Put DVDs on external drive and watch on TV

[christopeach]

Hi there,I work with Autistic children and I want to put their DVD's on a External Hard Drive to view on their TVs, they have hd tv's with usb ports. The reasons for this is purely to avoid waiting for dvd's to load and getting scratched. I have tried winxdvd, but all the mp4 files will not open on the tv's, I think I used hanbreak and got one dvd to play. I know there are so many different ways to do it on this forum, but I am afraid I just can not find one way that actually works or that I can understand.


What I want to do is:
1) rip the DVD's to External Hard Drive
2) have a jpeg showing the dvd cover, to click and play just the movie.


Please help, me with simple foolproof way to do this.

PS. I have Premiere Pro CS5 can I do anything with that?

[Baldrick]

I use anydvd for ripping and dvd to mp4 conversion with vidcoder or handbrake.

But it's impossible to know what kind of mp4s works on a random TV and if the TV supports any jpg covers.


And nope, Premiere Pro isn't useful for this.

[christopeach]

thanks Baldrick, I am going to try Handbreak and use the high profile setting, I think that is where I went wrong, too many different folks with different strokes, I think that I overcomplicated it and used useless settings in winxdvd. Does handbreak decrypt, if not is dvd decrypter ok to use, I used this to make the useless mp4 files, so I am wondering if is this tat caused the problems.

[jagabo]

I am going to try Handbreak and use the high profile setting

That is the least likely preset to work. Universal or AppleTV are better bets.

[christopeach]

Oh flippen heck! so can I use apple tv even thought I do not have apple tv?

[jagabo]

The presets are just a bunch of selected settings -- essentially limits on the complexity of the features used. In Handbrake's list they generally run from least complex at the top to most complex at the bottom. A device that can play more complex videos will usually have no problem playing less complex videos.

[usually_quiet]

Does handbreak decrypt, if not is dvd decrypter ok to use.

Handbrake does decrypt, but when the default option that scans the entire disc is used, it falls over when it encounters bad sector protection, dummy cells and a few other copy protection schemes. In that case the user has to figure out which title(s) contain the video to be decrypted and converted and use File->Open Source (Title Specific) to select it.

Decrypter can rip some DVDs, but not others. Because development on DVD Decrypter ended some years ago, it doesn't know how to handle newer forms of copy protection.

[Cornucopia]

Most quality-conscious power-users here would do a separate decrypt (using DVDFab, ANYDVD, BDLot, etc) and rip, then use a separate conversion tool (such as handbrake).

jagabo's suggestions are a good way to go.

Scott

[jagabo]

I'd experiment with different presets then use the highest one your TV plays.

[christopeach]

Thanks for your help guys, I have found a way to do it perfectly, except no cover art, I used makemkv, to extract the main movie, and the converted it to mp4 using the default settings in formatfactory, it worked perfectly.

[lordsmurf]

Can't AnyDVD do all of this in one pass? That's not what I use it for, but think that's the case.

Maybe *the best* method, but easiest. Cartoons can be more forgiving of issues, too, so that's why I'd look into this method.