On my DVD player the .VOB files are greyed out within the VIDEO_TS folder so I cannot access them

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Level 1

8 points

On my DVD player the .VOB files are greyed out within the VIDEO_TS folder so I cannot access them

am trying to put my home movies onto the my iMac. I see from earlier streams that a programme like Handbrake should work. But when I open the VIDEO_TS folder within DVD Media (Version 6.0) the files within the folder are greyed out, so I cannot work on them. Any ideas on how I get them into a workable shape ? (fyg the video have been made on a 2007 vintage Panasonic VDR D310)

I can play the videos on the iMac via the DVD_CAMERA programme. I just cannot find a way to save them to the machine. (BTW these are home videos, so there is no issue with copyright protection or whatever).

Thanks

iMac 24″

Posted on Apr 22, 2025 1:57 AM

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Answer 1

MartinR

Level 7

24,137 points

Apr 22, 2025 6:21 AM in response to Rio Man

It sounds like you are trying to open the DVD with the DVD Player app in order to copy the files. DVD Player is only for playing your DVD, not for copying the folders or files to your Mac. (And in any event just copying the contents of the VIDEO_TS folder will not make the resulting copy playable.)

Use Handbrake to copy & transcode your DVDs to put them on your Mac. When you run Handbrake it will scan your DVD and then you can choose which video to copy from the DVD to your Mac. (It's possible there may be more than one video on the DVD.) After scanning the DVD and selecting the video, have Handbrake convert the video(s) to MP4 file format with H.264 video encoding. (Choices on the main Handbrake screen.) Converting the DVDs to MP4/H.264 will enable you to play the videos on almost any personal computer.

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Answer 2

Old Toad

Level 10

215,310 points

Apr 22, 2025 11:05 AM in response to Rio Man

Another way to store the video DVDs on your Mac is to use Disk Utility to make a .dmg image of the DVD video disk. The you can mount the disk image and play it with DVD Player:

With the disk image you can get the DVD video menu as well as the videos. `

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