Member Avatar for eander23

I'm trying to copy a home DVD to my hard drive and I'm having a tough time. It's just a home movie so there aren't any copyright laws being infringed. When I open the DVD drive there's a file that reads VIDEO_TS. I've tried just hitting "copy" and that doesn't help. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

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noted the disc shows a VIDEO_TS folder and that a simple Explorer copy didn’t produce an obvious playable movie. was right to ask about the OS (tools differ), and correctly pointed out that drag-and-drop is the same basic operation as copy/paste — which works only when the disc is readable and not protected.

Two practical workflows work reliably:

  • Preserve the exact DVD (menus, chapters) for later burning or mounting: create an ISO image of the disc. A dedicated imaging tool can build an .iso on the hard drive that is an exact replica.
  • Produce a single playable file for PCs/phones: rip the main title into a single container. Use a fast lossless ripper to produce an MKV, then optionally transcode to a smaller MP4/H.264 for universal playback.

Recommended tools (well-supported and widely used):

  • MakeMKV — rip DVD titles to MKV without re-encoding.
  • HandBrake — transcode MKV to MP4/H.264 with quality controls (RF ~18–20 is a good balance for home video).
  • ImgBurn — create ISO images if preserving the full DVD structure is desired.
  • VLC — quick convert option if no other tool is available.

Common troubleshooting notes: copying will fail or produce unusable output if the disc is scratched, not finalized, or if the drive has trouble reading it. Commercial copy protection prevents plain copying; ripping tools often handle this but legal restrictions vary by country. If read errors persist, try cleaning the disc or a different DVD drive, and keep an ISO backup of the original home movie before transcoding.

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Member Avatar for bobbyraw

what operating system are you using, how are you going about copying the file, meaning are u doing this in windows explorer, what is the size of the file on the dvd.

Member Avatar for caperjack

I've tried just hitting "copy" and that doesn't help. .

did you then go to the hdd and hit paste.also you should be able to just drag and drop in windows Explorer

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