It’s got a free 30-day trial, so you can see if it works for you. It costs $50, and I trust the developer, who has been updating it diligently for years. This is the essential disk-extracting software for Mac. It’s working great so far and Alex was great to work with. Rather than flash the firmware in Windows myself, I just bought a pre-flashed drive from Alex Coluzzi, one of the drive resellers on the previously linked Reddit thread. Recently I upgraded my disc-ripping hardware with a $200 4K UHD-compatible drive flashed with LibreDrive firmware, which means it’ll read data from discs of any region and any format. I have this $60-ish model, which is pretty old, but serves as a CD/DVD burner and also reads Blu-ray discs. Time was, almost every Mac came with an optical drive. What you’ll needĪn external optical drive. Still, if the idea of any of this makes you uncomfortable, look away. I don’t have any qualms about place-shifting my personal viewing of content I’ve purchased and still own.

Distributing files that subvert copy protection is arguably illegal in the United States using that software is more arguably legal. I use these tools on discs that I own, in order to create files that I keep within my household. I’ll detail my methods below, but as at Macworld I want to start with a disclaimer: I don’t use these tools for piracy, and neither should you. Back in the Macworld days, one of our most popular stories was about how to convert DVDs into files, so clearly there’s interest in this subject. For other people, though, it’s still a bit of a mystery. For some people, getting video off of a disc and playable in iTunes or on an iOS device is old news. When I mention converting DVDs and Blu-rays on Twitter, people ask me about the method I use.

Many of these are TV shows and movies that now stream in HD on one of the streaming services I subscribe to, making me question my purchase decisions, but intellectual property appears and disappears from streaming services so often that I like to have my own streaming service of sorts, one full of movies and shows that I can watch on my large home TV or load onto my iPad for a flight without worrying. I’ve got a couple of large plastic bins in my office that are full of DVDs and Blu-rays. Warning: This story has not been updated in several years and may contain out-of-date information.

Makemkv inside out