How do you convert DVD home videos to digital, mp4 etc.?
I was searching my parents’ for our old VHS home videos/“movies” my friends and I made as kids, and discovered that my mom had someone burn each tape to a blank DVD a few years ago, and then threw out the original VHS tapes.
And since she only made a single copy for each video, and because I don’t have much faith that these old blank-DVD’s won’t crap out at any given time, and therefore losing the footage forever, I was wondering if there was a simple way to convert them to digital (I’m hoping it’ll be “simple”...due to them being home movies on a burned DVD, as opposed to a protected, copyrighted Blu-ray of “Surf Ninjas,” or something).
Thanks!
Comments
Get Handbrake.
It's totally free and no nasties included.
https://handbrake.fr/
It can convert most types of media to either mkv or mp4. I'd advise one of each for your valuable stuff, using teh "Legacy - High Profile" preset and MKV as a kind of reference copy (or Matroska H265 720p, which will upscale slightly).
Both if you want.
Then use the normal general or device presets to create MP4 copies that should play on anything.
You could also (or first) just take an image copy of each disc - you can then burn that back to blanks to make as many duplicates of each as you want.
imgburn is the best option for that. Again, totally free.
http://www.imgburn.com/
If you are concerned about the disc states, working from copies avoids any chance of damage during multiple different conversion passes.
I usually backup my DVD collection to my mac using Cisdem Video Converter. I have succeed convert 20 DVDs, including home DVD and commercial DVD.