Hi, I have copied a DVD to my hard drive using Disk Utility. I did this as a back up should the DVD become damaged or lost. I can make a DVD out of it so all is well. I however wish to be able to watch the DVD directly from the Hard Drive ie from the .CDR file.
Is this possible? Advice welcomed. Alternative approaches welcomed if the above is not feasible.
Thanks in advance.
MacBook Air, OS X Yosemite (10.10.5)
FWIW Handbrake is not cracking any encryption or circumventing encryption by definition; It's screen caping whats on the disk. So while this could constitute reproduction which depending on the copyright laws of your country there is no "decryption" going on with it.
Lets assume the DVD is a home movie, as such the resulting file could be placed in iTunes and shared to other devices on your shared account as a "home movie", but not a "Home Video" which limits that files sharing to movies purchased exclusively through Apple Computer. Select the file, get info in iTunes (CMD+i) and you can change a video file to a list of video types in the Options tab
Rules of copyright are governed by the decisions of your countries government and can not be superseded by Apple Computer. Apple can state they do not do business with countries and do not want their software or hardware distributed within those countries but that is the extent of their legal precedence.
Please be mindful of how you proceed.
FWIW Handbrake is not cracking any encryption or circumventing encryption by definition; It's screen caping whats on the disk. So while this could constitute reproduction which depending on the copyright laws of your country there is no "decryption" going on with it.
Lets assume the DVD is a home movie, as such the resulting file could be placed in iTunes and shared to other devices on your shared account as a "home movie", but not a "Home Video" which limits that files sharing to movies purchased exclusively through Apple Computer. Select the file, get info in iTunes (CMD+i) and you can change a video file to a list of video types in the Options tab
Rules of copyright are governed by the decisions of your countries government and can not be superseded by Apple Computer. Apple can state they do not do business with countries and do not want their software or hardware distributed within those countries but that is the extent of their legal precedence.
Please be mindful of how you proceed.
Yes, you can watch a DVD on your Mac, but not straight from that file. You will have to convert it first. This process may or may not be legal; proceed at your own risk. (Most folks hold that they should be allowed to watch their own DVDs any way they like.)
Download Handbrake (handbrake.fr) and install it. This software allows you to "rip" a DVD, which basically converts the video into a useful format and saves it on your computer. You should be able to use either the Disk Utility copy or the disc itself. Just point Handbrake to one or the other when it asks for a source, then type a destination (e.g. Desktop) and file name (e.g. my-movie-01) in the destination field, select a preset (Apple TV 3 is a good place to start) and press the green Start button at the top.
What happens when you double-click that .cdr file?
It should just "mount" as a reproduction of the original source file.
After it is mounted, you may be able to launch your preferred video/DVD viewing app to that mounted image, and view normally.
If it was a commercial DVD backup, most likely you are trying to view the Video_TS folder as the source file
If QuickTime or your Apple DVD player cannot see it, you may be able to play it with "VLC".
A .cdr file is a special 'disk image' format that Disk Utility uses for copies of CD-ROM or DVD discs. Like all other disk image files it is possible to 'mount' this by double-clicking on the file and it will magically appear as if you had inserted the original physical disc.
However as implied by others here, if the disc was a commercial DVD movie then merely copying it using Disk Utility will not have worked as Disk Utility cannot copy encrypted commercial DVD movie discs. (Software DVDs generally do not use copy protection.)
If it was not a copy protected DVD then once mounted you should be able to use Apple's DVD Player application to play the video on that .cdr just as if you had inserted the original disc.
In general if a Movie DVD disc is labelled as 'Region 1' or 'Region 2' or any region except 'Region 0' it is going to be an encrypted i.e. copy protected disc. If it is 'Region 0' or not labeled with a region at all then usually it is not copy protected.
How to watch a .cdr file on a mac?
