Which DVD ripper software do you use?
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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 -
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, 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 ServicesVLC is a good solution, but I prefer KMPlayer. http://imgcdn.pandora.tv/pan_img/KMP/Download/kmp.exe[^] Like VLC, KMPLayer will play just about anything you throw at it. One of the big reasons I like KMPLayer is that you can adjust the playback speed without causing the audio to sound like Donald Duck. Some encoding methods get out of sync when sped up, but most work great and a 10-25% speed up is hardly noticeable.
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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 ServicesVOB2MPG PRO is all you need. If commercial DVDs then AnyDVD will decrypt on the fly and VOB2MPG will extract chapters, titles or the whole thing.
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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 -
VLC is a good solution, but I prefer KMPlayer. http://imgcdn.pandora.tv/pan_img/KMP/Download/kmp.exe[^] Like VLC, KMPLayer will play just about anything you throw at it. One of the big reasons I like KMPLayer is that you can adjust the playback speed without causing the audio to sound like Donald Duck. Some encoding methods get out of sync when sped up, but most work great and a 10-25% speed up is hardly noticeable.
Do you seriously expect anyone to download an executable file from a link in a web forum?
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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What 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 ServicesMedia Player Classic or something like that. It's also free.
.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 ServicesI use DVDFab to rip DVDs and remove CSS, Macrovision, etc. DVDFab HD Decrypter is free and updated regularly to address new security provisions. Then I use either ffmpeg or handbrake to encode in H.264. Lately, I've been using handbrake (the last update was nearly a year ago!), but ffmpeg just released a new version on June 15 that they claim significantly improves H.264 encoding speed. Looks like I'll be downloading ffmpeg 0.6 and testing both the speed and encoding quality. Generally, I target 1GB per movie (main movie only) and H.264 provides the best compression with the least amount of degradation. As far as players go, I typically use GOM (developed by GOM Labs) because it supports just about any type of audio/video file (if you don't have the codec, it tells you and provides a link to get it). VLC is not bad either, I just prefer GOMs interface. All the software packages that I mentioned are free, so at least you don't have to worry about buyers regret. Download, install, play and if you don't like it, remove.
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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 ServicesDon't remember which one I use the most cause I have 2 or 3 on my system. Every one of them I got free (free download for 1 day only) at the Giveaway of the Day site (http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/). They come around from time to time. - hground
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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 ServicesNot sure if anyone has already mentioned it, but DVD Shrink http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVD_Shrink[^] does the job very well. This piece of freeware will copy a commercially protected DVD to hard disk and allows the resultant files to be reorganised to delete all of the extraneous extras that are not usually required. Another great feature this software has is the ability to recompress the movie so that it can be burned to a standard DVD as opposed to using a dual layer DVD. One thing to bare in mind before you start 'backing up' your dvd collection; turn off the Shell Hardware Detection Service. This will stop the DVD from autoplaying. It is not unknown for the dvd to load software, such as in the case of the Sony Rootkit fiasco http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_CD_copy_protection_scandal[^], onto your computer that will prevent copying commercial DVDs. I know the Sony rootkit was for CDs, but whose to say the same doesn't go on with DVDs? I have not had a DVD yet that this piece of software couldn't handle.
No trees were harmed in the posting of this missive; however, a large number of quantum states were changed.
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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 -
Do you seriously expect anyone to download an executable file from a link in a web forum?
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
Good point - it's hard to find on thier website & I grabbed the most direct link. Here is the slightly less direct link to the latest version.http://www.kmplayer.com/forums/showthread.php?t=16643[^]
Melting Away www.deals-house.com www.innovative--concepts.com
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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 have seen DVDFab in action, and it works very well. I like the fact you can specify the resolution and bitrate up front. The only thing I have seen DVDFab NOT decrypt is Dexter TV Series DVD. In that case, XiliSoft DVD Ripper Ultimate/Platinum/etc worked fine. If you're in Ubuntu, AviDemux is pretty awesome. I usually choose ASP4 (Xvid) and MP3 (Lame). As far as chapter mappings, I believe DVDFab has an option for that, the subtitle output files work great. When it comes to playing the output, check out the SamSung C5500C ($130) Blu-ray player with Divx AllShare (use any NAS). It also plays files off a USB drive. Either that or any DivX capable media player works fine. I have tried Mvix which was the best but they stopped making updates for th 780HD model, which I have. No problem though, still have about 700GB free on my 2TB drive installed in the 780HD. Tried the galaxy metal gear versions, they are okay but audio/video sometimes get out of sync. Generic ones are okay, but I wouldn't buy one again. Once I worked my way up to the Mvix 780HD, the rest don't stack up enough to give them a go. I almost bought the argosy and iomega flavors but they don't specifically state the DivX version they support. Not worth the risk for me. The ULTIMATE player I am drooling over is the Samsung BDP-c7500, it can play divx, divx hd, mp4, you name it but $$$ $350 on ebay is the cheapest.
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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 ServicesOne of the most beautiful things I've ever seen (in terms of piracy) is the ready availability of the key for breaking AnyDVD's DRM ! The driver designed for Piracy is Pirated! Irony. Symmetry. Kismet! Oh Brave New World!
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