Best Ripping Program?

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Akositzke
Posts: 7
Joined: Sun Jan 10, 2010 4:27 am

Best Ripping Program?

Post by Akositzke »

I'm trying to figure out which DVD ripping program is the best - any suggestions? The ones I've come across so far are Fairmount, Mac DVDRipper Pro, RipIT, MacTheRipper and OSEx - anyone know the pros and cons of these programs?

My goals are pretty simple - have a collection of near 1,000 DVDs, looking to back them up to my external 1TB hard drive so that I can watch them in iTunes - and possibly watch them on my TV through the HDMI port - so I'm interested in the quality, the size of the file and the speed of the rip.

Any help appreciated!
TedJ
Veteran User
Posts: 5388
Joined: Wed Feb 20, 2008 11:25 pm

Re: Best Ripping Program?

Post by TedJ »

0SEx is woefully out of date and it's interface is somewhat cryptic. Fairmount needs something like DVD2OneX to remove dummy cells. RipIt seems hell bent on generating rips that crash Handbrake... we've been dealing with the fallout for nearly a year. MacTheRipper's free (2.6.6) edition won't handle most of the newer DVD releases and the project has been in a paid beta status for years now.

I don't have any personal experience with Mac DVDRipper Pro but have had several friends recommend it and it has a limited (5) run trial edition so I'd suggest taking a look.

That being said, unless you're planning on pre-ripping so you can batch several encodes overnight I find working straight from the DVD usually works just fine.
derek8187
Posts: 3
Joined: Mon Jan 18, 2010 2:10 pm

Re: Best Ripping Program?

Post by derek8187 »

Akositzke,

I have also have a DVD collection that I am backing up at present ( although not as extensive as yours - only around 700 ) and I personally use RipIT. It is not without it's problems ( I have just overcome one with the very kind help of this forum - see http://forum.handbrake.fr/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=14636 ) but I have found it - generally - a very good product.

I have used a number of the products mentioned in your post over the years when I (very sporadically) first started to backup my collection so for what it is worth here is my personal views:

MacTheRipper (2.6.6) - I used to use this when I first started out and it worked fine and still will for 'old' DVD's. However, given it is never updated, it will fail on most modern DVD encryption methods so you will always need an alternative method thereby negating the point of using this product at all.

Fairmount/DVD2OneX - I experimented with this combination a number of times using different versions. In most cases (but certainly not all) the results were satisfactory but it is certainly not the most straight forward solution available and does involve some work on your part not required with other products. I gave it miss on that basis but that probably says more about me than the product combination !

RipIt - The product I use. Very easy to use - just put the DVD in and press 'Rip' (you can only 'rip' the whole DVD rather than just the main feature but is this really a problem if you are going to 'Handbrake' it afterwards anyway). I have an old MacBook Pro (Core Duo - 32bit) but even on my machine a DVD is generally ripped in about 25 minutes. I can see from comments in this forum that this product is not necessarily the favoured one with the development team. I have however been conservative in my upgrade process with both RipIt and Handbrake and hence have been fortunate to avoid too much trouble.

Handbrake - When I first started I also used Handbrake on its own to 'rip' the DVD - something it used to do internally but now (I believe) it can only do this if you have VLC installed. I dropped this method because (a) I came across too many DVD's it would not rip and (2) this methods crucifies optical drive - especially if ripping to an AppleTV preset where on my poor old laptop this takes about 4 hours per movie (well that is H264 encoding for you!).

Hope that helps !
Da Man
Bright Spark User
Posts: 181
Joined: Sat Mar 08, 2008 5:47 pm

Re: Best Ripping Program?

Post by Da Man »

Ummm. Mac the Ripper 4.0? Worked for about 30 rips thus far.
TedJ
Veteran User
Posts: 5388
Joined: Wed Feb 20, 2008 11:25 pm

Re: Best Ripping Program?

Post by TedJ »

Has MTR 4.0 been released yet? Last time I checked it was still in paid beta status, like the entire 3.0 series.

From a technical standpoint, I don't have an issue with MTR... I just find the hoops you have to jump through to acquire a license to be onerous in the extreme.
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