Handbrake and or versus MacTheRipper

[flowney]

It appears that MacTheRipper (MTR) is no longer free as of version 3.x. What implications, if any, does this development have for Handbrake development? MTR is often cited here as an app that sometimes needs to be used ahead of Handbrake in the work flow.

[jbrjake]

MTR is often cited here as an app that sometimes needs to be used ahead of Handbrake in the work flow.

The main reason to read from a ripped VIDEO_TS or .iso, stored on your hard drive, is that HandBrake does not even attempt to decipher the latest copy protection schemes. Many DVDs, especially recent, popular films, must be run through dedicated decrypting tools first, like Fairmount or AnyDVD.

Most of the time when HandBrake has trouble reading a DVD it is because of intentional authoring defects placed there by the company releasing the disk. The movie studios have started breaking the DVD standard in subtle ways to trip up ripping applications. If you encounter the "no valid title found" error, or your audio drops out halfway through, or you encounter any other weirdness, see How To: Rip & Encode using Fairmount and DVD2OneX.

[mrcheeks]

Thank you for your help. Do you have any further advice on MacTheRipper specifically? The Fairmount / DTOX approach described in the documentation makes sense, but I would prefer to use MTR as it is more straightforward.

Can DTOX fix zero cells in a way that MTR can not? Is MTR incompatible with many recent DVDs?

I know this is not an MTR forum, but since many people on this site have experience with the software and my question is directly related to the prior post, I thought this would be an appropriate location.

[jbrjake]

Personally, my advice about MacTheRipper is not to use MacTheRipper.

[saverio]

Would you elaborate on that? I'm using both MTR and FM+DTOX but I can't see a winner. A more informed view could get me to the right side of the street!