What software is for exporting from self made DVDs ?

Look into the free Handbrake converter.

Make sure your TV can actually play videos on a flash drive. Some TVs have a USB socket but it is only used for software updates. If your TV can play files then likely mp4 will be acceptable. Mkv is another popular format but your TV manual should tell you what it can do. MP4 has to advantage that it should also be accepted in AppleTV on a newer computer.

Hi, txchain,

As Limos says, Handbrake is a good converter to use for your purposes. Mp4 is one of the most universally compatible formats, so I would go with that. Your USB drive should be formatted ExFat for use on a TV.

To begin, insert your DVD into the DVD player of your computer or an optical external drive. When the DVD's icon appears on the screen, click on it. You will see a screen that contains an AUDIO_TS folder and a VIDEO_TS folder.

Open the VIDEO_TS folder (ignore the AUDIO _TS folder -- you don't need it). Your home movie is contained in the files with the VOB extensions. (Ignore the other ones -- they are just data and back up files.) Option-drag (Copy, not move) the VOB files

out to your desktop, making sure that the originals remain in the VIDEO--TS folder. You can then open those desktop VOB files with the free download, Handbrake, and convert them to MPEG-4 videos that you can open and play, or import them into iMovie to edit and share out as movies.

You can get Handbrake here:

https://handbrake.fr/

A simple way to do it is to open Handbrake and do a File/Open Source. Navigate to your VOB video and choose it as the source from the resulting screen. Then do File/Start Encoding. Wait a couple of minutes for the conversion to complete. Then save and import the converted clip into iMovie.

-- Rich

Make sure you select the Video_TS foler in Handbrake. I don't know if you selected an individual file if it would then just convert the one file to a video and you'd end up with your video possibly in separate pieces.

With the method that I described you will end up with a video in separate pieces, corresponding to each VOB file. Then after converting them to Mp4 they can be stitched together in iMovie. I've not tried opening the entire VIDEO__TS folder in Handbrake. I would think that one would still get a movie in separate pieces, since multiple files are being converted. But maybe Handbrake stitches them together? Just haven't tried it.

-- Rich