Can I record from a DVD player into a Ninja?

[Peter Corbett]

I'm looking to find a way I can capture short sections off corporate video DVD's that we want to re-edit from. Can the Ninja record HDMI signals from a domestic DVD player or does the HDMI copy protection stop this? I'm just sick of the whole rip/extract/render process for MPEG2 DVD's.

[Jack Zhang]

All consumer DVD players with HDMI out have HDCP, so no, this is not possible.

[Guy Caplin]

I got round this problem by routing the analogue video/audio output from a DVD player into my Data Video DV converter and feeding the DV output into my edit system. This removed all the copy protection. I know the purists will say that "the conversion to analogue and back to digital is degrading," but even 'pickie' clients have never noticed. It's quick, it's simple and you can just input the sections that you need.

For broadcast, corporate and training video - Basing Broadcast Services

[Peter Corbett]

Yes that's what I ended up doing. I connnected the YUV component cables to the Decklink. Not ideal but better than ripping/rendering everything. Cheers.

[Zach Love]

Originally Posted by Jack Zhang

All consumer DVD players with HDMI out have HDCP, so no, this is not possible.

As long as the "corporate video DVDs" don't have copy protection, this should work fine. (Key word is "should.")

Any type of video player shouldn't be sending copy protection when the medium isn't telling the player that the medium has copy protection.

You see a lot of people recording video game play out of their PlayStation or XBOX & posting the video online. My understanding is it is because there isn't HDCP copy protection on the video signal of video games.

If you take a Blu Ray copy of Iron Man & play it in your PS3, then you'll get some problems with copy protection if you try to record the video.

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Zach,

Unfortunately, most if not all DVD players DO copy-protect the output even for DVD-R discs you made yourself. Not just on HDMI outputs, but analog as well! I see this complaint often on forums regarding capture cards like Matrox - users cannot capture analog out from DVD players, capture card says signal is protected!

If editing with Adobe Premiere CS5 or newer, users can actually copy the VOB files from the DVD to hard drive and then import them direct into Premiere for editing, no conversion needed. I don't know what the original poster is editing with though.

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Eric Olson]

Originally Posted by Peter Corbett

I'm just sick of the whole rip/extract/render process for MPEG2 DVD's.

As long as the DVD is not copy protected, this is similar to capturing video from an AVCHD camcorder by playing it back through HDMI to the Ninja. It's faster to copy the AVCHD files. It's also faster to copy the files from the DVD. For example, it takes about 5 minutes to copy an hour long video from a DVD, whereas it would take an hour to capture it through the Ninja.