blu-ray

How I rip DVDs and Blu-Rays into my Mac (2022 Edition)

It's been more than a decade since I wrote Ripping Movies from Blu-Ray, HD-DVD and DVD, Getting them onto Apple TV, iPad, iPhone, etc.. Heck, back then I didn't write everything as a 'blog post'—that was labeled as an 'article' :P

In a surprising twist of fate, we went from a somewhat more centralized online media situation back then (basically, Netflix) to a hellscape of dozens of streaming services today. And in many cases, older movies can only be found as used and/or pirated DVDs on eBay!

Thus, I'm writing a fresh guide to how I rip DVDs and Blu-Ray discs into my Mac, then transcode them with Handbrake. Heck, some people who are deeper into the r/datahoarder rabbit hole even have dedicated transcoding servers so they can generate optimal archival copies in 4K, 1080p, etc. akin to how YouTube and other online platforms set up their files!

But for me, the basic process goes:

Ripping Movies from Blu-Ray, HD-DVD and DVD, Getting them onto Apple TV, iPad, iPhone, etc.

DVD to iPhone Apple TV and iPad - Ripping

Note: The guide below still applies, but you can now rip and convert Blu-Ray movies directly in Handbrake if you download MakeMKV (don't even need to run it) then run the following commands in Terminal.app: cd ~ mkdir -p ~/lib ln -s /Applications/MakeMKV.app/Contents/lib/libmmbd.dylib ~/lib/libaacs.dylib ln -s /Applications/MakeMKV.app/Contents/lib/libmmbd.dylib ~/lib/libbdplus.dylib Also note that iDentify is no longer maintained; I usually use the free MetaZ application to edit metadata before importing into iTunes nowadays.

For many years, I've been in search of the 'digital nirvana,' where all my videos, songs, and photos were accessible on any device, anywhere, at any time, without having to do a complicated digital dance with wires and different sychronization tools.

Using the Plextor PX-B120U Blu-Ray BDROM Drive with a Mac

A few notes from my initial use of the Plextor PX-B120U external USB BD-ROM drive (you can pick it up for under $100!):

  1. You need to plug the drive directly into your Mac, or use a USB hub capable of providing enough juice to power the device directly. Since the Plextor drive doesn't actually have an AC adapter, it needs all its juice through the USB port. (I was trying to plug it into my weak Belkin USB hub, and that wasn't working).
  2. You can use the drive with VMWare Fusion, but it seems you need Windows Vista or Windows 7 to be able to actually do anything besides read DVDs or CDs with the drive.
  3. I don't have Windows 7 (yet), so I can't yet test how well a new iMac can play back Blu-Ray discs using the included CyberLink PowerDVD 9 BD.
  4. I am evaluating MakeMKV (a native BD/DVD ripper for the Mac) to see if it will be able to do what I did for my HD-DVD collection—back everything up in full HD, including the surround sound tracks (I'm okay with Dolby Digital 5.1...)

I'll post back here with any new updates I find.

Converting High Definition Movies to Watch on Mac/PC

NOTE: I have since written a newer article that makes it MUCH easier to do just about everything, making use of MakeMKV. The new article: Ripping Movies from Blu-Ray, HD-DVD and DVD, Getting them onto Apple TV, iPad, iPhone, etc. &mdash I am leaving this article up for historical purposes, though, as there is some good information in here still...

This article will help you to convert HD-DVD and Blu-Ray movies to QuickTime compatible files so you can watch them in high definition in iTunes, Front Row, or QuickTime Player. The guide will also help you to be able to convert the videos into other formats so you can preserve the surround sound and the highest picture quality.

Blu-Ray and HD-DVD Logos

Converting the HD-DVD or Blu-Ray

1. Copy FEATURE_1.EVO and FEATURE_2.EVO to hard drive by decrypting them using AnyDVD, DVDFab HD Decrypter, or some other decrypter. Some DVDs use different naming schemes, but the files you need are the two largest 'EVO' files.

NOTE: I have only been able to work on HD-DVDs, so Some of the steps here don't work (or only partially work) with Blu-Ray, but I hope you can find some inspiration for getting your blu-ray files to work with Quicktime, if you so desire. Google can help you find how to get the blu-ray files ready for demuxing/conversion. Soon I will get myself an external Blu-Ray drive and start tinkering around with Blu-Ray movies... but for now I'm happy simply working on HD-DVD.

NOTE 2: I simply used the Xbox 360 HD-DVD drive, as I found one cheap locally (through Craigslist), and it works via USB 2.0. It's also quite compact! If you do so with Windows XP, you'll need to load a driver to enable support for the UDF 2.5 file format HD-DVDs and Blu-Ray discs use.

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