Is there a cheap/freeware dvd ripping program for use on a laptop?

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Starrfoxx

Weaksauce
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Apr 27, 2007
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I know there is something out there, but I was hoping for some suggestions on a good product. I'm looking for a DVD ripping program. It doesn't have to be perfect, surround sound, and all that. Basically, I want to copy some TV show episodes to my laptop to watch while I am traveling and also during my lunch breaks at work.

Anyone know any good rippers, free or commercial?
 
Or use HandBrake in conjunction with a ripper and get a much smaller file with damned fine quality that's more than acceptable... on my HP laptop with 4GB of RAM I usually have two or three movies crunched with HandBrake down to about 500-600MB in size that are perfectly watchable, and I copy them from the hard drive into RAM (RAMdisk ftw!) and watch them from there, so in 4.5-6 hours of movie watching the hard drive doesn't even get used.

Comes in handy when the battery goes low because I can just put the laptop to sleep and keep the contents in RAM, plug it in, wham, they're still in RAM ready to pick up where I left off, and yes, it does keep the battery life considerably longer especially if I change the power options to turn off the hard drive after 5-10 mins. After that, the whole thing works from RAM...
 
dvd shrink - to make dvd 9 into standard 4.7gb dvd.

dvd decrypter - to directly rip the iso from the dvd

handbrake - dvd ripper/media converter (not sure if this can get through copy protection but i know dvd shrink/decrypter can)

imgburn - to burn the iso's if needed

all of these are free choose the ones you need.
 
DVD Decrypter and DVD Shrink. Between the two it's almost always smooth sailing (had some issues with titles from *ahem* certain color boxes, but I they are the only exception).
 
"DVD43 is compatible with Microsoft Windows Vista (32), Windows XP, and Windows 2000"

Ack... no x64 support, oh well... would have been something I'd probably find a use for. :(
 
question: in dvd shrink, whats a reasonable compression without significant quality loss? Its SD to begin with and watching on an hdtv, so what should I set it to? I dont really care about it fitting onto a regular sized dvd, I can use DL's.
 
DVDShrink is meant primarily for one purpose: to turn a DVD9 into a DVD5, keeping all the content so you're basically "shrinking" it to fit onto a single layer DVD. While there are options, and yes altering the compression is one of them, it's not really going to do much for you in terms of serious compression compared to transcoding the DVD content to another format like DivX or Xvid AVI files, etc.

There's no reason to waste DL DVDs either when you can just use something like HandBrake to create decent very watchable AVI files with file sizes in the hundreds of megs, not gigs. I'd say use DVDDecrypter to rip the content to the hard drive then hit it with HandBrake and use the settings mentioned earlier - if you want higher quality, up the bitrate or choose a different preset. The universal preset for Apple TV is apparently a great one for most purposes.

When you put SD content up on an HDTV you're gonna notice how bad the transcoding is, period. If you've got tons of space on your hard drives, either watch the originals uncompressed (straight DVDDecrypter rip) or watch the DVD in the drive with a proper DVD player.
 
Joe Average said:
DVDShrink is meant primarily for one purpose: to turn a DVD9 into a DVD5, keeping all the content so you're basically "shrinking" it to fit onto a single layer DVD. While there are options, and yes altering the compression is one of them, it's not really going to do much for you in terms of serious compression compared to transcoding the DVD content to another format like DivX or Xvid AVI files, etc.

There's no reason to waste DL DVDs either when you can just use something like HandBrake to create decent very watchable AVI files with file sizes in the hundreds of megs, not gigs. I'd say use DVDDecrypter to rip the content to the hard drive then hit it with HandBrake and use the settings mentioned earlier - if you want higher quality, up the bitrate or choose a different preset. The universal preset for Apple TV is apparently a great one for most purposes.

When you put SD content up on an HDTV you're gonna notice how bad the transcoding is, period. If you've got tons of space on your hard drives, either watch the originals uncompressed (straight DVDDecrypter rip) or watch the DVD in the drive with a proper DVD player.
Click to expand...

thanks a lot, I might just keep the files at their natural size, I have the room.
 
mnewxcv said:
thanks a lot, I might just keep the files at their natural size, I have the room.
Click to expand...

Ok, so do an IFO mode rip with Main Movie only selected (unless you want all the extras/BS, that is. That'll give you the content you want - and also remember to create an actual VIDEO_TS subfolder to put that stuff in. Some media players can't "see" DVD files on a hard drive if they're not in the DVDNAME/VIDEO_TS/<content> structure.

As for keeping them in 1GB VOB format or creating one big VOB by not splitting them is entirely up to you. Some media players can't access the big single file, so if you've got the space, just do regular rips, IFO mode, Main Movie only, and you're all set.
 
I always use a combination of ripit4me + dvd decrypter + dvd shrink. Has worked for any and all DVDs so far.
 
Joe Average said:
Ok, so do an IFO mode rip with Main Movie only selected (unless you want all the extras/BS, that is. That'll give you the content you want - and also remember to create an actual VIDEO_TS subfolder to put that stuff in. Some media players can't "see" DVD files on a hard drive if they're not in the DVDNAME/VIDEO_TS/<content> structure.

As for keeping them in 1GB VOB format or creating one big VOB by not splitting them is entirely up to you. Some media players can't access the big single file, so if you've got the space, just do regular rips, IFO mode, Main Movie only, and you're all set.
Click to expand...

so you mean i SHOULDNT have ripped them as ISOs? I did ISOs and just mount with daemon tools and it autoplays fine in powerdvd.
 
mnewxcv said:
so you mean i SHOULDNT have ripped them as ISOs? I did ISOs and just mount with daemon tools and it autoplays fine in powerdvd.
Click to expand...
thats fine, the reason he said IFO is because it would keep the size down by just ripping the movie .vob files and ignoring the menus, subtitles, and extras.
 
oh alright, well in the future there is a chance i might be interested in that stuff, so I'll just keep it. a shame, i ran out of hdd space :D 123gigs filled up faster than expected. warranting an upgrade.
 
mnewxcv said:
oh alright, well in the future there is a chance i might be interested in that stuff, so I'll just keep it. a shame, i ran out of hdd space :D 123gigs filled up faster than expected. warranting an upgrade.
Click to expand...
well hard drive space is extremely cheap as of now, and 1tb drives are usually around the 80 dollar area now.

but if you dont plan on getting more HD space you can probably get away with encoding the rips into h.264/xvid, etc. handbrake can do this for you.
 
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