Rip DVD and VCD to PC

[peebee23]

Sorry if this has been asked before but I cannot find an answer;

I want to rip both VCDs and DVDs to my PC to then edit in Movie Maker (or hopefully Premiere Elements later in the year). The idea being that once edited I will transfer to You Tube and/or network storage. The discs in question are all home movies so not protected.

What would be the best (preferably free) piece or pieces of software to accomplish this?

[yoda313]

For home made movies you can use dvd shrink or dvd decrypter since they aren't protected.

For vcds just copy the folders to the harddrives.

You'll probably need to mux them into mpg to get them useable in editing software. Vob2mpg MIGHT work for vcd don't know for sure.

There used to be something called vcdgear if I remember right for working with vcds. However I don't remember for sure.

Also you might be able to get away with renaming the .dat file to .mpg though that's not a sure fire thing.

[manono]

Yeah, the free version of VCDEasy can also convert DAT files to MPG. Go Tools->MPEG Tools->DAT File (open the DAT)->MPEG File (give it a name and destination)->Convert.

[peebee23]

Thanks guys

[Cornucopia]

Do NOT, Do NOT, Do NOT just copy VCD folders to hard drives. Use the DAT->MPG Tools in one of these apps: ISOBuster, VCDGear, VCDEasy. In the past, I've found VCD to be the easiest & best, but it now has a VERY HARD time working at all in Vista/Win7, so YMMV.

IIWY, I wouldn't use WMM unless that was my last/only option. And even then, I'd output to DV-AVI and then convert to my destination format from Virtualdub or something.

Scott

[peebee23]

Do NOT, Do NOT, Do NOT just copy VCD folders to hard drives. Use the DAT->MPG Tools in one of these apps: ISOBuster, VCDGear, VCDEasy.

Scott

Thanks for the tip, VCDGear does not seem to want to see the DAT file on the CD - will it work if I copy the DAT file to the HDD then convert it?

[Cornucopia]

Cornvert it how? Not likely, unless the software doing the converting understands the difference between Mode1/M2F1 sectors and Mode2/M2F2 sectors. If not, you could get garbage in the desired signal. And without the file still residing on the disc, it wouldn't be implicitly clearcut.

Scott