How to rip a dvd to my computer??

I'm having a bit of trouble figuring out what software I need to use for ripping a dvd. I basically want to copy my dvds to my PC, so that I can play the movies back from the hard drive and the actual DVD can be safe in its case and I don't have to worry about them getting scratched. I want to rip them at full quality, im not worried about space, hard drives are cheap. SO is there any good free programs that will do this?? If I want to preserve their original quality what kind of file do I want to use?? AVI?? Please help, I'm a bit confused about all the different dvd rip software and file types out there.
thanks
Frank

i almost forgot to mention, you can try a program called autogk. this will allow you to compress the video to a single smaller file, but it doesnt get the best encoding quality. it is a good begginners program. good luck.

well, first things first, you must understand a few things first.

for one, you need to know the difference between a container format and a codec. .avi, .mpeg, .mpg, .mov, .mp4, .vob are all CONTAINERS. they are only important as far as what codecs they support.

XviD, DivX, and h.264 are CODECS. they are the real important part of the compression process.

common pairs of containers and codecs are either .avi and xvid/divx (they are very similar) or .mp4 and h.264. most people will agree that h.264 is the best codec for high quality video, but xvid is probably more popular.

if you are willing to give it a try, i would recommend encoding with vlc (a media player and encoder). download it from http://www.videolan.org/vlc/ and install it.

now, go to file>open disc. a menu will pop up and it will give you some options. you should mess around with this to figure out for yourself what everything does, i can't explain it all now. for now, select dvd (no menus), this will only play the main track in a dvd, ie, just the movie.

now that you have that selected, check the stream/save box in the bottom left and hit settings. from here, you should check the file box and nothing else. this will only transcode the file and not display it or stream it over the network. for destination, find the folder you want to put the file in and type the filename in (with the file extension on it, in this case it will be .mp4). then check the .mp4 button. then check the trancode video and trancode audio boxes. for the video, set it to h.264, bitrate of 1024 kb/s, and scale to 1. for the audio set it to mp3, bitrate 128 or 192 kb/s, 2 channels.

from here you can click ok, then ok again, and the process will start. this will encode the dvd to a .mp4 file that will look pretty nice. you can expect it to take quite a while, anywhere from realtime (however long the movie is) to 5 hours depending on your processor. feel free to mess with the settings to change things to how you want them. you can calculate the total size of the movie by multiplying the length of the movie (in seconds) by the bitrate and then dividing that by 8 and then again by 1024. this will be the total approximate size in megabytes. remember, bitrate is measured in bits/second not bytes/second (hence the dividing by 8).

also, if you go to the preferences menu, there are a ton of settings you can change to make the encoding to your specs. also, if you have a dual core processor, i would highly recommend that you go to stream output>sout stream>transcode and change the number of threads (at the very bottom) to 2 (also make sure the advanced options box is checked in the bottom right of the window). this will cut your encoding time by almost half. for reference, my amd 4200+ @ 2.2ghz will encode a 2.5 hour movie in about 3 hours.

i hope you can get this to work well for you, as it has for me. one thing i will say though, is that this is what you would call a single pass cbr encoding, so you will not get the same quality as you would out of a multipass vbr encode. although for most purposes, this quality is more than ample.

let me know if you run into any problems. good luck.

nope, sorry dude, there is no easy way to do it. nothing like ripping a cd, thats for sure!

the way i outlined for you is the EASIEST way i have come across. there might be some program out there that can do all this automatically, but i havent found it yet. it takes a long time to write out, but when you actually do the steps it doesnt take that long (well the actuall encoding takes a long time, but you dont have to be at your computer for that).

let me know if you have any problems.

I'm in the same boat as Frankienyc123, in that I wanted to have the video in just one file. I'm ok with using the individual .VOB files, but how do I get it to play in Dolby Digital??? I have a fiber TOSLINK cable running from my sound card to my receiver. The only program I have found so far that will output Dolby Digital is PowerDVD 7. Do you guys know of any free players that will do it???

Thanks!

I am also looking for a VOB to divx converter.
I want something that can rip a DVD, pick a video/audio codec, add lots of options like bit-rate, quality, sub-titles, etc. XMPEG is ok at this, but I hope you know of something BETTER and doesn't crash. I am willing to pay for this ~$100 (unless you know a better free one) . I also don't expect css becaue I don't expect the high-quality converters to use css.
thanks!

VLC looks more like a player than a video converter. XMPEG has LOTS of encoding options that I like. However, XMPEG is a bit buggy, which is why I was looking for something better.
But I will give VLC for encoding a try as described by twolfe18.

Thanks for the codecs.
I'm still looking for someting to do all the converting and use every codec option.

I think you also need a css region free tool for decrypting the content of ur dvd

For ease of use and beginners this is the best combination I have found:

DVDFab Decrypter is the easiest way of ripping dvds to your hard drive without any quality loss. I used to use dvd decrypter but it's a little more complicated than dvdfab. This tool is a simple load and click and it removes all the protections (CSS, RC, RCE, APS, UOPs and Sony ARccOS) while copying.

Next use AutoGK to convert your vobs into Xvid...don't use divx because it is not as good quality and doesn't compress as much...at least it used to be like that but maybe divx is better now, I don't know but I get great results with this app and it's very easy.

A tip, pressing Ctrl-F9 within this app will bring up a hidden menu enabling more control over the resulting file. Look here to see what they do http://www.autogk.me.uk/modules.php?name=TutorialEN#6

Although, like was said above, AutoGK might not give as good results as other more advanced apps, it is the easiest app I have used and yeilds the best results for beginners. XMPEG is AWFUL, don't use it!

You can try the DVD Ripper softwares listed here, may of them are freewares so won't have to spend money either.


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