Best Software to Rip DVD's to HD for HTPC

Digger

Senior Member
What is the best software to rip a DVD to a HD in an HTPC setup. I am concerned more about playback quality then I am storage space at the moment.
 
The two I've heard have been DVD Decryptor (no longer supported but works on most DVD's, not sure what condition came up that is not covered) and DVD Shrink.

I think the shrink advantage is to strip out languages and extra soundtracks to conserve space.

I believe both rip to VOB files which results in no loss due to conversion. I think a few people here referenced ripping to Divx but I would guess that the loss is going to be noticeable if you have a decent size screen.
 
I will have a 42 " LCD HDTV in my Living room which will be the largest TV in the house.

I am actually waiting for Cable to show up as I write this to take care of some weak signals. I am going to ask them to put in a nice big amplifier.

I will use SAGE to view the saved DVD's over the network.
 
I use a combination of DVD decryptor and AnyDVD. I use DVD decryptor to chop out everything but the main movie and english surround (AC3 or DTS) audio and to automatically save it as one large .vob file. It works on all older movies and some new ones. For the ones that it can't decode, I use AnyDVD. It runs in the system tray and decrypts any DVD that is put in the drive, you can then use the "ripper of choice" to make the copy. The ripper (in my case DVD decryptor) then sees the DVD as an un-encrypted one and works as normal.

DVD shrink would probably work too, but I want the full uncompressed movie with audio and video in one file and without a lot of hassle, DVDdecryptor/AnyDVD rips a DVD in about 7-10 minutes on my system and the only intervention is to insert/remove the DVD and tell it where to copy it, and the last part could be scripted if I had a lot of DVDs to go through...I only make copies of DVDs I own, and I don't have that many yet but the speed and ease of use should work just as well for those with large collections.

Hope this helps,
Terry
 
Terry,

Thanks!!! 10 minutes per DVD is perfect as we have quite a large collection. Do you play them back on a large screen TV? I dont want to lose quality.
 
Digger said:
Do you play them back on a large screen TV? I dont want to lose quality.
We have a 65" DLP HD projection connected through the DVI port and they look perfect, the wife actually prefers watching them through the HTPC than directly off of the DVD player.

EDIT: Typo
 
fwiw, there's a parameter setting somewhere in DVDShrink that talks about max VOB size. Most folks intentionally leave it at 1GB, but I hear some folks have mucked with it in order to get a single file.
 
I tried using Anydvd but 50% through the rip it comes to a standstill. I tried rebooting and increasing my virtual memory but the same thing happens.

Any ideas?
 
Digger said:
I tried using Anydvd but 50% through the rip it comes to a standstill. I tried rebooting and increasing my virtual memory but the same thing happens.

Any ideas?
That's strange. What DVD are you trying to rip? Are you using DVDdecryptor or something else to do the ripping with AnyDVD?
 
I was trying to rip Pirates of the Carribean. DVD Dcyptor is no longer available from what I can find. So I tried usung CloneDVD which is from the same company as ANYDVD and that didnt work then I tried ANYDVD by iteself and it dies at 50%. Takes 5 minutes to ge to 50% and then just gives out.
 
I might be using DVDFab Decryptor (free) which supports the latest DRM technologies to strip the DRM, then I might be using DVDshrink to copy the movie to the HD (free as well), it's very easy to copy JUST the movie, supports compression, but I would never use compression :)
 
Digger said:
I was trying to rip Pirates of the Carribean. DVD Dcyptor is no longer available from what I can find.
Hmmm, hypothetically, if I had that same DVD and just tried it using the same methods as you it might have hypothetically locked about half-way with me too. I had no problems with DVDdecrypter though... hypothetically.

You can find DVDdecrypter here...hypothetically... If I downloaded it, I might also uncheck the "check for new versions" checkbox.
 
Hypothetically thanks :)

I will let you know after I hypothesise more....(not sure if I spelled that right).
 
Hypothetically how would someone play back the movie once its on teh drive since most programs dont seem to recgnize the TS files.

Sorry for the basic questions but I am not a computer guy more of an alarm guy.
 
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