While ripping CDs is a common activity performed by many software programs, even many advanced computer users don't know how to rip a DVD. Ripping DVDs (computer jargon for copying onto your PC's hard-drive) is good for making a backup of their content, or watching them on your PC. The easiest way has long been to use a free program called DVD Decrypter, and these instructions will explain how to use it. Unfortunately DVD Decrypter is no longer easily available. See How to Find a Copy of DVD Decrypter for suggestions on downloading it.
[edit] Steps
1. Download DVD Decrypter, a free program that is a great utility for ripping DVDs. Sites that host this free download change over time; see external links at the bottom of this article for download locations. Alternatively, search the web for "DVD Decrypter". Handbrake is another free DVD ripper that copies a movie to a computer hard drive for viewing on your computer or iPod using the free iTunes software. It is available for download at
http://handbrake.m0k.org/ 2. Install and Open DVDDecrypter.
3. Insert a DVD to be ripped into your PC's DVD drive.
4. Ensure that you have sufficient free space on your hard drive to store the DVD. Many DVDs contain 6-8 GB of files.
5. Open the DVD Decrypter program
DVD Decrypter Main Page
6. Ensure the correct optical (DVD) drive is selected on the source pull-down menu.
7. Set the correct file destination. Under the title Destination, it should say Please Select a Folder. If you click on the folder icon to the right of this phrase (see mouse arrow in image below), you will get a standard Windows menu to select a destination folder.
Choose a Folder to Save Files
8. Click on the start icon (see image below) to begin the ripping. You will be updated on the progress. It could take 10-15 minutes to rip your DVD (actual time depends on the speed of your DVD drive).
Click Here to Begin Ripping
9. You now have the DVD unencrypted in a folder on your hard drive.
[edit] Tips
* If you want to burn the ripped DVD to a fresh 4.7 GB DVD, often you will need to shrink it first, as original DVDs usually contain more than 4.7 GB of data. Use the excellent freeware program DVD Shrink for this. It can produce a ripped DVD directory that fits on a 4.7 GB disk, without discernible change in image or sound quality. See How to Burn DVDs on a PC.
* If you want to edit DVD movie or rip DVD to AVI/MPEG/MP4/MP3, you can use Aimersoft DVD Ripper at:
http://www.aimersoft.com/dvd-ripper.html * If you want to burn DVD, copy DVD and rip DVD with great video edit and some other functions in the same software, you can try the all-in-one best software here:
http://www.top5soft.com/video/movavi-video-suite.html * If you want to backup your favorite DVD movie to your computer by converting DVD to AVI, DivX, XviD, VCD, WMV, MPEG4,etc and want to play the videos on iPod,iPhone,Zune,PocketPC,etc. You can try the all-in-one DVD Conversion software here:
http://www.dvd-video-converters.com/dvdconverter/cucusoft-ultimate-dvd-converter.html * If you need to re-author the DVD with cutomized DVDmenu/title menus and some video effects, see How to Burn DVD.
* The ripping process could produce a bakers dozen or more individual files, so it's often best to create a new folder on your hard drive for each DVD. If you want to rip the DVD to a single video /audio file like AVI/MPEG/WMA/OGG, you can use Wondershare DVD Ripper Platinum.
* Not satisfied with the common convert DVD, you want to do some modification of your DVDs while convert, such as crop the black edge of DVD movie, trim some segment of your DVDs to convert. You can try this Daniusoft DVD Ripper .
* If you plan to convert the video to AVI/OGG format (to save space, share it on P2P or watch it on your PDA), use a program like GordianKnot that combines all necessary utilities in one package.
* There is a much easier method to ripping, using an application called DVD Shrink (
http://www.mrbass.org/dvdshrink/dvdshrink32setup.zip) and Tutorial on using the software here (
http://www.mrbass.org/dvdshrink/ )
* If you have difficulty doing this way you can buy or use the trial version of AnyDVD and CloneDVD at:
http://www.slysoft.com/en/ to accomplish this as well.
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+ NOTE you can, if you wish, also RIP the dvd using DVD SHRINK. It will RIP and COMPRESS the disc then BURN on to a blank 4.7Gb disc all in one process. The resulting files are automatically saved to HD so you have ripped saved to HD compressed and burnt ALL with DVD shrink.
* Note: You may find DVD43 (freeware) is preferable to DVDDecrypter as it avoids a double operation - it will decode to DVD Shrink on the fly.
* If you use GNU/Linux, you can rip the DVD to a .iso with one command: "dd if=/dev/dvd of=~/mydvd.iso" (without the quotes). Replace ~/mydvd.iso to whatever you want and /dev/dvd where appropriate). Note that you can't have your DVD drive mounted, and you must have permissions. Try using su or sudo
* If your DVD drive has the riplock
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riplock feature, your ripping speed could be quite slow. You may wish to try to remove or bypass this feature to reduce ripping time.
