PhilipT

Q: Ripping DVD (via handbrake) won't play on Tiger or Lion.

Hello folks,

 

I'm new to DVD ripping so perhaps I'm being really thick...

 

I used handbrake to rip a DVD to an external hard drive on my old MacBook running Tiger.  Handbrake gave it a .mp4 extension.  When I try to play it, either on my old MacBook running Tiger or on my Air running Lion, an error message says that 'QuickTime Player can't open "DVD_VIDEO.mp4 because the movie's file format isn't recognised.'  A 'tell me more' button directs to this page http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3775?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US which annoyingly assures me that mp4 format is suported! 

 

Is this something to do with ripping the DVD on an old Tiger compatible version of handbrake...?

 

Many thanks for any responses.

 

Philip

Posted on Jun 22, 2012 4:18 PM

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Q: Ripping DVD (via handbrake) won't play on Tiger or Lion.

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  • by dsimagry,

    dsimagry dsimagry Jun 22, 2012 4:29 PM in response to PhilipT
    Level 4 (1,275 points)
    Jun 22, 2012 4:29 PM in response to PhilipT

    Must have something to do with the codec found within the .mp4 wrapper that Quicktime is unable to recognize.

     

    Have you considered trying a different Video/Media player, such as VLC, MPlayer or Niceplayer, to playback the finished video file?

  • by babowa,

    babowa babowa Jun 24, 2012 9:00 AM in response to PhilipT
    Level 7 (32,034 points)
    iPad
    Jun 24, 2012 9:00 AM in response to PhilipT

    Are these DVDs commercial (DRM protected) or homemade movies? If it's the former, we are not allowed to discuss circumvention of copyright issues. If it's the latter, you might try a converter; as far as I know, Quicktime cannot deal with mp4.

  • by John Lockwood,

    John Lockwood John Lockwood Jun 24, 2012 6:23 PM in response to PhilipT
    Level 6 (9,309 points)
    Servers Enterprise
    Jun 24, 2012 6:23 PM in response to PhilipT

    Handbrake stopped including code that allowed it to rip protected (commercial) DVDs a long time ago. It then relied on a copy of VLC being present in /Applications to provide that ability and used it automatically. However VLC has more recently stopped including that code.

     

    It should be noted that format shifting which is what Handbrake is doing in this case is legal in some countries.

  • by babowa,

    babowa babowa Jun 24, 2012 8:58 PM in response to John Lockwood
    Level 7 (32,034 points)
    iPad
    Jun 24, 2012 8:58 PM in response to John Lockwood

    Interesting - thanks for posting that information!