17 July 2007 @ 12:02DVD Image Utility
Do you need to create a DVD image of a movie you made? Do you need to image and burn a copy of a DVD from your DVR? There are a lot of uses for this simple droplet which uses mkisofs for its imaging. A co-worker of mine found it useful for duplicating home videos that his wife is burning with a DVR.
My initial reason for creating DVD Image Utility was because I needed a method to burn some DVD compliant discs without having to buy a third-party application, such as Toast. Unfortunately, the Mac’s built-in hdiutil will not create a DVD compliant image. Once the resulting image was burned to a DVD-R, it would not play in all DVD players. The same DVD created and burned with DVD Image Utility has played in all DVD players that I have had the opportunity to try.
How to use DVD Image Utility to create image files
Drag and drop your DVD folder (the folder containing the VIDEO_TS) onto the DVD Image Utility icon. You will be prompted to select where to save the image file. Select and wait for confirmation that the image is complete.
How to use DVD Image Utility to burn image files
Drag and drop a .img or .iso file onto the DVD Image Utility icon. You will be prompted to insert a blank disc. Providing that the disc you inserted is large enough to hold the image, the image will be burned, and you will receive a confirmation when it has finished.
I have tested this with both single-layer DVD-R and dual-layer DVD-R.
How it works
Here is the Applescript:
on run
display dialog "Please drag a DVD folder (containing VIDEO_TS) onto my icon to image this folder. Or drag a DVD image file onto my icon to burn it to DVD"
end run
on open input_items
set ginfo to (get info for input_items)
set disp_name2 to name of ginfo
tell application "Finder"
set nameExtension to name extension of item 1 of input_items
end tell
if nameExtension = "iso" or nameExtension = "img" then
set POSIX_source to POSIX path of input_items
set burning to "/usr/bin/hdiutil burn -noverifyburn " & POSIX_source & ""
with timeout of 30000 seconds
display dialog "Please insert a blank DVD"
do shell script ("" & burning & "")
tell me to activate
beep 2
display dialog "" & disp_name2 & " DVD burn complete"
end timeout
quit me
else
tell application "Finder"
set mkisofs_binary to ((path to me) as string)
set mkisofs_binary to (mkisofs_binary & "Contents:Resources:mkisofs")
set mkisofs_binary to (quoted form of (POSIX path of mkisofs_binary))
set mplex_binary to ((path to me) as string)
set mplex_binary to (mplex_binary & "Contents:Resources:mplex")
set mplex_binary to (quoted form of (POSIX path of mplex_binary))
set POSIX_source to POSIX path of input_items
set POSIX_file to POSIX path of (choose folder with prompt "Choose a folder to save image in:")
end tell
with timeout of 30000 seconds
do shell script ("" & mkisofs_binary & " -quiet -f -dvd-video -udf -V \"" & disp_name2 & "\" -o \"" & POSIX_file & "" & disp_name2 & ".img\" \"" & POSIX_source & "\"")
tell me to activate
beep 2
display dialog "" & disp_name2 & " DVD image complete"
end timeout
end if
end open
As you can see, the Applescript references the mkisofs binary inside the droplet’s package contents for its imaging, and uses the hdiutil that is built into the OS for its burning.
Download DVD Image Utility
Note: this is a Mac-only application.
DVD Image Utility has been tested on Mac OS 10.4 and 10.5. It may or may not work on earlier versions.
Note: this application will NOT image commercial DVD’s.
If you found this DVD Image Utility useful,
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Related posts
by Jon | 42 comments | Tags: applescript, burn dvd image, dvd image utility, hdiutil, make dvd image, mkisofs
Posted in applescript, dvd, mkisofs | Link to this
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Works great! Thanks!!
I can confirm that resulting DVD works in an LG DVD player.
Confirmation on a Zenith player is pending…
Any chance a progress bar could be rolled into this?
If not, the rainbow wheel might do the trick.
Thanks again.
Sorry, but Applescript has no means of displaying a progress bar during a process.
[...] Get DVD Image Utility [...]
Bogus lame scam. I get an image only and then a message box to Shop DVD Media or Cancel.
