Video recording of part of screen on iMac

[dfaulks]

I have not yet upgraded to the latest OS.
I have a movie on DVD, of my own production, which I wish to capture for transfer to a 'stick'.
Is it true that it is now possible, using Cmd/Shift/5, in Big Sur, to record a video, with sound, of a portion of the screen?
Version 10.15.7 doesn't do capture from a DVD … not that I have found, at least.
Should I upgrade and be able to get the job done? Or
should I chase around to find an app (what app?) to do the job?
Thanks!

 

[chas_m]

I don't have a way to test this anymore, but a DVD that you created yourself does not have the copy protection built into normal DVDs, so it seems likely that you could do it the way you describe (or in earlier OSes by using shift-command-4 and selecting the area you want to capture).

However, I don't think the results would look very good compared to the original DVD, so I'm going to suggest you look at Handbrake, a free app you can use to convert the DVD to MP4 which should fit on a USB stick and viewable on any modern computer. https://handbrake.fr

 

[dfaulks]

Thanks for the suggestion, Chas.
Last night, l realized that I already do have Handbrake in the Applications Folder and in the Dock. Opened it but had no idea of what to do with it.
This morning, got out of bed, looked at your message again, opened up Handbrake and had it look up a "Source" … a good sleep allowed me to realize that I should look for the DVD at the bottom of the left hand column of the main Finder window. Upon clicking on that, Handbrake displayed the opening frame of the movie. Another click on Start activated the conversion of the movie into an "MPEG-4 Audio File" stored in the "Movies" folder on my iMac.
After clicking on that file, to highlight it, and then pressing the Space Bar, the movie was displayed and ran beautifully.
Double clicking on the file opened the audio file ONLY in Amadeus.
So Handbrake has indeed managed to create a file on the iMac of the DVD movie.
Question is: How do I extract the movie itself for sharing with others?
Thanks!

 

[chas_m]

I'm not sure what you mean by "extract the movie itself." As you say, it is a file in the Movies folder on your iMac, so you can do with that file as you wish. Probably the best way to share it is to put it in a cloud service like Dropbox, Sync, Google Drive, et al and share the link to the movie with the people you want to be able to access it.

 

[dfaulks]

The movie file, as converted by Handbrake from a home-made DVD, is located in the Movies folder of my Finder window.
I wanted to share it with others.
Double-clicking on it provides me with a full-screen window of an Amadeus sound file … of the movie's sound track.
Touching the Space Bar, after highlighting the file, provides me with "a preview" of the movie with sound.
It's very nice to see the movie on my screen; to stop it, I just press the Space Bar once again.
The movie IS THERE in the converted Handbrake file, but … how to grab it as a movie file - only!
BOTTOM LINE:-
With the movie opened in the Finder window, as described above, I discovered a "Save As" in the menu bar.
I chose QuickTime and, in no time, I had a rendition of the movie in the Movies folder.
From there, I dragged a copy of it (Option-drag) to the DropBox folder.
Our elder son and his wife now have the opportunity to view their wedding dance of *almost* 25 years ago!!
Thanks for your encouragement, Chas!
D.

 

[chas_m]

Mpeg-4 files with the .mp4 extension can also be audio-only files, so apparently Amadeus has been assigned to open MP4 files and it dutifully does -- ignoring the video. You can change the app assignment by "getting info" on the MP4 file and assigning the default opener for it and all MP4 files to be, say, QuickTime Player. Then double-clicking an MP4 file will play the video (if any) and audio.

 

[dfaulks]

Thanks for the info, Chas.
I would never have thought of using "Get Info" to make that change.
Works well, thank you!