Entertainment For Lively Minds
A free DVD ripper that is easy to use ?
Posted by latenitetellyvision on 12 March 2011 - 1:07pm.
I want to rip some dvd's to my laptop, but googling has led me to download a number of programs that purport to be "free" but are in fact only trial versions.
Does anyone use anything that is freely available, works, and is relatively easy to use ?
Ta
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Not that I would do such a thing
but I understand DVD Shrink to be pretty good.
Make sure you get the official site, mind, as there are people out there charging for the free software.
Seconded.
Works fine. Look no further.
And it preserves
the folder structure to enable a software player to play the DVD from your hard drive. If you want to resize, edit or encode as something other than mpeg (say to reduce the size) then Any Video Converter will re-encode it. Don't forget the unencrypted .vob files are mpeg files, if you rename them with the .mpg extension they should play without a software DVD player.
I used DVD shrink
to rip a dvd that has a menu system and 3 main features
I am left with 21 VOB files, some "DVD movie", some "backup of the IFO" and some "DVD movie info"
I can play each DVD movie section individually, but can I play the whole lot using the menu system as if it were the original disc itself ?
thanks
If I remember rightly
I think you drag the folder the files are in into your software player or browse to the folder to play it. Its a while since I backed up/played DVD this way. I used to use WinDVD by browsing to the folder the files/folders were in. If all the files are present and correct you should be able to play them with VLC, see here http://www.dvdshrink.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=10617 for some idea. Sorry I can't be any more help than that as it isn't something I do anymore.
Handbrake -
- slow but efficient.
Handbrake is your best bet
Another recommendation for Handbrake - free and has lots of presets that cover most ways of using the ripped Video
How to unencrypt commercial DVDs?
So if Handbrake is the way to go - it appears the new version doesn't remove the encryption of commercial DVDs.
So if I wanted to back-up my commercial DVDs what do I do?
Thanks in anticipation.
Commercial DVD's
Handbrake on my Mac will rip all the commercial DVD's that I have tried. I think that it may use VLC to get around the disk encryption (not too sure on this). You could try installing VLC (www.videolan.org) along with Handbrake (http://handbrake.fr/) and see if that works. Both are free, so nothing to lose.
Failing that, AnyDVD (www.slysoft.com) works great for decrypting DVD's on the fly and is regularly updated. It is paid software though.
Correct.
For Windows install VLC and Handbrake. No config required, Handbrake looks for VLC and transcodes on the fly.
It's slow because Handbrake captures the output of VLC actually playing the movie slowly. Expect 2+ hours to rip a 90 minute movie.
Oh and it's perfectly legal to backup your own DVDs despite what Hollywood may wish you to think.
Handbrake. Is. Brilliant.
I'm slowly but surely hard-diskifying my DVD collection, and using Handbrake for it all. In a couple of months I'll be buying a Mac Mini and a 2Tb external hard drive to act as my media server, and plan to just bung a couple of DVDs into it every night to rip.
One little wishlist item for Handbrake, though - I wish you could automatically add to your iTunes library as a referenced file. It's no biggie, but would be handy.
All you need
is MetaX to make the finished movie look like a proper iTunes movie. You can tag it, add cover art from a database, add a certificate ( for parental control) and so on.
You can get it from http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/video/metax.html
I think the original site has a Windows version too but I haven't tried that one.
Backup !
I've said thus before, but another reminder to backup that external drive. Think how many hours you be putting in to rip those DVDs and what would happen if the drive fails.
If you are serious about streaming all your movies and want piece if mind, you may want to look at a RAID configured external drive - in it's most basic form would be 2x 2TB drives with one acting as a backup for the other. It costs more, but comparing against the cost of the media you are storing on there, hard drive storage is cheap. Failing that, get another external drive and backup to that.
I'm probably going to get...
...a 4-slot Drobo, actually. They're superb little machines.
Good choice
That's exactly what I use for my iTunes media.
Dons IT Hat
RAID <> Backup. It's for performance and uptime.
It will protect you against a single drive failure (more depending on RAID level, but mirror or RAID5 is the typical home setup)
It will not protect you against many other things
a) Your cat knocking your external drive onto the floor.
b) An evil burglar making away with it
c) fire
d) etc
Backup to separate disk(s) and store on the other side of the house, or better yet, at work or your mum's place.
Mac The Ripper is, apparently, the best solution for backing up
encrypted DVDs.
useta
use it, Handbrake all the time now
How to rip a DVD with Handbrake
This article from Macworld is really useful:
http://www.macworld.com/article/157590/2011/02/how_to_rip_dvd_handbrake....
Am taking the plunge w/ Handbrake on Windows
any suggestions for especially good resources to advise me on what settings to use ? I plan to use "archive" quality i.e rip so we can view from networked Humax recorder boxes or similar clients as if it were a DVD.
Other clients will include PCs, Android phone(s) and hopefully an iPad 2 or 3 in due course.
Freemake
Does what it says on the tin. Very easy.
http://www.freemake.com/free_video_converter/
DVDFab is quite good
and the DVD ripping bit is free, even if the other components aren't (like recoding it to iPod size, BluRay etc). version 8 deals with all the most recent anti ripping technology I've come across that older ones like DVDDecrypter or DVDFab4 can't handle. It's a must for me to get the kids DVDs onto the set top box, we've lost so many through routine abuse.....