Which DVD ripper software do you use?
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I'm going to experiment a bit with ripping my DVDs to hd and playing them from the computer. I'd be interested in knowing what software you use, both to rip the DVDs as well as the player you prefer. I'm also curious as to how the resulting file(s) handles chapter markers. Is the result a collection of files, one per chapter, that a specific player knows to string together or is it one large file, etc? And while I'm certainly not averse to paying for quality software, free (the legal kind) is always nice. :)
Christopher Duncan
www.PracticalUSA.com
Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes
Copywriting Services -
I'm going to experiment a bit with ripping my DVDs to hd and playing them from the computer. I'd be interested in knowing what software you use, both to rip the DVDs as well as the player you prefer. I'm also curious as to how the resulting file(s) handles chapter markers. Is the result a collection of files, one per chapter, that a specific player knows to string together or is it one large file, etc? And while I'm certainly not averse to paying for quality software, free (the legal kind) is always nice. :)
Christopher Duncan
www.PracticalUSA.com
Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes
Copywriting ServicesI use AnyDVD. Their forums are useless though because if you sound even a little bit like you're criticizing the product, they ban you. I'm not concerned with chapters or menus, compression, or special features, so I just rip the "Main Movie" to an .iso file and use Virtual Clone Drive (free) to mount the image and play it. Yeah, that means my files are from 3.5-7gb (depending on the movie), but I'd rather have the best quality possible than save an insignificant amount of disk space. (I have 8TB of disk space available. :) ) I have over 500 movies on my HTPC and NAS boxes with room for at least 2000 more, and I have room to add three more internal drives to my NAS, not to mention a couple of unused PCIe slots to plug in more SATA controller cards. BTW, you only need DvdShrink if you want to compress the resulting video, but that makes it a two-step process.
.45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly
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"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
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"The staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - J. Jystad, 2001 -
I'm going to experiment a bit with ripping my DVDs to hd and playing them from the computer. I'd be interested in knowing what software you use, both to rip the DVDs as well as the player you prefer. I'm also curious as to how the resulting file(s) handles chapter markers. Is the result a collection of files, one per chapter, that a specific player knows to string together or is it one large file, etc? And while I'm certainly not averse to paying for quality software, free (the legal kind) is always nice. :)
Christopher Duncan
www.PracticalUSA.com
Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes
Copywriting Services -
I'm going to experiment a bit with ripping my DVDs to hd and playing them from the computer. I'd be interested in knowing what software you use, both to rip the DVDs as well as the player you prefer. I'm also curious as to how the resulting file(s) handles chapter markers. Is the result a collection of files, one per chapter, that a specific player knows to string together or is it one large file, etc? And while I'm certainly not averse to paying for quality software, free (the legal kind) is always nice. :)
Christopher Duncan
www.PracticalUSA.com
Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes
Copywriting ServicesI have used http://handbrake.fr/details.php[^] in the past and I liked it.
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I'm going to experiment a bit with ripping my DVDs to hd and playing them from the computer. I'd be interested in knowing what software you use, both to rip the DVDs as well as the player you prefer. I'm also curious as to how the resulting file(s) handles chapter markers. Is the result a collection of files, one per chapter, that a specific player knows to string together or is it one large file, etc? And while I'm certainly not averse to paying for quality software, free (the legal kind) is always nice. :)
Christopher Duncan
www.PracticalUSA.com
Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes
Copywriting ServicesI'll reluctantly add another vote for AnyDVD. You're probably not going to like it, but it beats ending up with that one DVD that you actually have to dig out the disk to play - that is to say, they manage to keep on top of the various sketchy "protection" schemes the DVD makers throw out (which, incidentally, wreak havoc with some dedicated DVD players as well - nice going there, eh?) Back in the day, DVDShrink was the best, with DVDDecryptor slightly more reliable... But both projects got shut down, and thus don't know how to handle the crap on some newer DVDs. DVDShrink still has a nice UI, and generally works pretty well coupled with AnyDVD. I rip straight to ISO files for the convenience; otherwise, you end up with a VIDEO_TS folder full of VOB files. As harold notes, you can re-encode these to save space, but IMHO life's too short and harddrive space too cheap - if a movie isn't worth the cost of 4-10GB, then I'm probably not gonna watch it again anyway.
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I'm going to experiment a bit with ripping my DVDs to hd and playing them from the computer. I'd be interested in knowing what software you use, both to rip the DVDs as well as the player you prefer. I'm also curious as to how the resulting file(s) handles chapter markers. Is the result a collection of files, one per chapter, that a specific player knows to string together or is it one large file, etc? And while I'm certainly not averse to paying for quality software, free (the legal kind) is always nice. :)
Christopher Duncan
www.PracticalUSA.com
Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes
Copywriting ServicesI use WinX DVD Ripper Platinum - I only use it to rip 30 minute home videos from the mini-DVD my camcorder uses. So I don't really know how well it will work with 2 hour HD movies. It's fairly decent - though there's some quality loss. The videos don't play as good as what the DVD plays (when directly played).
Regards, Nish
Blog: blog.voidnish.com Most recent article: An MVVM friendly approach to adding system menu entries in a WPF application
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I use AnyDVD. Their forums are useless though because if you sound even a little bit like you're criticizing the product, they ban you. I'm not concerned with chapters or menus, compression, or special features, so I just rip the "Main Movie" to an .iso file and use Virtual Clone Drive (free) to mount the image and play it. Yeah, that means my files are from 3.5-7gb (depending on the movie), but I'd rather have the best quality possible than save an insignificant amount of disk space. (I have 8TB of disk space available. :) ) I have over 500 movies on my HTPC and NAS boxes with room for at least 2000 more, and I have room to add three more internal drives to my NAS, not to mention a couple of unused PCIe slots to plug in more SATA controller cards. BTW, you only need DvdShrink if you want to compress the resulting video, but that makes it a two-step process.
