Watching DVDs Without the DVD

How do I put a DVD movie on my laptop and be able to watch it without the CD in the CD Drive? I'm pretty sure this is possible, I just don't know how to do it.

When I copy the contents of the DVD into My Documents, the video files are VOB files. I think I need to change the format of the video file.

Any help is appreciated!

 

You need to rip it to your hard drive using DVD Decrypter or Smart Ripper. The video files on the DVD are encrypted and cannot be viewed if you move them over in Windows. Vob files contain the movie. I don't know which one Dell has, but there is probably software to view moives which will also play .vob files like Power DVD or WinDVD.

 

i suggest VLC media player. plays almost any file you throw at it and is extremely minimal and easy to work. plays vob files from dvds perfectly.

 

if you follow zazonz' advice and rip the dvd to your HD, you can then use something like Daemon Tools (free) or Alcohol 120% (not free) to create a virtual drive and then mount the image that you've ripped onto the virtual drive. you can then point your dvd viewing software to the new (virtual) drive and play the dvd files just as if it was an actual dvd in the drive.

 

When zazonz said ripping, he meant encoding it into a different file format. You must mean creating a image of the cd. just to clarify things up.

 

I downloaded DVD Decrypter and I can watch DVDs without the CD!!!!YES!!! Thanks so much!

 

u can watch the video files directly thru' Win Media Player 10 after copying it to ur My Doc folder. I am not sure why u require another decrytion step.

 

I recommend using DVDShrink 3.2 to rip your DVD's to hard drive. It compresses the DVD to half their size, and the compression is spectacular - you can't tell the difference!

 

Shrink is starting to have problems with DVD encryption particularly with Sony movie DVDs and is not being updated anymore. You might want to try DVD Fab Decrypter.

 

If you're going to shrink the movie, Nero Recode Digital does a pretty good job. You still have to rip the ISO first w/ DVDDecrypter, as Nero won't recode the a copy-protected flick. Once shrunk, you can delete the ISO file.

 

If you drag the .Vob and every file from the disc to your mydocument. You can view it in Window Media Player. But it does not combine the sound stream with video. So chance are you'll get video only. You ca view them using PowerDVD or WinDVD etc... Just drag the file over those program.

Oh i have a question for any of one using VLC Player. I'm using that right now. It work pretty well, but with some video, it crashes. Is there any other stable player out there that do the same thing? I heard media player classic is good. But how is that compare to VLC.

 

i have tried VLC and media player classic both. and i would prefer the media player classic over any program out there. you can dl the "K lite codec pack", which include the media player classic and try. i am pretty sure, you are gonna like it.

and i don't know what happend in your case, but i just copy the vob files in my hd, and play later in either media player classic or windvd, and they played just fine so far.

 

in theroy, wouldent doing this save battery for a long trip?