How to backup a DVD

If you’ve tried watching DVD’s on your laptop (eg on a plane or in the car) you’ll notice the batteries wear down pretty quickly. Here’s how to copy your DVD onto your laptop, which you can do at home, so when you take your laptop on the road you don’t need to take the original disk, and so the batteries on your laptop will last longer.

Before you copy a DVD you should make sure that it’s legal to do it in the country that you live in.  For example in Australia you are not allowed to copy a DVD to watch from your laptop except in some rare circumstances like Libraries and disabled people. In Vanuatu you are! Here are the rules for Australia: DVD copying rules.

Here’s how to do it…

1. Download and run “DVD Backup”. (The developers site has been down for a while, here is here. https://www.macintoshhowto.com/public/DVDBackup 1.3.sit
2. Insert the DVD. If the Apple DVD player runs automatically, quit it.
3. In DVDBackup click on ‘Add DVD Files’
4. Select the DVD in the left column and then click ‘OPEN.’
5. Make sure that Remove CSS Encryption is selected.
6. Click Process Files and select a name and location for where you want the DVD files to end up.

To Playback the DVD you need to do the following:

1. Open Apple DVD PLayer.
2. Go to Menu called FILE:OPEN VIDEO_TS or on newer versions FILE:OPEN DVD MEDIA
3. Select the VIDEO_TS folder of the movie you want to open.