Tech: Mac: DVD won't play

Subject: Tech: Mac: DVD won't play
From: Thompson
Date: 28 Jun 15 - 04:28 PM

A friend has given me a DVD with a programme copied onto it by its maker. It plays fine on the TV, but won't play on my Mac. Or rather, the copy I've made, putting the VIDEO_TS and VIDEO–RM folders into a folder with the same name as the original DVD (SONY_RECORDER) won't play on my Mac. I had to copy it over from an ancient Mac to a newer Air using a flash drive because the Air doesn't have a DVD player.
Where am I going wrong?

Subject: RE: Tech: Mac: DVD won't play
From: Thompson
Date: 28 Jun 15 - 04:30 PM

Further: the DVD plays on other computers (I'm told).

Subject: RE: Tech: Mac: DVD won't play
From: Thompson
Date: 28 Jun 15 - 04:32 PM

Further yet: what I see when I open it in VLC or the Mac's DVD Player app is six squares, the first saying
Title 1, and underneath that --/-- 0:26:18
the second saying
Empty Title
and the third, fourth, fifth and sixth blank.

Subject: RE: Tech: Mac: DVD won't play
From: Andrez
Date: 28 Jun 15 - 06:42 PM

Hi Thompson, I just googled this phrase: "What do VIDEO_TS and VIDEO–RM mean on a Mac DVD? " and got a lot of interesting possibilities for solution that may be of use.

Good luck with your search,

Cheers,

Andrez

Subject: RE: Tech: Mac: DVD won't play
From: Thompson
Date: 29 Jun 15 - 09:44 AM

Thanks, that helped - I can now watch the m4v version on the Mac; it still has the countdown timer running across the top of the film… can't seem to remove that.

Subject: RE: Tech: Mac: DVD won't play
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 29 Jun 15 - 10:39 AM

Macs are generally picky about what DVDs they will recognise. Certain brands of blank ones just won't work in my Mac, others are fine!

Subject: RE: Tech: Mac: DVD won't play
From: Thompson
Date: 29 Jun 15 - 10:56 AM

Tattie, this isn't a DVD at this stage, it's a bunch of files. My Mac doesn't have a DVD player, so I just copied the files over to it. Handbrake has converted them to a readable form, but retains the countdown timer - I assume the DVD passed over to me was an original editing copy. The only reason I want to get rid of it is that it's kind of annoying.

Subject: RE: Tech: Mac: DVD won't play
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 29 Jun 15 - 11:11 AM

Ok, my comment was just a bit of thread drift re Macs and their foibles.

Subject: RE: Tech: Mac: DVD won't play
From: Thompson
Date: 29 Jun 15 - 01:38 PM

Oddly, I've never found that with DVD-bearing Macs, Tattie - except to the extent that Maplins once sold me €32 worth of DVDs which wouldn't recognise the Mac, and then refused to give me my money back on them because they claimed they'd worked on another Mac. Otherwise they were all fine.

Subject: RE: Tech: Mac: DVD won't play
From: Andrez
Date: 29 Jun 15 - 06:00 PM

Glad you found a solution Thompson.

Cheers,

Andrez

Subject: RE: Tech: Mac: DVD won't play
From: Thompson
Date: 30 Jun 15 - 03:19 AM

Well, nearly there, Andrez, not quite. The film still has a countdown timer playing over it (it's an ancient editing copy, I think), so I'm now see if I can remove that.