record audio file from a dvd

Audacity Help Forum macOS
1

Mac 10.8.5
Audacity 2.0.5
.dmg installer

I have a DVD and I would like to record the audio track and turn it into an mp3.
I have an external DVD/cd player plugged into my computer and audacity is open. When I play the dvd, the meter that says LR at the top of the screen, shows no activity. I click record and of course I get a straight line. Years ago I connected a tape player to my computer and opened audacity and it was pretty obvious was to choose with input and output menus.
Now my only choices are AirPlay and Built in output
The other menu say only Built in input.
There is also a choice of 1 (mono) input channel and 2 stereo (input) channels.
I’ve played around with changing what I could and I still don’t see that the sound from the dvd is being picked up by Audacity.

Thank you for any help. :slight_smile:

2

Assuming that the DVD is not copy protected, you should be able to import the audio from the VOB files if you have FFmpeg installed.
See here for installing FFmpeg: http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/faq_installation_and_plug_ins.html#ffdown

When you have FFmpeg installed, copy the VOB files from the DVD to your hard drive, then try importing them (File menu > Import).

3

How is the player connected to the computer? If it is connected via USB cable and has no headphones output then you probably cannot record it except by using Soundflower to send the sound to Audacity: http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/tutorial_recording_computer_playback_on_mac.html .

As an alternative you can probably extract the DVD to one audio or video file rather than a number of VOB files using either of these:

Free DVD Ripper: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/free-dvd-ripper/id625150797?mt=12

WinX DVD Ripper Mac Free: http://www.winxdvd.com/dvd-ripper-mac-free/

But you will probably still need FFmpeg to import the single file extracted from the DVD into Audacity.


Gale