I don’t begrudge the ad but if you’ve got the time to program your ads you should program the site to tell us how to handle it.
I was counting on this script to burn my disk but your link is a lie.
RCL
Richard,
It’s a two-step process. Maybe I didn’t make it clear in the instructions above. The first step makes an image out of your DVD folder. The second step burns the image to a disk, and this step is initiated by dropping the image onto the DVD Image Utility.
I apologize if my instructions weren’t clear.
Jon
It doesn’t work. The script couldn’t find the mkisofs
I’m sorry about that, TF.
Thanks for letting me know. Unfortunately the resources didn’t get transferred over last time I saved it. It is fixed now. You can re-download it.
Jon
Jon,
No errors processing the two steps, everything appeared to work fine but my Sony DVD player thinks I’ve got a DVD from the wrong region. Any ideas?
Thx,
ACF
ACF,
The DVD Image Utility does not set or modify any region information. Either, your DVD still has a foreign region set, or it is in the wrong video format (NTSC vs. PAL).
If it is truly a region code issue, you can mount the image file that DVD Image Utility created and strip the region with MacTheRipper. This will give you a new DVD folder that you can run through DVD Image Utility again.
If the DVD is PAL and your player is NTSC, then there is a rather lengthy process to convert it.
so Mac The Ripper + DVD Image Utility = Win!
…. right?
Jeremy,
That’s correct. Of course, if you rip a dual-layer disc to burn to a single-layer disc, you will need to compress it with something like DVD2OneX.
I would probably begin to store the image files on an external drive for viewing later… thanks for the info!
Very handy app in concert with MTR & Toast. I was able to back up all but one of 4 discs which gave me the errors from mkisofs below:
- Warning: -follow-links does not always work correctly; be careful.
- Either VIDEO_TS.IFO or VIDEO_TS.VOB is not of correct size.
- Unable to parse DVD_Video structures.
- Unable to make a DVD_Video image.
It worked fine for all but disc 3 of 4. Same workflow for all. Any Idea why it might balk at this from the errors?
Thanks,
Rolf,
I have seen similar errors from mkisofs. It sounds like the DVD is damaged (possibly intentionally as a form of copy protection). What I would suggest is downloading myDVDEdit. While myDVDEdit has a somewhat steep learning curve, you won’t need to use all its features for this. Open the VIDEO_TS folder in myDVDEdit. If it encounters errors that it can fix, it will tell you so. Then Save and Quit. Now try to create the image again with DVD Image Utility.
That is really the only suggestion I have. I hope that helps.
Jon
Thanks Jon,
That worked wonderfully and I discovered a new tool in the process.
Brilliant!
dude your dvd image utility is fucking awesome.
decrypts CSS.
appreciate it.
Chris,
There is nothing in DVD Image Utility that decrypts CSS.
Hello,
The movie I’m attepting to copy has a foriegn region(from England, I believe).
I dropped the Video_TS folder on the DVD Image Utility.app icon,
which created a VIDEO_TS.img with the following warning:
/Users/dennisglenn/desktop/DVD Image Utility.app/
Contents/Resources/mkisofs: Warning: -follow-links
does not always work correctly; be careful.
/Users/dennisglenn/desktop/DVD Image Utility.app/
Contenets/Resources.mkisofs: Unable to make a
DVD-Video image.
I tried dropping the resulting VIDEO_TS.img on to the
DVD Image Utility.app icon and received the following dialogue:
hdiutil: burn “/Users/dennisglenn/Desktop/
VIDEO_TS.img” not recognized – not recognized
hdiutil: burn failed – not recognized
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
My Mac info…
Hardware Overview:
Machine Name: Power Mac G5
Machine Model: PowerMac7,2
CPU Type: PowerPC 970 (2.2)
Number Of CPUs: 2
CPU Speed: 1.8 GHz
L2 Cache (per CPU): 512 KB
Memory: 1 GB
Bus Speed: 900 MHz
Boot ROM Version: 5.1.5f0
Running OS X 10.4.11
Thanks
Dennis,
Don’t drop the VIDEO_TS onto the DVD Image Utility. Instead, drop the folder that contains the VIDEO_TS onto the DVD Image Utility. Example, if the directory structure is MOVIE_NAME/VIDEO_TS, drop MOVIE_NAME onto the DVD Image Utility.
