Help with DVD to Website WMV/QT Conversion

[Lane Meyer]

A friend of mine stopped by with an iMovie homemade DVD yesterday, which plays in my TV DVD player.

I want to use my Windows XP box to convert it to some smaller format that I can put up on the web in a few pieces, in either Mindows Media or Quicktime. What is the best way to do this? Which software should I "buy?" Is there any hope of anything free to use for the conversion?

[Big E]

Well, I'm of no help on your exact question, really, but your friend could convert it to Quicktime on his Mac without doing much of anything and then e-mail it to you. That would certainly involve the absolute least amount of work, just that he'd have to do the work rather than you.

[Lane Meyer]

Well, I thought about that, but he just left for Whistler for a few weeks and took his Mac with him...

I have another friend with a Powerbook that's coming up this weekend - can I stick a DVD in it and use iMovie to do the same thing, or do you need the original iMovie proprietary file?

[Schralper]

Yes you can convert w/ imovie, if its imovie and not idvd. You'll have to import it as a clip into imovie first if its dvd and not .mpeg/.mov already. If its already dvd I suggest you use Roxio toast. Or Quicktime Pro.
Freakin' windows users, get w/ the program!