Scanning DVDs (of home movies) into iMovie?

I am working on making a movie for a family event.
I have two questions:
1. I have a lot of home movies that we had transferred from video to DVD. Is there some way to scan the DVD and then just import the segments I want into iMovie? As these are not commercial, there is no protection -- would like to put in comptuer, scan video, and select clips to put in iMovie
2. I have some older movies with clips that I would like to use in iMovie 6 -- should I stick to iMovie6 or use iMovie 7? I know how to use iMove6, but am happy to learn the new one. Just want something easy to use. End product will be projected on large screen at family gathering.
Would any sort of video grabber help?
thanks for your help!
Paul

1. I have a lot of home movies that we had transferred from video to DVD. Is there some way to scan the DVD and then just import the segments I want into iMovie? As these are not commercial, there is no protection -- would like to put in comptuer, scan video, and select clips to put in iMovie
Most direct approach would be to simply copy the non-zero VOB title sets from the DVD to a local hard drive and then convert them to DV (useable with either iMovie HD or iMovie '08). I would personally use MPEG Streamclip (free but requires the $20 QT MPEG-2 Playback component) here so I can flag the content as either 4:3 or 16:9 for proper handling by iMovie '08, but many applications can actually perform the conversion -- including iSquint (free), FFmpegX (donation-ware), Visual Hub (pay-ware), MPEG2 Works (pay-ware but also requires the $20 component), etc.
2. I have some older movies with clips that I would like to use in iMovie 6 -- should I stick to iMovie6 or use iMovie 7? I know how to use iMove6, but am happy to learn the new one. Just want something easy to use. End product will be projected on large screen at family gathering.
If the editing you wish to perform is more or less traditional, then iMovie HD offers more "traditional" options. iMovie '08 is probably better suited for "lite" edits requiring simple titles/transitions coming from non-DV source files and destined for immediate online posting. Since many of their functions overlap, in many cases either can be used. As you become more proficient in their use, you will like lend to lean towards one over the other depending on you specific project requirements, so it is probably best to keep both handy.

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Yes.
You need to convert the VOB files in the TS-Folder of the DVD back to DV which iMovie is designed to handle. For that you need mpegStreamclip:
http://www.squared5.com/svideo/mpeg-streamclip-mac.html
which is free, but you must also have the Apple mpeg2 plugin :
http://www.apple.com/quicktime/mpeg2/
(unless you are running Lion in which case see below))
which is a mere $20.
Another possibility is to use DVDxDV:
http://www.dvdxdv.com/NewFolderLookSite/Products/DVDxDV.overview.htm
which costs $25.
For the benefit of others who may read this thread:
Obviously the foregoing only applies to DVDs you have made yourself, or other home-made DVDs that have been given to you. It will NOT work on copy-protected commercial DVDs, which in any case would be illegal.
If you are running Lion:
From the MPEG Streamclip homepage
The installer of the MPEG-2 Playback Component may refuse to install the component in Lion. Apple states the component is unnecessary in Lion, however MPEG Streamclip still needs it.
To install the component in Lion, please download MPEG Streamclip 1.9.3b7 beta above; inside the disk image you will find the Utility MPEG2 Component Lion: use it to install the MPEG-2 Playback Component in Lion. The original installer's disk image (QuickTimeMPEG2.dmg) is required.
The current versions of MPEG Streamclip cannot take advantage of the built-in MPEG-2 functionality of Lion. For MPEG-2 files you still need to install the QuickTime MPEG-2 Playback Component, which is not preinstalled in Lion. You don't have to install QuickTime 7.

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http://www.dvdxdv.com/NewFolderLookSite/Products/DVDxDV.products.htm
Have a look at this thread for a bit more information:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=4562113&#4562113
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ladybug-1969 wrote:
I have created a home movie in imovie and then transferred it back to my camcorder and burned it onto a dvd. There are 5 vob files containing the entire movie.
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Scanning DVDs (of home movies) into iMovie?

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