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.

The developers of the free version were also offering a commercial version on their website called WinX DVD Ripper Platinum. The commercial version provides access to additional features and advanced settings making it worthwhile for some users. The free version could for instance not rip a DVD straight into a format supported by Apple’s iPhone or iPod. Users who wanted that functionality had to use a video converter to do that which usually meant double the work and time.

Why are we writing all this? Because the developers have decided to offer WinX DVD Ripper Platinum for free in September. You can head right over to their website and download the commercial version of this excellent DVD ripping software for free. A quick chat with one of the representatives of the company revealed that minor updates will be available for free as well while major updates, e.g. a version bump to 6, would not be free but could be purchased for a small amount of money. Updates are not mandatory on the other hand which means that users can work with the version of the DVD ripper for as long as they like.

WinX DVD Ripper Platinum will automatically recognize video DVDs. The structure of the DVD is automatically displayed in the program’s interface with the main movie selected by default. The interface looks pretty much like the one used in WinX DVD Ripper with the exception of a few additions. Options to convert the DVD to various formats that are supported by devices like iPods, Apple TVs, PDA or Zune are displayed next to the general format options known from the free version of the software program.

Next to the additional devices that are supported by the platinum version of WinX DVD Ripper are the inclusion of a high definition encoding engine which promises a superior audio and video quality over its free version of the software.

The DVD ripper can rip copy protected DVDs and supports all other features of the free version. Users who are looking for a reliable and easy to use DVD ripping software might want to download this program and install it for a test ride. The offer to download the premium version of WinX DVD Ripper for free lasts until the end of September.

DVD rippers come in many forms and sizes. Three aspects are more important than others when evaluation DVD rippers.

• The DVD ripper should be able to handle copy-protected DVDs
• The DVD ripper should offer popular output formats and settings
• The DVD ripper should be free

There are obviously other criteria that should be analyzed like the ease of use or the impact on the computer system. WinX DVD Ripper is a free DVD ripper that meets most of these criteria. It can rip most (if not all) DVDs as it supports ripping copy-protected DVDs (like CSS protection or Sony ArccOS) out of the box. It supports all region codes and offers to rip the DVD movies into various popular formats including avi, mp4, flv or mpeg.

It actually takes only a few clicks to rip a DVD with WinX DVD Ripper. All it actually takes is to click on the DVD Disc button to pick a DVD Movie from one of the computer’s DVD drives. The DVD ripper will automatically display all tracks of the DVD in its interface with the first track being automatically selected for the ripping process. A click on Start would initiate the process.

The user can make changes to the configuration. It is for example possible to switch the output format, resolution, audio settings and quality or output folder. Everything can be managed from the same window which makes the application feel less complicated to the user.

The DVD ripping process takes time, it can generally be said that it takes between 0.5 to 1 second to rip one second of the DVD movie to the computer system. This figures can vary depending on the speed of the computer system.

WinX DVD Ripper can be downloaded from the developer’s website. It supports most Microsoft operating systems including Windows 7, Windows Vista and Windows XP.

via DotTech