Apple expert question

Unfortunately not.

 

I think many of the blu ray disks you buy now come with a digital version you can copy to your mac or pc - would that be a work around?

 

Yes, if you use a piece of software called Handbrake to rip the DVD to your hard drive first.

 

Be warned though, it takes quite awhile to rip, at least 45 minutes to an hour.

 

Yep!

They don't! - They do it for the good of the community/their ego's...... If you remember DVD encryption was *supposed* to stop this style of ripping - Unfortunately (for the industry) they chose a crappy algorithm which "we" told them when announced would only take a while to crack - Some smart dudes did it for fun/because they could.....

A lot of these guys work "part time" for their employers on the understanding that 50% (or whatever) of their time is to be used to work on open source/free projects. The employer likes to have some "stud" names on their payroll - I've worked with a few over the years.

Cheers,
Ian

 

Can you locate your Mac near your AV system? Reason I ask is that we now use our mac to stream music and push the video out to the AV receiver (via the video out). The mac sits on a Rain design stand that sits on a shelf above the "closeted" AV gear below it. The DVD player is fully functional and you don't need to rip the DVD first.

If you need to use the Mac, just grab and go - return it to the stand for charging or viewing/listening to music - all controllable via the AirMouse app on the iPhone.

 

Unfortunately, there can be many reasons for this.

The handbrake support forums are a great source of help, but you've got to post the "activity log" - See here; https://trac.handbrake.fr/wiki/ActivityLog

I don't know how geeky you are, but viewing it *may* give you some pointers, or at least allow a quick Google of the error messages. You probably want to search their forums for whatever error message(s) you see - Chances are someone else has already seen the exact same issue and it's already answered.......

That it managed to do "some" of the ripping is a good sign - You're close!

It can be frustrating - It's some powerful & flexible S/W - But it can do it [with very, very few exceptions] - Stay patient - We'll get there!

Cheers,
Ian

 

What is "too far"? One part of the house is fed via a 50' HDMI (for video) you can stream the audio via Airfoil (syncing can be tricky) - or use a TosLink cable (Mac is digi out).

Both available from Monoprice about $30 total.

 

Very easy to use, great software & support.