How to Transfer Files from DVD to Computer on Windows/Mac

Summary: Copying DVDs to computer offers a convenient way to preserve your collection or enjoy the movies without carrying bulky discs. However, finding an effective DVD ripper can be a challenge. This post aims to help by detailing several easy methods for ripping and transferring DVDs to computer with just a few clicks.

With the increase in digital streaming services like Netflix, Amazon, etc., DVDs are becoming obsolete. And once your DVD gets damaged like scratching, or cracking, the content inside won't be able to read properly. Thus, many disc owners prefer to copy DVD to computer to preserve their collection. On the other hand, you'll be able to cast them around your house using Plex or transfer them onto your tablet to watch while traveling.

If you're wondering how to copy DVD to computer, keep reading. Here we'll show you how to transfer homemade and copy-protected DVDs to computer on Windows/Mac with some highly recommended tools.

Part 1. How to Copy & Paste DVD to Computer Directly?

This is simpler but only works for DVDs without copy protection, like homemade or burned ones. This method copies the entire DVD structure to computer and you can play the folder with Windows Media Player, VLC, etc. without any problem.

Below are the steps:

Step 1. Insert the DVD into the disk drive.

Step 2. Double-click the DVD drive. Find and copy all of the DVD's contents and files like ISO image or DVD folder. In the ISO image or folder, you can see the actual movie files such as VTS_01_1, VTS_02_1, VTS_03_1, etc., each representing a Chapter.

Step 3. Copy and paste these DVD files to your computer's hard drive.

Cannot copy some DVDs to computer directly, why?

After putting a DVD to your computer, you see the disc drive appear but cannot open the video content or copy the DVD to your computer directly. That's the problem many DVD collectors are stuck with. Why? That's because most commercial DVDs are copy-protected by specific DVD encryption methods, which prevent us from accessing and copying the content directly. Other causes like firmware faults, file corruption, or mechanical failures may also lead to DVD to computer copying issue.

So, how to copy protected DVDs to computer? The best way is to use a professional DVD ripper to not just copy but rip copy-protected DVDs to digital formats to save on computer.

Part 2. How to Rip Protected DVDs to Computer?

Here, we'll introduce 4 workable ways including DumboFab DVD Ripper, Handbrake, VLC, and MakeMKV, to help rip and transfer protected DVDs to computer on Windows and Mac.

Method 1. Copy Protected DVD to Computer With DumboFab DVD Ripper

DumboFab DVD Ripper is a time-tested and reliable software that allows you to effortlessly copy DVDs to computer with just a few clicks. Both homemade and copy-protected DVDs are accepted. Whether you want to back up your entire DVD collection or extract the movie portion only, this tool has got you covered. With its powerful features and intuitive interface, DumboFab DVD Ripper makes the process fast, easy, and hassle-free.

DumboFab DVD Ripper can:

• ● Rip any copy-protected DVDs to computer, including those with CSS, region codes, RCE, 99 fake titles, bad sectors, and more.
• ● Convert DVD to MP4, AVI, WMV, MOV, MP3, and more media formats.
• ● Provide device-specific presets for popular devices like iPhone, iPad, Android phone, and gaming console.
• ● Offer 1:1 DVD copy options, allowing you to create exact replicas of your DVDs in single VOB format or DVD folders.
• ● Leverage Hardware Acceleration technologies, including Intel QSV, NVIDIA NVENC, and AMD, to significantly speed up the ripping process.
• ● Offer customization options, such as selecting specific titles, choosing audio tracks and subtitles, trimming unwanted clips, and more.

[Guide] How to rip and copy DVD to computer

Step 1. Download, install and run DumboFab DVD Ripper on your computer. After that, insert the DVD into your computer's DVD drive or the external DVD drive that hooked to your PC.

Step 2. Click the "Load DVD" button to load the DVD you just inserted into DVD drive. A couple of seconds later after loading DVD, all titles will be presented and main title will be selected automatically.

Step 3. Choose an output format.

