How do you cut clips from a DVD?

Software to grab DVD scenes

• Is there software that will let me convert a scene from a DVD? I want to be able to convert short clips from DVDs to a standard movie format, like an AVI or MPEG. Most of the DVD ripping software out there is geared towards ripping entire DVDs. If I want to grab just a couple short (30 seconds) scenes from a couple different DVDs, it would be a hassle to rip the whole thing just to cut it down again. What program should I use? (I have both Mac and Windows, but Mac would be better.)

• Answer:

  On the Mac, the canonical free utility for doing this is http://www.squared5.com/ (there is a Windows version of it too). It's one of the most amazing little tools you'll ever use...a veritable Swiss Army knife for converting/demuxing/re-muxing video formats for free. Handbrake is only useful if you want an MP4 file from your DVDs, which I'm not sure you're looking for. If you want to be able to choose an in/out point on a DVD, then export it out to a standard format that Quicktime can play, MPEG Streamclip can do it, although non-free tools like http://www.miraizon.com/products/products.html and http://www.dvdxdv.com/NewFolderLookSite/Products/DVDxDV.overview.htm have more elegant interfaces for doing this. Oh, and assuming that you're converting clips form commercial DVDs, you'll need to strip out the CSS encryption and Macrovision first using the venerable http://www.mactheripper.org/. None of the aforementioned tools will work unless you have an unencrypted MPEG-2 file to begin with.