Tips needed for DVD ripping

[bgowland]

I've never tried ripping DVDs for media server purposes so I'm completely in the dark about this stuff. I need to clear some cupboard space and I have a new HDD so decided to rip a load of old DVDs so they could be boxed up and put in the loft.

So far I've tried Handbrake (but couldn't really work it out) and DVDFab (which sort of worked but suggested it would take 6 hours to rip a single 40 minute TV episode from DVD.

OK, my machine is old and doesn't have much grunt (Win XP, P4) but it works fine as a general media server. Is there any software which is mostly 'point and click' which will rip DVDs in a time where I won't have to wait a life time to rip a few dozen DVDs?

Cheers,
Brian

[gEd]

Brian, with a P4, seriously don't waste your time trying to convert the disks to another video format.
You should rip them to an iso format and then figure out how to automount the iso files (as discussed in the other thread I just commented on 2 mins ago where I suggested magiciso as a possible app for mounting iso images)
.
DVD is an encrypted format so you need an app that has the keys to decrypt the disk. DVDFab "used" to be able to do this but they got slapped down. If you have an older version that still works, you can use it to copy the disk to iso format which should be reasonably quick as you are just copying, not converting the video files. Otherwise you would need to buy something like AnyDVD to decrypt the disk so that you can then rip it to iso.

http://www.myce.com/news/now-dvdfab-does...ves-70946/

[ACTCMS]

I use DVDShrink to 'backup' my DVDs to video ts folders and then MPEGStreamclip to convert them to .ts files.

Alex

[imilne]

I'd go with MakeMKV - it'll let you strip out just the film and audio tracks you want, and also dumps it into a nicely playable format too. There's no additional compression so it's very fast (and DVDs are old hat these days so a modern HDD can easily hold hundreds if not thousands of them).

Iain

[bgowland]

Brian, with a P4, seriously don't waste your time trying to convert the disks to another video format.
You should rip them to an iso format and then figure out how to automount the iso files (as discussed in the other thread I just commented on 2 mins ago where I suggested magiciso as a possible app for mounting iso images)

Yeah, well I figured it would be a lengthy process but as the box isn't my main PC I'm hoping I can just leave it to do its thing (changing the DVD every so often). Ripping to ISO images is the least versatile option so it would have to be last resort.

I use DVDShrink to 'backup' my DVDs to video ts folders and then MPEGStreamclip to convert them to .ts files.

Alex

Where did you download DVDShrink from? As far as I can tell dvdshrink.org is the official site but I'm getting a weird download experience. Firstly Chrome flatly refused to download the file for me (not just a warning that it may 'harm your computer' but it actually blocked it). When I worked around that, AVG threw up a warning of a potential danger and even when I told it to allow it, I seem to have a file with .exe.zip with another .exe.zip nested inside that. Very odd.

I'd go with MakeMKV - it'll let you strip out just the film and audio tracks you want, and also dumps it into a nicely playable format too. There's no additional compression so it's very fast (and DVDs are old hat these days so a modern HDD can easily hold hundreds if not thousands of them).

Iain

OK, when I did a search for DVD rippers, MakeMKV did come up in the list but I've never worked with the MKV format so ignored that. Ideally I want s format I can playback via npvr and my PCH but also directly on my TV (Samsung Smart TV can see my media server PC as a DLNA compliant device - not sure what media file types it supports though). I'm trying it out now - it copied six ~45 minute episodes from the first disk in about 30 minutes and that was for all streams/tracks. For the second disk I've told it to ignore the audio and subtitle streams except for the English ones and it seems to be slightly faster.

Thanks all. I shall report back later.

Cheers,
Brian

[ACTCMS]

Where did you download DVDShrink from?

Did you not get my email?

Alex

[bgowland]

Did you not get my email?

Alex

Oops...my overly efficient auto rules put your email in a separate folder. Thanks, I'll give it a try out - I'm obviously just starting to archive all of the DVDs so any number of tools would be useful.

Cheers,
Brian

[imilne]

I'm trying it out now - it copied six ~45 minute episodes from the first disk in about 30 minutes and that was for all streams/tracks. For the second disk I've told it to ignore the audio and subtitle streams except for the English ones and it seems to be slightly faster.

MakeMKV and DVDShrink (also one of my favourites regardless of its age) should be about as fast as you can get, as they don't do any transcoding of the video (or audio) so just dump the original mpeg2 video as is. Many DVD drives had "riplock" features enabled on them which significantly slows things down to try and discourage ripping, so you might want to double check you're not suffering from a drive with that. It can often be worked around with a new firmware. 30 mins for 6x45 mins doesn't sound toooo bad though.

Iain

[bgowland]

Many DVD drives had "riplock" features enabled on them which significantly slows things down to try and discourage ripping, so you might want to double check you're not suffering from a drive with that. It can often be worked around with a new firmware.

I checked the firmware on the drive and it has the most recent - seem to remember updating it to work around that some time ago.

30 mins for 6x45 mins doesn't sound toooo bad though.

That was an 'all in' time which included me faffing about selecting various stuff that I wanted. I've found my way around the MakeMKV preferences now and set my own defaults. It's averaging about 4mins per 45min episode now. The big job is BTVS boxset (seasons 1-7 complete, 39 DVDs, 144 episodes + featurettes) - Season 7 disk 1 of 6 is currently ripping - the whole boxset should be done by teatime.

I'll give DVDShrink a try for the next DVDs to see what happens.

Cheers,
Brian

[fuffy]

maybe try some free dvd ripper ?