Convert DVD to AVI

Dumb question: will the above programs work to convert AVI to DVD? My (older) television and my PC haven't cross-pollinated yet, and I don't expect them to try, so any AVI files I have can only be watched on my PC. I'd love to be able to burn them and watch them in my comfy living room.

EDITOR'S NOTE: See http://askbobrankin.com/free_dvd_burning_software.html

How do you get the dvd to your hard drive to begin with? do you just do a straight copy/paste?

EDITOR'S NOTE: If using DVDx, you can access the DVD contents directly - no need to copy to hard drive.

Bob.... Whenever time permits, take a look at Format Factory. It's well done and also a freebie.

Best,

-Pete

You may try this all-in-one dvd converter, I always use it to convert DVD to MPEG and AVI video, my friends recommend it to me. It's safe and works pretty well for me, it supports copyright protected DVD, and here is a step by step guide about how to use it
http://www.freedvdripper.net/guides/rip-dvd-copy-dvd-converter-dvd-edit-dvd.html
Hope it helps. Contact me if you have any other question

For Joan, I am not an expert in this area but I do know that there is a program, ConvertXtoDVD which can be used to take the AVI file and convert it and burn it to a DVD. This is basically a one step process. I have done hundreds of times. That software is really great for burning the AVI to a DVD which will play on virtually any DVD player. Hope this answers your concern.

I thought just ripping a DVD was in itself illegal. Including making a backup copy.

Free full featured ripper/converter to most any format from most any format including your 3G phone and iPod. "Quick Media Converter" @ cocoonsoftware.com
Portable ver. available too.

If I RIP a file using a particular CODEC, will the computer that plays it back also need that same CODEC? Or, once RIPped, is the CODEC no longer necessary.

If playback CODEC indeed is required, is/are there any good to choose that are widely out there?

Just thought I would mention Handbrake and open source project (PC,MAC,LINUX) that you can download at handbrake.fr. This is an open source project that has a lot of option for encoding dvd material to more compressed formats (iPhone and portable devices). It does not use .avi as it is an ageing format but supports .m4v (aka .mp4) and .mkv.

@joan

There are stand alone DVD players made by Toshiba and Philips (to name just two)that play avi and divx formats. You can get one for about 40 bucks with a little looking. I've had a Toshiba for about 3 years that works very well.

However, I have found that hooking an old PC to the tv is a lot easier and requires no fussing about with conversions or codecs. VLC plays everything I've thrown at it, plays it well and looks great on the 42 inch flatscreen.

Thought I'd add my $0.02. I tried DVDx and had bad luck with it, but then I was trying to put MacGyver on an ipod at the time. I ended up liking a two program combo. First was DVD Decrypter which was declared bad and stopped, but you can still get and use. This program simply takes the raw files off a DVD stripping region codes and most protection as it goes:

http://www.dvddecrypter.org.uk/

The second is Handbrake which smoothly makes media files, mostly mkv or mp4 as I recall (the new H.264 format is wonderful). It also lets you adjust all sorts of things along the way, but has a simple default that works well.

http://handbrake.fr/

I've mostly used it to convert my wife's art lessons to computer format to fit on her netbook so she can watch them while painting, but they seem to work just fine for most any movie.

A cool use I've found is taking a Japanese Region DVD and converting it to Region 1 (usa). This seems a bit spotty and depends on the physical DVD hardware, my work machine works great. DVD Decrypt will try to de-encode it to regular DVD files on your hard drive. Then you can simply use a DVD burning software (such as Nero) to make a DVD disk and viola you have a Region 1 exact copy of your DVD that you can play on your regular player.

Of course you can also then load up handbrake and turn the decoded files into mkv or mp4 files, it's all up to you. You can probably even do this process with a US disk to make an exact copy of it, but I haven't had a need where I have several Japanese Music CDs with bonus DVDs that I want to watch.

I've also used handbrake to create mkv files from recorded VHS that was processed through a USB device. I've yet to perfect the process, but that has more to do with the VCR and USB device. I'm sure I'm not the only one with hundreds of rare out of print VHS tapes that I don't want to loose.

The last time I checked copying copy protected material of any kind was illegal because of the DMCA. That being said I recommend K9Copy in Ubuntu Linux for copying DVDs in uncompressed and compressed files that make the DVD-VIDEO compatible files small enough to fit on a 4 gigabyte DVD and burning it to a DVD-VIDEO disc in an application called K3B which can burn in any CD or DVD format I know of. I haven't tried it but you can also use K9Copy to copy a DVD and encode it to DivX, XviD or a lot of other compressed video formats if you want to store the DVD on your hard drive compressed to keep from using as much space on your hard drive. If K9Copy won't do the job WinFF will copy uncompressed DVD-VIDEO copied from the DVD using K9Copy. If none of that works you probably need to install ubuntu-restricted-extras and then open the terminal. Type into the terminal this:

sudo /usr/share/doc/libdvdread4/install-css.sh

enter your password and perhaps answer a few yes or no questions if necessary. Then you should be able to play, rip, encode video and DVDs as well as play about any format of audio or video files that you come across with about any media player and most of your browser plugins in firefox will be ready to play media with on the web as well. Its a lot easier to install these codecs in Ubuntu and you don't have to pay a dime for DivX support or for the operating system/distro or the DVD burning software.

Hello!
Thanks for article. I use MediaConverter123 for DVD conversion, actually I got it to convert my audio files but found it converts VOB form DVD as well. Maybe you'll check it out.

Thx for this good article, for professional dvd ripping software, I prefer 1click-soft
http://www.1click-soft.com

I just want to download a movie dvd that I have purchased to create a fan video on my computer. My options are to rip it or torrent? I don't really know how to do either. I have Magix video editing software, does this enable me to copy scenes from the movie at all?
Thanks for any help!

Thax. I think Tune4mac DVD Converter Pro is also a good one.http://www.tune4mac.com/mac-dvd-converter/