.45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly
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"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
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"The staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - J. Jystad, 2001John Simmons / outlaw programmer wrote:
if you sound even a little bit like you're criticizing the product, they ban you.
Yep, two yellow cards and you're out.
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I have used http://handbrake.fr/details.php[^] in the past and I liked it.
handbrake is crap.
.45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly
-----
"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
-----
"The staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - J. Jystad, 2001 -
handbrake is crap.
.45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly
-----
"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
-----
"The staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - J. Jystad, 2001 -
I use AnyDVD. Their forums are useless though because if you sound even a little bit like you're criticizing the product, they ban you. I'm not concerned with chapters or menus, compression, or special features, so I just rip the "Main Movie" to an .iso file and use Virtual Clone Drive (free) to mount the image and play it. Yeah, that means my files are from 3.5-7gb (depending on the movie), but I'd rather have the best quality possible than save an insignificant amount of disk space. (I have 8TB of disk space available. :) ) I have over 500 movies on my HTPC and NAS boxes with room for at least 2000 more, and I have room to add three more internal drives to my NAS, not to mention a couple of unused PCIe slots to plug in more SATA controller cards. BTW, you only need DvdShrink if you want to compress the resulting video, but that makes it a two-step process.
.45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly
-----
"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
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"The staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - J. Jystad, 2001What application do you use to play the movie once you've mounted the clone drive?
Christopher Duncan
www.PracticalUSA.com
Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes
Copywriting Services -
AnyDVD (the HD version) and then DVDshrink to create an .ISO of the main title. tsMuxerGUI is good for converting Blu-rays to .TS files for the media player.
Join the cool kids - Come fold with us[^]
Lots of votes for this, so I'm thinking it's a gotta have. Once you've ripped the dvd, what application do you use to play the movie? And does it support chapter markers?
Christopher Duncan
www.PracticalUSA.com
Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes
Copywriting Services -
I heard AnyDVD is pretty good.. it costs money though (oh sweet irony, a piracy tool that you 'have to' pay for!) and as you know I'm more of a "won't pay" person. I have used DVD Decrypter. It works OK. Don't forget to encode your movie though otherwise it will be the full 4.7GB (edit: OK not always, but it will be too big) waste of space at no additional quality then 1.3GB (HD) would be. (I have used handbrake for that) The past tense there indicates that I don't do that anymore - that's because it's pointless (why not just download? when you have the dvd anyway, there is no guilt.. much faster and easier that way) And I use VLC to play. edit: oh that's right you wanted to know about the "collection of files" thing. If you just rip it and do nothing, you get a collection of files. Any decent player knows how to handle that though. But having a single file is much more convenient, encoding the movie will make it that way.
harold aptroot wrote:
it costs money though (oh sweet irony, a piracy tool that you 'have to' pay for!)
While I'll give 'em my money, I have little sympathy for them if their stuff gets pirated. :) AnyDVD is getting a lot of votes, I'll also check out VLC.
Christopher Duncan
www.PracticalUSA.com
Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes
Copywriting Services -
I use WinX DVD Ripper Platinum - I only use it to rip 30 minute home videos from the mini-DVD my camcorder uses. So I don't really know how well it will work with 2 hour HD movies. It's fairly decent - though there's some quality loss. The videos don't play as good as what the DVD plays (when directly played).
Regards, Nish
Blog: blog.voidnish.com Most recent article: An MVVM friendly approach to adding system menu entries in a WPF application
Yeah, judging by what everyone is saying, there seems to be a consensus for AnyDVD, but thanks!
Christopher Duncan
www.PracticalUSA.com
Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes
Copywriting Services -
For some reason DD Decryptor doesn't work for me. I am about ready to buy AnyDvd. I am tired of lugging my collection around with me. It would be so much easier if they were all digital. Plus I can stream them to any TV in my house if I have them on the media server.
Need custom software developed? I do custom programming based primarily on MS tools with an emphasis on C# development and consulting. A man said to the universe: "Sir I exist!" "However," replied the universe, "The fact has not created in me A sense of obligation." --Stephen Crane
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John Simmons / outlaw programmer wrote:
handbrake is crap.
Depends on your driving style. It's quite good for drifting! :)
I bug
It conflicts with the NOS.... ;P
xacc.ide
IronScheme - 1.0 RC 1 - out now!
((λ (x) `(,x ',x)) '(λ (x) `(,x ',x))) The Scheme Programming Language – Fourth Edition -
I'm going to experiment a bit with ripping my DVDs to hd and playing them from the computer. I'd be interested in knowing what software you use, both to rip the DVDs as well as the player you prefer. I'm also curious as to how the resulting file(s) handles chapter markers. Is the result a collection of files, one per chapter, that a specific player knows to string together or is it one large file, etc? And while I'm certainly not averse to paying for quality software, free (the legal kind) is always nice. :)
Christopher Duncan
www.PracticalUSA.com
Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes
Copywriting ServicesFor playback use VLC - it plays damn near every format without any trouble. In fact I go to great lengths to ensure that QuickTime, Windows Media Player et al never get invoked by default for any format that VLC can play.
If you don't know where you're going then ... you must belong in Project Management.
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I'm going to experiment a bit with ripping my DVDs to hd and playing them from the computer. I'd be interested in knowing what software you use, both to rip the DVDs as well as the player you prefer. I'm also curious as to how the resulting file(s) handles chapter markers. Is the result a collection of files, one per chapter, that a specific player knows to string together or is it one large file, etc? And while I'm certainly not averse to paying for quality software, free (the legal kind) is always nice. :)
Christopher Duncan
www.PracticalUSA.com
Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes
Copywriting Services