How to get my DVD media from a Sony Handycam DCR-DVD105 onto my computer?

Question

Ok so, My friend is doing a movie project for school, something with Huckleberry Finn. So this camcorder she used uses those small DVD's, similar to the gamecube game discs. So, when i put this disc onto my computer it has .VOB, .BUP and .IFO files, which are all the DVD media files and what not. I try to open them and it comes up with the message "Windows cannot open the file" To open the file, Windows needs to know what program created it. Windows can go online to look it up automatically, or you can manually select from a list of programs on your computer. Then i select windows media player and it says i need a DVD decoder. Where can i get this? Please help, really need these movie files onto my computer so i can edit the film. post any questions you have and I will try my best to answer them

Answer 1

Windows is an operating system, so Windows can't do anything with those files. An application that runs under Windows is needed.

Since you want to edit the video you need an application that can change the video format to something MovieMaker can use. In this case, you need a DVD ripper.

I use HandBrake

http://handbrake.fr/?article=download

There are lots of rippers out there... I just happen to like HandBrake.

After downloading and installing HandBrake, put the miniDVD disc in the DVD drive of your computer. If it tries to "autoplay" and you get those dialog boxes just close the dialog boxes and ignore them. Launch HandBrake. It will detect the disc in the drive - you want to convert the disc's video to something MovieMaker can understand, so DV, AVI or WMV formats should be fine. You might want to make a folder and store all the converted video files in that folder so they are easier to find.

Warning: DVD based camcorders compress their video more than any other storage media used by consumer camcorders. The video quality will not be very good. I hope it is good enough for what you need.