DVD to netbook

Mike_J

Going on holiday and my daughter would like to take some of her DVDs to watch BUT.....she has a netbook and not a laptop.

What is the easiest way to copy some of HER DVDs onto HER netbook for HER to watch. We have an external USB DVD drive which can be plugged into the netbook

23n1th

My favourite is DVDFab Free. Seems to run faster than the others and has good options for the free version.

Figment

The obvious answer is to take the USB DVD drive and the disks. As this is probably not the ideal option, you could try something like Daemon Tools to create images of the disks on her netbook and use a virtual DVD drive to play them.

This option would work in theory. You would have to check whether it actually works as the disks may have copy protection, and also consider whether it infringes copyright

marleyboy

Have you considered a USB flashdrive, you can get a 32Gig for around £15-20, which is ample for movies\music.

Likewise my netbook has an external DVD drive, but would be too bulky and cumbersome for me to take both, so I opt to store movies or music on a USB flashdrive which can easily be slipped into a pocket or netbook sleeve.

23n1th

I can't see how there would be copyright concerns. The OP stated the DVDs were bought by their Daughter, so she owns the copy and wants to view it on a device of her choice.

I'd use the ripping software encode the movie into an avi file and use VLC to veiw them from the hard drive.

Figment

I'm not an expert in copyright law, hence my comment "consider whether it infringes copyright"

...and the OP has an external DVD drive, not an external hard drive

23n1th

My apologies I didn't mean to right external.

AHAR

23n1th wrote: »

My apologies I didn't mean to right external.

Did you mean to write right?;)

23n1th

AHAR wrote: »

Did you mean to write right?;)

Yep, a little joke about my dyslexia.

Mike_J

As stated in the replies, taking the external drive is not really an option as part of the usage will be on the plane and we all know how little room you get in the first place. Burning to the hard-drive OR to a USB flash drive is certainly the preferred options.

I supposed what I needed pointing to was a simply use conversion program. In effect, on ewhere you shove the disk in a drive, select something like "create file to be viewed on your hard drive" and then press "go". (Aint that much of a techy so simple to use is the main priority). It maybe that I have software on my laptop capable of doing it already but without knowing what formats to look for etc I really dont know.

Daft question, I take it you cant simple drag and drop the "disc" to a folder on the hard drive?

Figment

No, you need to create a disk image, otherwise you will get a collection of files and folders which you could play if you were technically minded enough to know which files to look for and what program to use them with.

The Daemon Tools option I gave above, has a Disk Imaging Option, where you insert the disk, select the drive you want to image and the folder you want to store it in on your hard drive. Using the same program you then create a virtual DVD drive on your netbook, mount the image in the virtual DVD drive and it will load/run/play as if it was a physical disc in a physical drive.

The only other software you will need if not already installed on the netbook, is a DVD Player like SM Player