[MP-Ryan]

We've been sorting through our DVD and Blu-ray collection and it turns out we have digital copies of a bunch of movies.  I was pretty thrilled to discover most of the new Disney titles unlock through digitalcopyplus, and allow you to redeem onto a Google Play account.  I was somewhat less impressed by Pacific Rim unlocking through Flixster.

That said, the prize for the most obnoxious digital copy goes to our Toy Story collection, which unlocks using the disc and allows you to either redeem in iTunes (which I refuse to install and hate because it has to be the most obnoxious piece of mainstream software I've ever encountered), or as a Windows Media file... which I did, not realizing that it unlocks as a protected WMV file that is locked to the system you enter the code on.  So now I have Toy Story on my desktop PC, and not my wife's Nexus 5 where I'd very much like it.

Some Googling reveals paid software capable of stripping the DRM from the files (legally, or so it appears), but no success on Android conversion, etc.  I tried MakeMKV to just digitize the DVD itself, but the movie is obviously protected as it ripped every title but the film itself.

So... this place is covered in techies.  Anyone run into this and find a (preferably free) way to get content you own onto your portable devices when it's stuck in protected WMV or DVD form?  TIA.

[karajorma]

I'm sure that there is a better way, but if all else fails, nothing can protect against the disc against you simply playing the disk on your PC and using a screengrabber to record the output.

[deathspeed]

Not sure if it will help or not, but I've usually had pretty good luck with Handbrake bypassing DRM (both on discs and on other file formats) and letting me save in whatever format I want.  (I think for Windows you also have to have VLC media Player installed for Handbrake to decode).  Most of my DVDs have been backed up to MP4s that play fine on my Nexus 7 using BSPlayer.

http://handbrake.fr/
http://www.videolan.org/vlc/
http://lifehacker.com/371636/turn-your-pc-into-a-dvd-ripping-monster
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bsplayer.bspandroid.free

[MP-Ryan]

I'm sure that there is a better way, but if all else fails, nothing can protect against the disc against you simply playing the disk on your PC and using a screengrabber to record the output.

And on that note, anyone able to recommend any good open-source (or otherwise free) screengrabbers?

I have handbrake already for encoding, its the actually capturing I'm having some difficulty with.  My Google-fu is failing me as I'm inundated in paid apps.

[MP-Ryan]

Not sure if it will help or not, but I've usually had pretty good luck with Handbrake bypassing DRM (both on discs and on other file formats) and letting me save in whatever format I want.  (I think for Windows you also have to have VLC media Player installed for Handbrake to decode).  Most of my DVDs have been backed up to MP4s that play fine on my Nexus 7 using BSPlayer.

http://handbrake.fr/
http://www.videolan.org/vlc/
http://lifehacker.com/371636/turn-your-pc-into-a-dvd-ripping-monster
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bsplayer.bspandroid.free

Hrmmm.  VLC won't play these WMV files, so that might be a problem.

Take it back; it won't play the WMVs but it will play the DVD, d'oh.

[jr2]

You own the disc and the digital download, why not just grab it from  torrent site? It's what I would do: basically someone else already ripped it, and it you're stripping the copy protection off the WMV anyways, you will probably end up with much the same end result. Right?

[deathspeed]

Yeah, there is that route, too

[Zacam]

I'm sorry to have to do this, but I think you'll find this conversation much more useful on a site more specific to these kinds of things.

I realize the legitimacy of the issue and grievance, but I think the topic does borderline skirt some problematic issues that I would like to NOT see become a problem for us.