Hello:

Can anyone please help me? I do not understand this.

I am using Windows Vista.

I have MANY home DVD movies of my CHILDREN. What I want to do is to copy these DVD home movies to a portable hard drive. Then I want to install software that will play these DVD home movies.

Most of my movies are about 2 hours long. But it is not continuous. For example, I will record my children swimming for 20 minutes. Then a week later I will film themfor 30 minutes at their friend's birthday party, and so on and so on. When the tape is full, I copy it to a DVD and close it out.

1. I have noticed that when I copy the DVD home movie to my portable hard drive, there are many files with different extensions. Can someone please tell me what files I want to select to play the home movie?

2. And if there are let's say, 20 files to my home movie, if I select the correct file (the first video file), will the PLAYER play all my files or will it stop after each file? If I play the DVD home movie in my DVD player, it will play it all continuolsy.

3. Since there are so many files associated with one DVD home movie, do I want to combine them someway?

4. I have been unable to play these movies in Vista using Media Player. But I can play them on my neighbor's COMPUTER using XP with Media Player. Can anyone suggest to me software that will allow me to install on my portable hard drive that will play my home DVD movies?

Thank you so much for your help and for your time. I appreciate it.

Briannatry vlc player
http://www.download.com/VLC-Media-Player/3000-13632_4-10267151.html

How are you transferring the videos to you external hard drive? Drag and drop?Hello:

I PUT the DVD into the DVD drive which is D Drive. Then I copy and paste to my hard drive. I suppose I have also dragged and dropped too - maybe they're the same thing...I don't know.

Thank you,

BriannaDLoad and install CDBurnerXPro (FREE )...it does a much better job burning than the built in Windows burner.Hi Patio:

I am not burning these DVDs, merely copying the DVDs to a portable hard drive.

But when I copy the home movie DVD, there are many files with different file extensions associated with the DVD. And I don't know what these files mean.

When playing my home movie DVD from my portable hard drive, what file-file extension should I select and will it play the entire DVD? The reason I ask is that my home DVD movies are made up of many recordings, such as 10 mins. of my kids swimming, 20 mins. of a birthday party, etc.

If anyone can help me, I would appreciate it very much. Thank you so much,

BriannaYou can't simply copy DVD to a hard drive in order to play it.
You could, but then you'll see several .VOB files, which you'd have to play one-by-one. Pretty inconvenient.
You have to "rip" DVD, which will convert DVD to some playable format, like .avi.
Try some free rippers, like this one: http://www.smallvideosoft.com/*SPAM URL*/Thank you so much Broni...I really appreciate your help.

You are right, I see too many files and it is confusing. Thank you again for your help.just a small note, the program that Broni posted a link to is NOT free, merely a free TRIALI have to admit, I don't rip DVDs, so hopefully someone will come up with some free alternative.http://www.freewarezoom.com/archives/free-*SPAM URL*

I think I have used this before but not entirely sure...