I have no problem capturing from an external device into FC, but how do I capture from a DVD in the superdrive? I have a client who now wants another copy of thier wedding DVD long after the files have been deleted on my hard drive. My approach is to play one of thier DVD's and recapture it, redo the chapters and burn another disk. It seems I could get better quality if I could capture straight from the superdrive. How do I do this? Can't figure it out.

I haven't used it, but I think this is one product which will extract the files from the DVD http://www.roxio.com/en/products/popcorn/index.jhtml. It could also just duplicate the disk which seems more like what you want. Otherwise you'd have to convert the files to DV, put them into a new project, fill up a lot of hard drive space, and burn a new disk. Do you want to re-edit the video or just make a copy?

The most elegant solution out there for FCP users is DVDxDV

Its available in the lafcpug store

http://www.lafcpug.org/store_soft_hard.html#anchor3880894

Try MPEG Streamclip (http://www.alfanet.it/squared5/mpegstreamclip.html) as well. It's freeware and works well.

You can certainly do this (make a copy of a DVD) with Toast and I think also with the disk utility that comes with OS X. In the latter case I think you'll have to record an image of the DVD to your hard disk and then burn that to DVD. With Toast you must, of course, do the same but it is more automated i.e. all you do is tell it to copy the disk and it automatically makes the image, ejects the source and asks you to put in a blank.