DVD Ripper is a Windows DVD ripping software that is part of the DVDFab collection of applications offering DVD and Blu-Ray ripping and copying tasks.

DVDFab DVD Ripper Review

DVD Ripper is installed as part of the DVDFab DVD and Blu-Ray tool collection which offers tools to copy and rip DVD and Blu-Ray movies among other things. All programs use a unified interface which can be confusing on first startup. DVD Ripper users need to switch to the DVD Ripper entry in the left sidebar to access the modules functionality.

The DVD ripping software does not need to be configured, it works immediately out of the box. Users start by loading a DVD into the DVD drive of their computer or pointing the software to a Video_TS folder on the local hard drive.

DVD Ripper will scan the DVD video and display information about titles, languages and subtitles in its interface. A small preview window is available that can be used to preview the selected track. The DVD ripping software did select the right video track on the DVD all the time during our tests. It is however possible to manually change the title selection by adding or removing titles from the ripping process.

Here it is also possible to change the start and end settings of the selected title (by skipping chapters), the audio language and subtitle that should be included in the rip.

Selected titles are added to the queue. The profile selection pulldown at the bottom of the screen is used to select the output file format for the ripped videos. That’s however not the only option for users. The left sidebar DVD Ripper menu lists several available conversion options. This includes converting the DVD video to formats readable by devices such as the iPod / iPhone, iPad, Zune, Apple TV, gaming systems like the Xbox 360 or Playstation 3, or formats such as MKV, Avi, MP4 and audio only.

It is necessary to make the selection of the output device first, as the queue might get filled up with duplicate tasks otherwise. If that is the case it is still possible to remove jobs from the queue.

The DVD conversion profiles can be edited by clicking on Edit next to the selected profile in the application interface. This opens a new screen with conversion settings. Users find options to change the file name, title and author, the video and audio format and several related settings such as the framerate and resolution, bitrates, encoding method and video effect settings.

DVD Ripper can remove protections from ripped DVDs. This includes removing copy protections such as CSS, RC, RCE, APS, UOPs, structure protections like RipGuard and layer breaks. Please note that it is illegal in some countries to bypass copy protections.

Video Effects are available to resize or crop the video. Here it is possible to change the source aspect ratio, select a custom size for the selected video or define how black bars should be processed by the DVD ripping software.

Some options are also available in the formats profile settings. The difference is that Video Effects is a temporary selection used only for the selected video, while the format profile settings are valid for all conversions into that format.

A click on start will process all tasks that are currently in the DVD ripping queue. The program displays information on the task at hand and statistics on the video ripping process.

The speed of the conversion depends on several factors, the source of the DVD movie and the speed of the computer. DVD Ripper supports CUDA, which is a technology for NVIDIA video cards. It basically speeds up computing performance of a system by utilizing the graphics processing unit.

Users with CUDA compatible hardware can expect halving the processing time of video conversions on their computer systems according to information posted on the DVDFab website.

The ripped DVD videos are saved in the target folder from where they can be played or transferred to other devices.

DVD Ripper feature overview

• Rip any DVD – All known DVD copy protections, like CSS, CPRM, CPPM, RC, RCE, APS, UOPs, ARccOS, RipGuard, FluxDVD, CORE X2, etc are removed. Thus, any DVD can be ripped.
• Rip DVD to video formats – Rip DVD to almost all popular video formats such as MPEG-4, DivX, Xvid, H.264, AVI, FLV, WMV, etc. compatible with DPG / iPod / iPhone / iPad / PSP / ZUNE / NDS / Xbox 360 / PS3, and other specific format supported by Cell Phone, Apple TV, PVP and PDA.
• Rip DVD to audio formats – Apart from video formats, DVDFab DVD Ripper can also rip and convert DVD to all audio formats such as MP3, MP4, M4A, WMA, WAV, AC3 and DTS, or extract DVD audio from video.
• Support various devices – There are more than 10 output modes and 50 preset profiles from which you can choose to suit your device and application. New presets are being constantly added.

Installation

The installation is straightforward and users should not have any problems following it. The only problem they may encounter is on the last option screen which contains an entry to install the VSO Burning Engine.

This is an internal burning engine only needed if contents need to be burned on DVD or Blu-Ray. Nero and ImgBurn users have the option to use their burning software program instead which is a great option, and means that the VSO Burning Engine does not need to be installed.

It is not really clear if the module is needed for DVD Ripper functionality, my guess it is not since DVD Ripper does not burn data to disk.

Verdict

DVDFab DVD Ripper is an excellent software for users who need to rip videos from DVD or Video_TS folders. The DVD ripping software can rip DVDs with just a few clicks and little configuration. Advanced users find lots of interesting options in the settings to optimize the output.

