How to import old DVD videos into iMovie for editing?

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Level 1

4 points

How to import old DVD videos into iMovie for editing?

Sports photographer/videographer for many high schools and athletes in the past. Saved the movies straight to a dvd and kept them for years. Still work fine. How to I make a video copy of the dads for one of the players, now a parent, who wants to share it with their child. Only kept the game dvd and did not archive the movies in iMovie but would love to pull it in to iMovie and edit should I get requests from others on the teams. Most videos were created from 2010 -2012 before I went straight in to photos for college ADs. Thanks

MacBook Air 15″, macOS 26.1

Posted on Nov 24, 2025 10:01 AM

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Answer 1

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Limnos

Level 10

426,005 points

Nov 24, 2025 10:21 AM in response to perfectshot

Question: Are these DVDs the kind that you put into a TV DVD player and play, or are they simple data DVDs? The file format is important.

If these are typical home video DVDs that play on a TV, you don't have to worry about copy protection. However, I don't think iMovie will import VOB files which is what DVDs use. I would copy the entire DVD to a hard drive, then use the free Handbrake encoder to encode the video to mp4 format which iMovie can import. This additional recoding will entail some quality loss but if you want to use iMovie then you may be stuck with that. Either that or look at other free or low cost video editors.

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Answer 2

perfectshot Author

Level 1

4 points

Nov 24, 2025 3:25 PM in response to Limnos

Thanks for replying. To be more specific this were original recordings made by me, brought in and edited so I created as an iMovie video for the players. Therefore original data not present, just the created iMovie. I used iDisk in utilities and created a disk image so I ordered a few dvd-r s to burn one for her. After 15 years you don't think you would get requests to revisit the past but thrilled she reached out to show her young son. Thanks for help any other suggestions please feel free to pass on! Lol

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