movie.
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