Advice please on importing dvds

[janice]

HI
Im a novice and not very cluey on tech stuff.
I have just got Handbrake and have been able to download YOuTube videos (although they wont import into my ipod).

What I am having difficulty with is importing dvds that I own. This is what I have tried:-

1. i put the disc in and it comes up on the desktop
2. i turn on handbrake
3. Desktop box automatically drops down but disc is not showing in it
4. I cancel that and go to chapters and nothing is written in there
5. Except for Source, everything else seems to be greyed out

So maybe these companies have worked it so you cant import from their discs.

Any advice/suggestions?

[dynaflash]

well, first what platform are you on ?

If its mac, then the dvd would not be in your desktop directory (even though the disc icon does show up on your destop)
It should be on the left of that open source window, probably right under your hard drive (by default called Macintosh HD) you should see the dvd listed below that, just choose that dvd icon and HB should open it up.

[Smithcraft]

Handbrake no longer encodes directly from a protected DVD. You would need to have VLC installed to use it's parts for encoding basic DVD protection.

If you are serious about doing bunchs and bunchs of DVDs then you should consider, for Windows, DVD Fab, or AnyDVD, or for OS X, RipIt, or Fairmount(not my recommended nightmare), MTR(obsolete but mostly functional), and a new one http://macdvdripperpro.com/ .

Take the output from one of those and feed that to Handbrake.

SC

[edit] And these days I think many people use MakeMKV which is available for both Windows and OS X. [/edit]