On the Output Format panel, there are over 400 profiles including popular formats and device-specific presets. If you want to copy DVD to a space-saving and mainstreaming format for later storing into computer, you have much more choices such as MP4, WMV, AVI, and MOV. For example, you can go to "Common Video" and choose "H.264 MP4" as the output format.

If you want to copy DVDs in 1:1 to USB drive without quality loss, you can click "Copy the entire disc" button to backup the full DVD content with original disc structure. Or you can click Format > Copy > Directly Copy to copy the main movie title as a single .VOB file.

Step 4. Click the "Browse" button to specify the destination folder where you want to save the ripped DVD video on your computer.

Step 5. Finally, click the big "Convert" button to initiate the DVD ripping process. A progress window will be displayed, allowing you to monitor the conversion progress.

By following these steps, you can easily copy DVDs to your computer using DumboFab DVD Ripper.

Method 2. Transfer DVDs to Computer Free with Handbrake

As a free open-source program, Handbrake can not only transcode videos, but also convert DVD discs to MP4, MKV, and WebM for backup on a computer. Before we walk you through the steps to rip and copy DVD to computer with free Handbrake, there are a few things that you need to be aware of.

Firstly, Handbrake doesn't allow you to output files in other formats such as ISO and VIDEO_TS folder. So you cannot reply on Handbrake to make a lossless DVD backup. Secondly, it is a good choice for digitizing non-protected DVDs. However, if you intend to rip copy-protected DVDs with HandBrake, you will need to install libdvdcss to bypass DVD copy protection.

[Guide] How to use Handbrake to save DVD to computer for free

Step 1. Free download and install Handbrake on your computer.

Step 2. Download libdvdcss.dll 32-bit/64-bit version for HandBrake through the VLC website. Next, you need to move the libdvdcss.dll into the installation folder of HandBrake. This is a prerequisite to rip CSS-protected DVD using HandBrake.

Step 3. Open HandBrake, load the DVD from the Source Selection. It will take some time to scan the DVD titles.

Note: If the DVD you try to copy to hard drive has 99 titles or is protected with RCE, Disney X-project DRM or Sony ARccOS, you are likely to get an error message like "No valid source or titles found". In this case, I'm afraid that you'll have to resort to another professional DVD copy tool for help.

Step 4. Choose the title you want to convert and copy to hard drive and adjust the angel and chapters you want to retain. The auto-selected title may be not the movie title. You'd better check it before ripping.

Step 5. In the drop-down box of Preset, choose a preset as per your needs. Remember higher quality results in slow DVD converting speed and more space occupation of your hard drive.

Step 6. Choose audio and subtitle track.

Under Preset, you'll find seven tabs, namely Summary, Dimensions, Filters, Video, Audio, Subtitles, and Chapters. You can click on each tab and check if everything is set up exactly as you would like. You can click the Dimensions tab to change resolution, click Filters to turn on or turn off deinterlace, denoise, and more, click Video to specify video codec, bitrate, and framerate, click Audio to choose audio language and codec, and click Subtitles to specify subtitle language and whether you want to burn the subtitle into the DVD rip file or leave it as a standalone subtitle file.

Step 7. Start copying DVD to computer with HandBrake.

Click the "Browse" button to choose a folder of your hard drive as the destination and click "Start Encode" to begin ripping DVD to computer. During our test, it runs at speeds of 110-130fps.

Method 3. Save DVD to Computer for Free with VLC

VLC is a free and open-source multimedia player and it can also function as a DVD ripper. Withi it, you can convert CSS-protected DVDs into digital files for storing on a computer or other storage devices. Although its output formats cannot compare to those of DumboFab DVD Ripper, it supports formats more than HandBrake. It covers MP4, WebM, TS, MKV, AVI, WMV, MP3, and so on. But sadly it cannot export ISO image or VIDEO_TS folder.

Kindly remind, VLC doesn't rip all commercial DVDs to computer. And unlike dedicated DVD ripping software, VLC may take the entire runtime of the movie to complete the ripping process, which can be time-consuming for users with large DVD collections or limited patience.