DVDFab DVD Ripper Giveaway

DVDFab has given us 15 licenses of DVD Ripper. Please leave a comment below for a chance to win one of the 15 licenses. Please answer the following question to make it a little bit more interesting: Which DVD would you like to rip with DVD Ripper?

The developers have contacted me again today, letting me know that they rebuild the software from scratch, resolved two of the three issues found in the January version and are running a giveaway until October 28.

That’s reason enough to take a new look at the DVD ripping application. Not a lot has changed if you compare the new application interface with the old one. The new interface looks modern and more professional than the old one.

Ripping DVDs is still a three stepped process. It begins by loading a DVD from disc or folder (discs inserted into a drive will be recognized automatically), selecting an output format and clicking the start button to start the ripping.

Among the available output formats are DVD to DVD copy for 1:1 copies of the DVD, to formats like avi, mp4 or mov, and to devices such as the iPad, iPhone or Zune. DVD copy and conversion into an iPad compatible format are two of the new options in this version of the software.

Selecting one of the available options lists various quality and ripping settings. If avi is selected, it is for instance possible to change the audio and video quality settings, and select the number of cpu cores for the conversion.

Profiles are available if a device is selected. Profiles can be used to pick a quality setting with two clicks. That’s very comfortable. Profiles are unfortunately still not available for formats.

Processed videos are now named based on patterns defined in the program’s options. This is great as it makes the identification easier, especially if multiple videos are processed in short succession.

What else is new?

• Rebuilt WinX DVD Ripper Platinum with brand-new frame work based on user feedback to maximally conform to common usage.
• Output MP4 video with AAC 2 Channels, AAC 4 Channels and AAC 6 Channels supported.
• Support AVI container, keeping original DVD AC3/DTS 6 Channels audio track.
• Output WMV and MPEG video with original DVD AC3/DTS 6 Channels audio track.
• Improved WMV encoder to fit the requirement of Windows Media Center. Backup DVD to WMV with AC3/DTS audio and stream to PS3 & Xbox 360.
• Significantly increase H.264 encoder speed. Better support for Multi-core CPU.
• Optimized the support for iPhone 4, iPad, iPod 4 and other iOS 4 video players.
• New software UI.

WinX DVD Ripper Platinum is an excellent DVD ripping software for the Windows operating system. To grab a free license code users need to visit the giveaway page on the developer homepage to download the application and grab the license code. License codes are offered for the Windows and Mac version of the software, but only the Windows version is linked from the giveaway page. WinX DVD Ripper for Mac can be downloaded here instead. Please note that I have not tried this version and license code.

Acidrip works with mp3lame and Mencoder for the ripping process and uses lsdvd to be able to which reads and prints the contents of the dvd to the terminal. The process is very simple:

• Insert DVD
• Open up Acidrip
• Press the Load button
• Press the Start button
• Wait

Of course the process of ripping a DVD isn’t quick. And you’re going to need some space on your machine to hold the temporary file (which can get large). Depending upon your system, you might notice a slowdown as the application does it’s thing. On an AMD Sempron with 1 Gig of RAM I noticed a moderate hit on my system (though not to the point the system was unusable.)

Although the process is not quick the quality of video that is ripped is quite good. In fact I have yet to notice any drop in quality from the original to the copy. Acidrip is that good.

Once feature of the tool that I especially like is the preview window. The preview window shows an embedded preview of the DVD contents before the ripping process begins.

Acidrip Main Window

When you start Acidrip the the main (and only) window opens allowing you to set up the process of ripping. As you can see (in the image to the left) I am ripping the Rush Snakes and Arrows Live DVD. The only information I had to enter was in the Info dropdown list. You can select various bits of information to add to the file. Other than that it’s just a matter of clicking the Load button and then clicking the Start button.

During the ripping process you can switch to the Compact view by clicking the Compact button.

Final Thoughts

If you have ever had any doubts that Linux was primed and ready for the desktop, doubt no more. Applications like Acidrip make tasks that were once considered “expert-only” on Linux so user-friendly your grandparents and your four year old sister could handle. If you have any DVD ripping needs turn to Acidrip, you will find it one of the most user-friendly DVD rippers around.

All you need to do is to put the DVD movie into the DVD drive of the computer and click on Load DVD in the program interface. It will load the DVD contents with the option to preview them. The program has pull down menus for selecting one of the available audio tracks and subtitles that will be included in the rip.

The only other customization option is to select the target size for the output file and one out of three encoding profiles (avi, video CD and super video CD).

A click on convert will start the ripping process and save the file to the computer’s hard drive. The only nuisance of the program was that it did automatically open a website with another DVD ripping tool by the same author as advertisement. A viable alternative without advertisement is the one-click dvd ripping tool Bitripper.