Best DVDFab alternative

[coolVariable]

After unsuccessfully trying to get DVDFab to run on a really old laptop, I am looking for a (free!) alternative.
What are the best alternatives? I only need to rip the VOBs/get rid of any copyprotection preventing ripping.

This is a really old POS machine: 400MHz Celeron, 128MB RAM, WinXP SP3.
I just want to rip DVDs with it to put the VOBs on my home server.

I looked around video-help but most other DVD decrypters/rippers seem to be discontinued (and probably won't work with new DVDs).

 

[Fardringle]

DVDFab requires at least a Pentium II 500mhz and 512MB RAM, which is why your Celeron 400 with 128MB of RAM won't work. I'm not aware of any old ripping software that would work on your machine but still be able to bypass modern encryption and copy protection. Is this the only computer that you have available, or do you just want to make use of it since it is a "spare"?

 

[coolVariable]

DVDFab requires at least a Pentium II 500mhz and 512MB RAM, which is why your Celeron 400 with 128MB of RAM won't work. I'm not aware of any old ripping software that would work on your machine but still be able to bypass modern encryption and copy protection. Is this the only computer that you have available, or do you just want to make use of it since it is a "spare"?

It's a nice spare and the home server/NAS doesn't have a DVD drive.
I understand that it might be slow but I couldn't care less about that.

 

[jhansman]

I only need to rip the VOBs/get rid of any copyprotection preventing ripping.

DVD Decrypter should still be floating around, although I don't think it works on BD discs. With SD DVDs it will rip to VOBs and remove encryption.

 

[smitbret]

DVD Decrypter will do most older DVDs, but you're gonna be out of luck with most DVDs from about the last five or six years. DVDFab is pretty much the only free game in town. There was also a program called Ripit4me that seemed to do a nice job on most DVDs, but I think it got blacklisted across the WWW. Might wanna see if you can dig it up via torrent or something.

 

[coolVariable]

DVD Decrypter will do most older DVDs, but you're gonna be out of luck with most DVDs from about the last five or six years. DVDFab is pretty much the only free game in town. There was also a program called Ripit4me that seemed to do a nice job on most DVDs, but I think it got blacklisted across the WWW. Might wanna see if you can dig it up via torrent or something.

Ripit4me has the same problem that DVD decrypter has ... development stopped years ago. I don't think ripit4me supports more encryptions than dvd decrypter.

PS: you can still get it via here: http://www.videohelp.com/tools/RipIt4Me

BTW the programming for DVDFab seems to be cr@p. The install fails with a windows error during finalizing installation ... no warning about system specs or anything. WTF?

 

[AnitaPeterson]

DVD Decrypter will do most older DVDs, but you're gonna be out of luck with most DVDs from about the last five or six years. DVDFab is pretty much the only free game in town. There was also a program called Ripit4me that seemed to do a nice job on most DVDs, but I think it got blacklisted across the WWW. Might wanna see if you can dig it up via torrent or something.

That is patently not true.
Since discovering DVD Decrypter (back in 1999, I think), I've installed it onto every single machine I built, bought or otherwise acquired. It's one of the very few constant pieces of software in my computing life.

I last used it on Monday, on a 2010-issued Criterion DVD.

In all these years, I've only encountered THREE instances in which the copy protection on the disc defeated DVDDecrypter. Two of those discs were produced by a small French-Canadian studio (and that's when I used DVDFab, instead). The third one was sold in Eastern Europe, where piracy is rampant.

As such, I think that there's a 99.5% chance that every disc that the OP will attempt to rip with DVDDecrypter will be ripped successfully.

 

[AnitaPeterson]

Ripit4me has the same problem that DVD decrypter has ... development stopped years ago. I don't think ripit4me supports more encryptions than dvd decrypter.

PS: you can still get it via here: http://www.videohelp.com/tools/RipIt4Me

BTW the programming for DVDFab seems to be cr@p. The install fails with a windows error during finalizing installation ... no warning about system specs or anything. WTF?

There are portable DVDFab versions floating around the 'net, and don't require any install.

 

[Slugbait]

That is patently not true.

For the most part, it is true. DVDFab forums get riddled with complaints of newly released movies that current builds cannot rip, requiring an updated release of DVDFab. The majority of those movies also cannot be ripped with DVDDecrypter, or DVDDecrypter+RipIt4Me.

As I ran into more discs that DVDDecrypter standalone could not rip, I added RipIt4Me. That bandaid didn't last long before I ran into discs that it couldn't circumvent either. I finally switched to DVDFab full-time about three years ago.

Sure, there are some recent releases that can be ripped with DVDDecrypter, but most blockbuster films and anything distributed by Disney (or their affiliate companies) will just cause DVDDecrypter to return an error message.

 

[Pretty Cool]

If my fading memory serves me correctly, I think my old celeron 450 was barely able to play dvd's. Either that or maybe even the system was too slow to play it properly. Anyway in my opinion, it would be easier just to use something more modern to rip the dvd's. Then, transfer the rips to the celeron via usb flash drive. Of course you would need at least usb2, and it is possible that your celeron has only usb 1.1 ports.

 

[Muse]

There are a number of versions of DVDFab.

Smartripper? It's been around a really long time and might run on weak system.