Ripping DVDs

I am planning to embark on a project of ripping about 100 DVDs from my collection in an attempt to save physical space in my office. Since I do not have relevant experience, would want advice as to what software I should use to achieve the best results.

My priorities are:
1) Fast ripping time
2) High quality video and audio
3) Free software

I am currently using an Asus G73 with 8Gb DDR3 and i7-720 quad core processor, on Windows 7 home premium.

Thanks very much!

 

Are you trying to rip them to a hard drive or make duplicate copies to writable DVDs?

 

Ripping it to a hard drive

 

Use anydvd from slysoft.com
It can make an exact bit by bit copy of any DVD movie so you won't lost any quality. It can make an ISO image of the DVD. You wil then need VirtualCloneDrive from the same company to mount the ISO image as a virtual DVD drive.

anydvd works fully functional for 21 days so if you can finish the job in 21 days, you should be OK. VirtualCloneDrive is completely free and doesn't expire.

 

Thanks very much! How long does it take to copy an ISO image, approximately?

 

DVDFAB is the best by far

> Its free for the part that just rips to your HDD
> There is no quality loss its a pure rip of the original format
> You can choose to rip only the parts you want to save space (skip the intro videos, languages you dont want and any extra features or trailers)
> It is the most up to date with copy protection. I have had some dvd's fail on all programs except for this one.

It used to be called DVDFAB HD Decrypter but now its just part of the regular full program and its free to use the HDD rip feature but you have to pay to unlock other features like the DVD Copy.

 

Oh yeah, and also, does it mean that I can mount the DVD using Daemon tools too? I have it installed in my computer already.

 

It depends on the actual size of the movie and the speed of your drive but typically with a single layer DVD, about 15 to 20 minutes. With a double layer DVD, about 30 to 40 minutes.

 

Thanks for your suggestion. How long do you think it would take to rip a DVD, using DVDFAB?

Wow that seems pretty good! I've tried two freeware I found by googling 'dvd ripping'(prism video converter and bitripper and both of them seem to work excruciatingly slowly (essentially they're playing the dvd itself)...

Nevermind exposing my ignorance here, but does speed have to do with the number of cores a processor has, or the bit (64 or 32) of the OS or the software itself?

 

Not too long, about 15 minutes maybe 20 at the most.

Its all just your optical drive and hdd speed.

The G73 comes with 7200rpm drives.

You can save a lot of time again by only ripping what you want, I have yet to see another program that can do this. Saves you both a lot of time and HDD space.

It also makes it easier to fit more than one movie onto a single disk if you ever want to reauthor them and burn them back to a disk.

I personally rip them and then reencode them to H264 & AAC cuts the size by 4/5ths and keeps the quality visually the same. If its an older movie I can actually improve the quality of the movie by recoding it with a few filters.

 

Wow, seems pretty amazing! Just another question: Actually I have another external DVD drive (a buffalo one, bought it for $40 a few months ago). Woudl I be able to rip 2 DVDs at a time, when connecting it using USB?

I'm downloading DVDFAB now, will see if the encoding works - if not I'll just go with the original settings, 1TB isn't that easy to use up!

 

2 at a time? probably would work if you can run two instances of the program at once. May run slower that way especially if they are both going to the same hard drive so be sure to try it with each one ripping to a separate hard drive and use an internal drive not an external one because USB interface for sure could slow you down.

Once you massed up a good amount of movies then just find some time to start the transfer to the external hdd and walk away for a while.

As for filling up 1TB.... Its not as hard as you may think I have 5TB of stuff on my computer at home an about 1/2 of it is movies and most of them are encoded to save space.


For encoding I most highly recommend MeGUI its the most up to date program out there, its updated in real time as all the components are updated and it auto updates itself for you. It lets you get pro level encoding without having to know all the manual command line parameters.

At first it seems complicated but once you have the hang of it, its actually really fast.

This is an older guide but can help you - http://www.digital-digest.com/articles/MeGUI_H.264_Conversion_Guide_page1.html

MeGUI can handle conversion from DVD rips directly still in .VOB format and it has many presets so you can pick one most appropriate for what you need. So you can encode the movie for HDD storage, or you can encode it for your phone all on the same program. Supports batches also, so really good since the encoding process is pretty long with high quality settings.

 

Wow thanks for your help! I've just downloaded DVDFAB 7 but no matter what language I select, when I turn on the program it shows up in aoms foreign character-based language =.= tried reinstalling twice but doesn't help...... Now I'm trying to download an older version to see if it works.

 

I've just managed to deal with the language coding confusion but now I am quite confused by how I actually rip the DVDs into a format playable in the computer. All of the columns seem to be about converting them fom DVD to DVDs.... Can you give me a quick briefing on how to use it?... Thanks!

 

You won't need to mount them if you use VLC Media player.

 

Use DVD to DVD and set the source as your DVD and your Destination as your Hard Drive.

DVD to DVD is the format. meaning it keeps it in DVD format, it does not mean DVD Copy.

 

15-20 minutes? Really? I have a 7200RPM drive, and it always takes me a couple hours using FairUse Wizard.

 

I think FairUse is ripping and encoding all in one go. I dont like it personally. I prefer more control over my files plus I do not think its free anymore except for some really cruddy features.

 

If you re-encode them, it could take that long. But if you simply create an iso image of the DVD, it shouldn't take that long. ISO is an exact 1 to 1 copy. So, it is almost like regular copying with a bit more work. Re-encoding is more involved since the file format needs to be changed. Ie DVD vob to wmv or avi.

 

What kind of software can read and play .iso video files directly? Do I need daemon tools or would something like VLC player work fine, as someone mentioned previously?

 

If you have WinRAR or something similar, you will be able to access the .iso file directly (VIDEO_TS folder) and simply play/watch the movie with WMP (just “open with” any of the IFO files located in the VIDEO_TS folder with WMP), no need to mount it with Daemon Tools.

BTW, it typically takes me around 30 min to rip, to edit/reauthor the DVD add another 30 min, another 2 hours to re-encode/shrink with 3 passes, and finally 20 min for the burning and verification. Total time for a DVD5 is around 3&1/2 hours, but that’s with a lot of reworking, not a straight 1to1 copy.

 

VLC Player is fine, except with Blu-ray ISO of course in which you will need commercial software dvd player like PowerDVD Ultra.