why do they want a 'dvd'? what do they want to do?

dvd's are copy protected - if they are commercial.

other than that a dvd is just a movie. and it can be transcoded to something a lot more usable in pixelmad.

there are several programs out there that will convert dvd's to movie files-

mac the ripper:
http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/22715