Jon
I should have read more carefully.
I did as you instructed and it seemed to start burning but, I then received the following message:
The device failed to calibrate the laser power level for
this media.
hdiutil: burn failed – Inappropriate ioctl for this device
Any ideas?
Dennis,
I’m not sure right off hand why you are receiving that error. Try Disk Utility.app. Drag the IMG file into the lefthand pane of Disk Utility, highlight that IMG file, and click Burn.
Hi Jon,
Can’t burn it from Disk Utility. The burn button is greyed out.
All I’m really trying to do with this movie is remove the region or
set the region to region 1. I don’t have the physical DVD disk –
just the VIDEO_TS folder/files.
If you have any other suggestions, I’d love to hear (read) them.
Otherwise, thanks very much for your time.
Can you verify that your disc burner is working and that your blank disc is good and has enough capacity to accomodate the size of the disc image?
My burner is working, the capacity is okay and I tried another blank disk. The movie is a fairly rare BBC documentary that is hard or
impossible to get. So, I downloaded a torrent. I’m able to play the movie on my Mac but, was hoping to burn it to watch on TV.
Hello Jon,
I’m still having problem with this utility.It either gives an error message {unable to make an image from disk,does not always work correctly,or the volume string is too long.I hope you have a suggestion for me to make it start working again.I tried mydvdedit,but still the same messages.
Thanks..
Sonny,
Please send me screenshots of the errors.
Jon
About how long will it take to make the image from the Video_TS for a 4.4 Gb file?
Tom,
It varies depending on the write speed of your drive and whether or not you are writing to the same disc you are reading from.
Expect around 5 minutes.
n00b question: DVD image meaning photos or video?
“DVD Image” refers to the file type. A DVD Image is similar to a standard Mac disk image with the .dmg file extension. The DVDs which we are “imaging” here are video DVDs.
Hi,
I’m trying to burn my movie from dvd, and I’ve followed the steps you included, it creates the image fine but then when I try to burn it it comes up with: hdiutil: burn failed – Inappropriate ioctl for this device.
What can I do?
thanks.
Nina,
I’ll look into this error. In the meantime, you should be able to take the disc image to Disk Utility and select Burn.
Nina and Dennis,
Do you have multiple optical drives? Do any of these drives not have burning capabilities?
Jon
Thanks. Its fine now I tried it again and it worked. Now I just need to do it another 10 times. Will let you know if it screws up again!
Cheers
Nina,
Keep in mind that if you are making 10 identical copies, you only need to keep the disc image and burn it each time. There’s no need to re-create the image every time.
Cheers
Do you know what version of the UDF format is used? I have used imgburn on the PC and burn my discs as UDF 1.02. I think more recent versions are not compatible with older players. Any thoughts / comments / information?
Thanks
James,
I’m not sure how to determine the UDF version. DVD Image Utility uses mkisofs 2.01 with the -dvd-video and -udf options to create the disk images.
Let me know how I can get the UDF version.
Jon
Thankyou so much! Your little application is so easy and convenient to use, I greatly appreciate it.
Does your utility run under Snow Leopard? It appears to create an IMG file (almost instantly) but no completion message. How long should it take to produce a complete IMG of a typical movie from a VIDEO_TS folder?
The IMG file I’m getting seems to contain the movie, but the chapter menu isn’t working reliably.
Mike,
The image will be “created” immediately, but may take a 2-5 minutes to finish writing depending on your computer. If you mount the IMG before it is finished writing, it may not play correctly.
I haven’t tested it on Snow Leopard, but I’m unaware of anything in it that would be incompatible.
Jon
I should have waited before posting my question. It does work but I mounted the IMG before it was finished. It took maybe 10 minutes on my MacBook altho I didn’t time it closely.
It’s been frustrating finding free utilities for my Mac like the ones I was used to in the Windows environment. I still haven’t found anything to compress DVD files to fit on a single layer DVDR like DVDShrink.
At any rate, thanks for the nice utility that fills a huge hole in OSX.