[Guide] How to transfer DVDs to computer with VLC

Step 1. Download and install VLC on your computer, no matter what system you use, Windows, Mac, or Linux.

Step 2. Launch VLC, click "Media" > "Convert / Save …" > Click "Disc" tab from the "Open Media" window, and make sure you see the DVD you want to copy beside Disc device.

Step 3. Here you also need to choose title, audio and subtitle. Since there is no preview window, you may need to do some trial and error to figure out which track is the one you want. Then, tap "Convert / Save" button.

Step 4. Choose a profile.

If you need to edit the selected profile, you can click the "wrench" icon. You can click the "Encapsulation" to change container format; click "Video codec" to change encoding format, bitrate, quality, frame rate, resolution, and filter; click "Audio codec" to change audio encoding format, bitrate, channels, and sample rate; and click "Subtitles" to choose codec and specify whether you want to overlay subtitles on the video. When you finish the settings, don't forget to click the "Save" button to save your settings.

Step 5. In the Destination section, click the "Browse" button to select a location on your computer as the destination path for saving.

Step 6. Begin copying DVD to computer with VLC by clicking the "Start" button. Once the ripping process is complete, VLC will save the ripped DVD files to the location you specified on your computer.

Method 4. Copy DVDs to Computer Free with MakeMKV

MakeMKV is a popular DVD ripper, frequently mentioned in online forums. With MakeMKV, users can convert protected Blu-ray and DVD discs into digital MKV files for free during its BETA phase so you can save your DVDs on computer. There isn't any quality loss because MakeMKV will not transcode video during the ripping process. But it's also a double-edged sword, because it means that the output file will be very large. But that's not a huge problem if you have enough storage space on your computer.

[Guide] How to copy DVDs to computerwith MakeMKV?

Step 1. Download and install MakeMKV on your Windows, Mac, or Linux computer.

Step 2. Open MakeMKV and insert the DVD you want to copy to your computer.

Step 3. When MakeMKV detects your DVD, click the "Open DVD disk" button to let MakeMKV access your DVD.

Step 4. When you see a tree structure with your titles, video tracks, audios, and subtitles, just choose which titles or tracks you want to convert.

Step 5. Click "Set output folder" button to specify where you want to save the digital copy.

Step 6. Click the "Make MKV" button to begin converting DVD to MKV on your computer.

FAQs about Copying DVD to Computer

1. How to copy a DVD to computer without a DVD drive?

If your laptop doesn't have a CD/DVD drive, there are still ways to copy a DVD to your computer:

Method 1. Purchase an external USB CD/DVD drive. These are portable drives that connect to your computer via USB. You can use this external drive to read the DVD and then follow methods mentioned earlier to copy its contents to your computer.

Method 2. Use a DVD to digital converter hardware, such as ClearClick Video to Digital Converter. This kind of device can record and transfer your DVD to a USB flash drive or SD card. Once done, you can move your content from USB or SD card to your computer. But it is important to note that such device is expensive and can only deal with non-protected content. So, buying an external USB CD/DVD drive may be more affordable.

2. Is it legal to rip a DVD to computer?

Whether it is legal to rip DVD that you own for personal use depends on where you live. In the US, it is illegal to rip a copy-protected DVD. But some countries may have different laws. Although you are probably not allowed to do that by law, you probably won't get sued/caught as long as you don't distribute the copies.

3. What's best format to rip DVDs onto computer?

It depends on how you want to use the digital copy of your DVD. If you want to make an exact copy of a DVD, you can choose to save as Video_TS folder. If you want to save main movie only and play without format incompatibility issue, MP4 is the best choice, allowing to stream the copied file on TV, PC or laptop and more.

4. How long does it take to copy a DVD to computer?

The time it takes to rip a DVD to a hard drive can vary widely depending on several factors, including DVD length, DVD drive speed, computer hardware, ripping software, rip settings, and file format.

For instance, when using DumboFab DVD Ripper on a Windows 10 (64-bit) PC equipped with an Intel® Core(TM) i7-8700K CPU, it takes me just 8 minutes and 45 seconds to rip a 2.5 GB DVD disc to the MP4 format.