Video

This page gives some basic information on making a file based copy or backup of a DVD. I am not supporting illegal copies here, that is clearly wrong, I am talking about making file copies for your own personal use.

A good page to start with is The Hassle-Free Guide to Ripping Your Blu-Ray Collection and this refers to some things to follow.

VLC will also "rip" a DVD, however the command line has proved to be the best way, as follows: vlc dvdsimple:///d:#2 --sout "#standard{access=file,mux=ts,dst=dvdout.mpg}" vlc://quit but you will need to make sure you use the correct drive letter and title number, the example uses title 2 on drive D. See Rip DVD - VideoLAN Wiki for some more help.

Download from YouTube

Note that for this I have been using VLC 2.0 and higher:

  • Open VLC
  • Select "Stream..." from the Media menu
  • Switch to the "Network" tab
  • In the network URL box paste something like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNu8XDBSn10
  • Press the "Stream" button at the bottom, and then click "Next"
  • Click "Add" then "Browse" and find a location to save the file, enter a name like "video.mp4" and click "Save"
  • Click the following buttons: "Next", "Next", "Stream"
  • An image from the video will display and the blue progress bar at the bottom will show progress
  • Once done, you should have an MP4 file you can open and play

Download from YouTube (Alternative)

Note that for this I have been using VLC 3.0.20 and higher:

  • Open VLC
  • Select "Open Network Stream..." from the Media menu
  • In the network URL box paste something like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNu8XDBSn10
  • Press the "Play" button at the bottom, and then what while the video loads and then plays
  • When playing, pause the video
  • Select "Codec Information" from the Tools menu
  • Click in the "Location" box at the bottom, press Ctrl+A to select all and then Ctrl+C to copy the URL to the clipboard
  • Open your web browser, past the URL in and go to it, after a pause the video will start playing, so pause it
  • Right click on the video, and select "Save video as..." and save the video to a file
  • Once done, you should have an MP4 file you can open and play

Make MKV

If when you run MakeMKV you see "This Application version is too old..." search the forums for a new license key, this product is free while in Beta.