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DVD Ripping Tool

A

adnank77

Member
I'm looking for DVD Ripping tool .. I have big library of DVDs and BluRays for my kids (mostly animations).. I want to dump them all in a hard drive so that they can play from it .. this will solve the problem of scratching (kids always scratch the disk then ask for replacement!!!) ..

What's the best approach ? Software with networked PC or dedicated media player ?
 
Ripping DVDs and ripping Blu-Ray are 2 different things. The simplest, easiest, most foolproof solution is to cough up the cash and buy this:

http://www.slysoft.com/en/anydvdhd.html

If you're looking for free solutions, then try DVDFab or MakeMKV.

That's part 1. Part 2 is getting the files into a format that's usable for youe playback devices. Do you want .mp4, .mkv, .avi, .vob, .iso? An unconverted DVD will be 4-8GB. An unconverted BR will be 20-40GB. Do you want to keep menus intact?
 
I'm far from an expert at this, but I bought a program called DVD Catalyst ($9.95) and it does what I think is a very good job at ripping and encoding DVDs. It is a profile based tool (sort of like Handbrake), but there seems to be a profile for just about everything. It will do Blu-Ray rips as well, but those require anydvd to bypass the copy protection.
 
For a no cost (except your time) solution, this How-To-Geek article walks you through how to Rip and Convert DVD’s to an ISO Image for playback on your media center. The article details how to use the 30-day trial of DVDfab for ripping, and the freeware ImgBurn to convert to ISO. The same process would apply to BluRay disks, and you'll no longer need to worry about kid fingerprints and scratches.

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adnank77 said:
I'm looking for DVD Ripping tool .. I have big library of DVDs and BluRays for my kids (mostly animations).. I want to dump them all in a hard drive so that they can play from it .. this will solve the problem of scratching (kids always scratch the disk then ask for replacement!!!) ..

What's the best approach ? Software with networked PC or dedicated media player ?
Click to expand...

For local media streaming, BTW, store it on a HDD and play it back with a WDTV Live or Live Hub. Many BR players have streaming capability but if you have any newer DVDs or BRs in the mix, Cinavia will become an issue and you don't wanna mess with that. The WD Live will play back just about every file format you throw at it, so you can just rip and store or rip and convert (to save space).
 
Fairuse wizard. The free version limits file size to 700MB, but that is way more than enough for kids movies. I set most of my animated movies to 400-500MB and they look fine. Use x v i d codec.
 
Use the freeware (old but good) DVDDecrypter. Make .iso files from the discs. Problem solved. No money needs to to exchange hands...
 
Except that you guys are all assuming that he won't need anything to defeat copy protection. DVD Decrypter and DVD Shrink are great tools that I still use to this day, but many if not most DVDs from the last 5-7 years will have things like Arcoos and structural copy protection that they are not capable of handling.

If he is wanting to rip a recent retail DVD/BR, he will need more than these tools. That's where MakeMKV, DVDFab, AnyDVD, etc come in.
 
DVD Catalyst will defeat normal DVD copy protection but not Blu-Ray.

For those of you ripping to ISO, doesn't that take an incredible amount of hard drive space?
 
I use www.makemkv.com to open the disk. As long as you use the beta it's free. MakeMkv creates a HUGE 1:1 file though so I use Handbrake to re-encode it to a smaller MP4 file using the h.264 codec for the video and AAC codec for the audio.
 
OP's in UAE. That puts him in Region 2. I really doubt that they use sophisticated copy protection there. I've only seen this in North America.

Just in case, here's another suggestion: DVDFab Decrypter (HD version).
It will rip everything - including Blu-rays.

As to having large .iso images... Is that really a problem, in this day and age, when you can get 4TB HDDs for $150? I don't know about the OP, but I'm one of those who like to keep the original quality, as well as all the extra features.
 
I use MakeMKV with Handbrake to shrink the files. Both free solutions, although when MakeMKV comes out of beta, I'll gladly pay for the license.
 
adnank77 said:
I'm looking for DVD Ripping tool .. I have big library of DVDs and BluRays for my kids (mostly animations).. I want to dump them all in a hard drive so that they can play from it .. this will solve the problem of scratching (kids always scratch the disk then ask for replacement!!!) ..

What's the best approach ? Software with networked PC or dedicated media player ?
Click to expand...

Depends, how many DVDs or BDs you have.
What I did...I did copy TS folder to ext. HDDs - 2TB WD Elements - one for movies DVDs, one for music. Another 2 HDDs for backup, but WD Elements never failed yet, even connected for 2 years 24/7...

Dunno about BDs...

DVD Shrink? I've used to burn DVD9 to DVD5, but it removes some features. In case of music DVDs, it might remove 5.1 or DTS sound...

I play all my music and film DVDs thru my Argosy Media player - does play any file, any DVD, plays any BD rip file - even never LG TV doesn't play all HD 1080 video files - mostly video plays but no sound.
Argosy player doesn't reject anything...

So...how many DVDs you have and how large HDDs you plan to buy - to transfer all on HDDs?
Maybe it's not worth to rip your DVDs or BDs - just copy to HDDs...
 
Is it possible to clone a DVD onto another with free method or tool? I heard that some DVD are protected and not able to be copied.
 
Thanks for the MakeMKV suggestion. Trying it now. I wanna turn my whole disc collection into a hard drive collection (if possible).


Oh, it doesnt compress. Oh well.
 
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OK, handbrake it is.
Would mpeg 4 or h264 give me better compatibility with older devices like early android phones and console players?
 
MakeMKV + Handbrake for me is the ultimate setup.

H.264 is the way to go. There are some compatibility issues with older devices that don't support some of the newer profiles but that is solved on a device by device basis. My preference is to create a baseline preset that all you're rips should follow for future proofing, and if you need to create an alternate set for maybe a particular device you can use a preset that is catered to that device and create an alternate set for that.

Virtually all major streaming appliances (XB360, PS3, WDLive, Roku, etc) have full h.264 support. Mobile devices and more specifically Apple tends to be problematic because they don't support all h.264 profiles. Handbrake has profiles for those particular devices.

Just be wary of when to use 64-bit containers and device support. A standard .mp4 container can only be 4GB large or the video won't work. Handbrake will still make the files, but you might be left scratching your head about why they won't play. The "Large File Size" option in Handbrake uses the 64-bit container, which allows file sizes to exceed 4GB and thus is more apt for HD movies, but some mobile devices might not play them. Not really an issue when streaming usually. The upcoming XB1 and PS4 both support NTFS and should support full 64-bit containers so by then hopefully it becomes a non issue soon.
 
H264 codec is definitely the way to go for video and use the AAC or MP3 codec for the audio. Wrap it all up in an MP4 container and you should be set for most devices.
 
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