DVD Ripping
Lets ignore copyright issues of DVD ripping for now and just deal with the practicality of legitimate DVD ripping.
An example of a legitimate DVD rip is making backup copies of your purchased DVDs. That copy of Little Mermaid that gets played over and over is likely to break and since Disney puts some titles “in the vault“, if it breaks you may not be able to find a new copy to buy. So you rip it to have a backup in case something happens to the original.
Luckily, Lifhacker just asked its large audience which rippers are their favorites and they’ve come up with a top 5 DVD rippers along with a few worthy honorable mentions. The nice thing is that all of the software is free. The big winners are:
DVDShrink (download) (Windows)
Handbrake (Windows\Mac\Linux)
DVDFab HD Decrypter (Windows\Linux-Wine)
MacTheRipper (Mac)
DVD Decrypter (Windows)
Be sure to check out the article for more details on each of the different programs and some guides to their use.
My personal preference is DVDShrink and adding in AnyDVD to help with some of the newer DVDs that have copy protection that DVDShrink can’t handle. Each program does things a little differently though so your end result may also dictate which software works best for you. DVDShrink allows ripping DVDs to another playable DVD but maybe you want to rip the DVD to play on your iPod or HTPC, in which case Handbrake would be a better choice. Give some of the programs a try and I’m sure you’ll find one that works well for you.
April 20, 2008 at 11:32 pm
I’ve tried using Handbrake to rip non-commercial DVDs to a PC file but it didn’t work. Obviously I must have been doing something wrong.
I used to use DVDShrink all the time but it stopped being developed and updated a long time ago.
April 20, 2008 at 11:37 pm
Handbrake is definitely more reliable on OS X and Linux.
DVDShrink hasn’t been developed in years (which is why the download link doesn’t point to the official site) - but it still offers a bunch of features still not found in other ripping software options. It just doesn’t always crack encryption. Still… it still works reliably.
I’d give handbrake another shot. The recent version is a lot friendlier than past versions.
April 24, 2008 at 11:01 am
What about how to rip or convert a movie or TV show into iPod format?
April 24, 2008 at 12:36 pm
Handbrake would work best for that actually. It has presets for iPod specific ripping.