DVD Rippers - Try DVDFab HD Decrypter

Introduction

While a CD ripper is commonly used for copying raw digital audio from a CD to a file encoded in MP3 or other audio formats, a DVD ripper is usually used for copying the audio and video content of a DVD to a file encoded in AVI, MP4, MPEG, WMV or other video formats. The ripped file saves in a hard disk or other media device for further editing, backup, sharing or playback without the need to load a DVD. If you have a collection of DVD movies or music videos and want to extract a chapter or make a full backup copy from a DVD to a video file in selected format, these are the free DVD rippers you might be looking for. After testing several free DVD rippers, I find it’s really hard to say which one is the best. Perhaps A supports numerous outputs. But it only rips part of the protected DVDs. Maybe B is powerful enough to rip the latest protected DVDs. However, the features are difficult to understand for beginners. Hence, you are welcome to comment below with your own experience. Let’s work together to make this category better and better.

 

Discussion

Handbrake: general-purpose, open-source, cross-platform and multithreaded DVD ripper HandBrake is a good choice. It is an open source, GPL-licensed, multiplatform, multithreaded DVD ripper or video transcoder, available for Windows, Linux or Mac OS X. The latest version is released on May.18, 2013. It now has a GitHub Mirror. The program has a relatively small file size for all the features that it offers. Despite the slow speeds it transcodes at using the CPU to do the job, the transcoded video is surprisingly good quality for the amount of time it takes to rip. However, if you have a graphics driver installed that supports Open GL, it will take a rather small fraction of time to transcode the content. Handbrake produces an MPEG-4 file which is compatible with a wide range of media players. Note that you’ll need to have the right codecs installed for the type of file you wish to convert however such as DivX, Xvid, OGM, 3ivx, etc. A very great feature is Handbrake is designed with preconfigured profiles for Apple iPhone, iPad, iPod and Apple TV. It also provides numerous video and audio parameter settings for advanced users to alter the file size and video quality accordingly. However, unencrypted-protection methods including CSS are not supported internally and must be handled externally with third-party software and libraries. That is to say, Handbrake can rip SOME of your commercial DVDs.

WinX DVD Ripper: fast rip DVD to MP4 WMV MPEG Music iPod iPhone Android HTC Samsung WinX DVD Ripper is also an up-to-date free DVD ripping software designed for PC. The latest version is 5.5.12 built on May.13, 2013. From the interface, you may notice it supports ripping DVD to MP4, H.264, WMV, MPEG, MOV, FLV, Music, iPhone, iPod, Apple TV, PSP, HTC and Samsung Galaxy Tab. The profile for AVI is removed which could be seen in earlier versions. But objectively speaking, its features fall in with popular demand. The most attractive feature, to me, WAS its ability to rip encrypted DVDs. I tested WinX DVD Ripper with quite a few encrypted DVDs last year, old and new, and it worked without any problem. But it looks like the developer “weakened” its decryption capacity in the recent versions. That is to say, if the DVD you want to rip is encrypted by Disney X-project DRM, etc, the program is not able to read it. Two options: 1. Use other programs to decrypt the DVD to hard drive first, and then make use of WinX. (Two steps.) 2. Wait for the next update. It might work like it used to.

DVDFab HD Decrypter: remove all the DVD protections and copy DVD to hard drive DVDFab HD Decrypter (latest version 8.2.2.8 built on Feb.26, 2013), as its name indicates, enables you to remove DVD protections and copy the DVD content to hard drive. It comes with two Copy modes so that you can either copy the full disc or just copy the main movie. I tested it with a few DVDs including Chronicle and The Hunger Game. The protection was removed nicely and a video folder (VIDEO_TS) was produced quickly. Just like WinX DVD Ripper which has a premium edition, this HD Decrypter is just a free portion of the DVDFab application. You need to purchase other advanced features in order to output more formats, such as ripping DVD to MP4, WMV, iPhone, iPad, etc. Due to this reason, it looks like a "big" program. But actually it is very easy to handle.

DVD Shrink: easy-to-use solution for shrinking original DVDs onto recordable media Another alternative is DVD Shrink . It is able to rip DVD to your hard drive as video files or as an ISO image. Then you can burn the output files by integrating with Nero or other DVD burning software. What makes this program unique is its ability to compress DVD data to the standard 4.7-gig DVD. You will rarely, if ever, notice any decrease in video quality. The latest version is 3.2.0.15 built in July 2004. The UI looks “unfashionable” today. But personally, I like its considerate and friendly design very much. It lists the DVD structure including Menus, Main Movie and Unreferenced Materials. This means you can easily choose which parts of the DVD you want to include for ripping and shrinking. It’s a nice feature for you to leave out unwanted bonus features, audio data for languages, etc. DVD Shrink offers built-in decryption algorithms to “read” encrypted DVDs. Unfortunately, as it stopped updating in 2004, some recent copy protection methods are not supported. I tested Transformers 2 and UP. It freezed when analyzing the DVD info. Non-encrypted DVDs work perfectly.

Format Factory: rip DVDs and mucis CDs to video file as well as create ISO images Format Factory also won votes from us. The strongest point of this program lies in its support of converting numerous file formats, including video to video, audio to audio, DVD to video, and also image to image. The latest version (v3.0.0 built on Oct.15, 2012) supports up to 60 different languages which further makes it a global application. This program supports converting videos to mobile devices as can be seen on the top of the Video column on the left side. 20+ mobile devices or mobile device compatible formats are available, including Apple, Sony, Google, Nokia, etc. It's really convenient for some folks who wanna playing various videos on their portable devices. (However, when loading ISO file as source video, it failed.) In addition to converting videos, FormatFactory also acts as a DVD/CD ripper. But the output format seems a little bit limited. It only supports ripping DVD to ISO/CSO file. What's more, it can’t rip DVDs with CSS according to my test. (But perhaps it supports some old CSS protected DVDs, I guess.)

Freemake Video Converter: multifunctional media converter to rip DVD to AVI, MP4, WMW, MKV, MPEG Someone suggests adding Freemake Video Converter to the review list. When talking about this freeware, I must firstly mention its all-round video converting features. It supports 200+ input videos which cover almost all popular video formats users would require. Besides converting from one video format to another, it's also capable of converting videos to portable devices, such as iPad, iPhone, iPod, Android, PSP, Blackberry, etc. By Pasting URL, you can convert online videos from 50+ sites. That's really an impressive feature to simplify the converting task. But when comes to another ability – ripping DVD, I’m afraid, this application is not all satisfying. It can rip DVD to AVI, WMV, MP4, MPEG, MKV, FLV, SWF, 3GP, but it doesn't support encrypted DVDs. It crashes on almost all my commercial DVDs such as UP and Thor. I feel sorry if this review doesn't fit "the Best Free DVD Ripper" category. I just personally wish the developer can improve its DVD ripping function and make it as powerful as its video conversion ability.