Still, its possible that software may come and go without much notice, so be warned.

We (and others) think that, if you own a DVD, you should be able to override its copy protection to make a backup copy or to convert its content for viewing on other devices.

You remove the DVD only to find it scratched and just a little bit sticky from the jam-covered fingers that last handled it.

In the past, weve talked about using an application such as HandBrake 0.9.4 ( ) to rip your DVDs to watch on an iPhone or Apple TV, and covered some of the frequently asked questions about DVD ripping.

But what if you want to make an exact copy of a physical DVD to use as your viewing disc and keep the original safely on the shelf Or how about if youve received (or created) a DVD of home movies or a wedding and want to duplicate it for family members.

If you want to make copies of that DVD your cousin sent you of her sons bar mitzvah (or any other unprotected DVD), the process is relatively simple.

Insert the DVD into your Macs optical drive and launch OS Xs built-in Disk Utility app (found in the ApplicationsUtilities).

Click the New Image button at the top, select the DVD in the dialog box that appears, and in the Image Format pop-up menu choose DVDCD Master.

After a while, youll have an image file with a.cdr extension.

That disc image contains an exact copy of your DVD, which you can backup on an external hard drive for later use.

To burn that image as a DVD that you can watch in a standard DVD player, launch Disk Utility and you should see the image listed on the lefthand side.

If so, click the image name, and then click the Burn button at the top.

If you dont see it listed, click the Burn button first, then navigate to the images location, select it, and click Burn.

In either case, Disk Utility will then prompt you to insert a blank DVD (if the original was a dual-layer DVD, youll need a dual-layer blank DVD for it to work).

If you want to adjust any of the options (including what Disk Utility should do when its done burning) click the blue triangle button to expose those options.

When its done, the disc should play on your computer on set-top DVD player.

But its always best to test your burned DVD afterwards to make sure it plays as expected.).

The same copy-protection that a utility must overcome in order to convert DVDs to other formats also applies hereyou cant pop in your favorite movie create a disc image as described above.

Mini-Dvd Player Osx Code Elements Of

And a tool such as HandBrake wont work either, since you dont want to transcode elements of the DVD into another type of file, you want an unencrypted version of whats on the DVD.

One application that can strip the copy protection from a DVD and leave you with an unencrypted VIDEOTS folder is the 20 RipIt.

Mini-Dvd Player Osx Free VLC Media

Another option is the free Fairmount, which works in conjunction with the free VLC media player to decrypt a mounted DVD in the Finder.

Once the (long) process is complete, you can copy the decrypted VIDEOTS to your desktop.

MacTheRipper can also do the job, but getting a copy can be a convoluted and frustrating undertaking.).

Before continuing, let me stress that Im talking about making backup copies of DVDs youve purchased.

This isnt about renting a movie from Netflix and cloning the DVD for your collection.

Even so, the legal aspects of creating backup copies of your DVDs can be messy (and Im not a lawyer).

U.S. law (compliments of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act) makes it illegal to create software that defeats copy-protection schemes, but not necessarily to use that software.

The Little App Factory, makers of RipIt, is based in Australia.