How to Duplicate a DVD With iDVD

iDVD can easily help you make your own copies of movies.

Apple's iDVD program, like most of its iLife programs, is an application that makes it easy to burn movies and other media direct to DVDs, provided that your Mac also has a DVD burner. If you have a recorded DVD that you want to duplicate, there are a couple of ways that you can do so with iDVD: You can make a digital duplication of the movie to load into the application or make an analog recording for the same purpose.

Things You'll Need

• DVD player
• Video capture card
• RCA composite cables
• Blank recordable DVD

Instructions

Digital Duplication

1. Insert the original DVD into the Mac's disc drive and look for the disc icon to appear on the desktop.

2. Click on the DVD icon to open it, then locate the main movie file in the Finder window that appears; it may be in a folder within the Finder, and it will be the largest file in size.

3. Drag the movie file onto the desktop to instantly make a copy. This copy will be saved to the desktop. Eject the DVD by dragging it to the trash once the file is copied.

4. Open iDVD and select the "Magic iDVD" option.

5. Click on and drag your DVD movie file from the computer desktop into your iDVD application's "Drop Movies" row to add it to the project. If the iDVD application is covering up the file on the screen, drag and move the application out of the way.

6. Type in a name for the DVD in the "DVD Title" text box, and select a disc menu from the options in the "Choose a Theme" row.

7. Insert a recordable DVD into the drive and click on the pinwheel-like "Burn" button in the lower right corner of the application.

Analog Recording

1. Connect a video capture card to the computer; you will need to use an external card with a USB connection for your Mac.

2. Install the driver/application software via the software CD. The CD will provide the installation instructions.

3. Connect your DVD player to the card with composite cables; these are the yellow, white and red RCA-style cables.

4. Load your DVD in the player and turn the player on.

5. Open the application for the video capture card. Go to the Finder or hard drive and locate it in the Applications window and double click on it, then look for the DVD video to appear in the application's screen.

6. Play the DVD video and click on the capture card program's "Record" button to make an analog duplicate of the movie. It may be best to stop the recording at intervals of your choice and then resume, creating individual chapter files.

7. Save the movie as an MP4 or similar video file, whichever format the capture card uses. If you are creating chapters, you will need to save each file immediately after stopping the recording each time.

8. Open iDVD and record/burn the movie/files to a DVD as described in Steps 4 through 7 in the Digital Duplication section above.

Tips & Warnings

• The digital option might not work on commercial DVDs due to copy protection.

References

• Apple iLife Tutorials