I'm just starting to make flims from DVDs my self (been doing it a couple of weeks and have learnt a few things by trial and error so far).
You have the DVD and you want to take the data off it yes?
Or did you rip the data off the DVD already?
Please say exactly what stage you are at at the moment, and even though I have a different set up to you, maybe I can share some of what I've learnt so far
Much depends on what kind of DVD it is. If it is a copy protected commercial DVD then we cannot discuss that here.
If it is 'home grown' DVD you can use Streamclip (free, either google for it or search VersionTracker), but you will also need the mpeg2 component for Quicktime. It can be downloaded from the Apple Quicktime webpage (not free but cheap).
You can now convert the contents of the DVD to a DV stream and import that into iMovie for editing.
Thanks for all your input
I just downloaded my clips to my imac, right into imovie. edited it and shared it to idvd. Burned a dvd and watched it on the dvd player. Now is there a way to import this whole movie back into my imac at a later time so I can extract clips from it . I would like to dump the movie I have on my computer to free up space for other projects. Should I save it to dvd another way other than using idvd? should I just keep all the clips on the camera tape instead? Keeping everything on camera tape is what I am doing now. I may just record the edited version back to tape also.
I will do some research on the streamclip and mpeg2 you mentioned. seems when I insert the home made disk into my imac I cannot find a way to import it into the imovie. Its not reading it or somthing like that.
when I insert the home made disk into my imac I cannot find a way to import it into the imovie
That is because the DVD is in highly condensed mpeg2 format, which is the final delivery format and not intended for editing. You therefore need to convert that back to a DV stream for import into iMovie and that is what Streamclip and the mpeg component can do. The quality will suffer from all this re-conversion.
I may just record the edited version back to tape also.
That is your best plan, for the reasons stated above.