Best Ripping Software

[kristian221]

I am trying to get my DVD / Blu-ray collection onto my media server so I can watch from my phone. I bought a program called Plex that seems to work very nice for it. But the problem I am having is getting the DVD / Blu-rays onto my hard drive! Anyone have any recommendations? I want top quality, I can always buy more hard drives for space

 

[Psyko07]

Make MKV works very well I think it's still in beta. I've only used it for blu rays myself as far as playing those files on your phone you would mostlikely need to convert the file to something your phone can open.

 

[Operant]

Maybe use something like MakeMKV to get a mkv for each disc? Fair warning though, it is a 100% mirror image from the disc.

Edit: It appears I got ninja'ed

 

[kristian221]

Would it be able to pull the different episodes out though, or would it be one large video file? Also what file format would you say has the highest quality?

 

[TheHutchTTU]

It should be able to pull the individual files. If you're lucky they will be labeled, otherwise it will probably say something like Video1, Video2, etc...

 

[Janus67]

Handbrake

 

[TheHutchTTU]

I thought Handbrake was just a converter, no?

 

[Janus67]

I've used it to rip a DVD before

 

[kristian221]

I have tried DVDFab, since it was the most "popular" one and it just didn't agree with me. Failure to encode on a lot of different settings. I tried Handbreak and I am impressed, and makeMKV does exactly what I want as well...but at the same time I seem to be having an unusual issue! I played strait from my DVD using windows media player and opened another window on my other monitor then put youtube on it. The Youtube version seemed to have higher quality than the DVD I put in, is that possible? It is animated and the lines seem to be much smoother on the Youtube side. It is very blocky on mine. Not to mention the colors are more vibrant on Youtube. I got the DVDs from Amazon and it was a "we build it when you buy it" sort of thing and it came in way earlier than it was supposed to.

EDIT: And just to clarify, it wasn't just some random video. It was by an actual company that is releasing the episodes online.
EDIT (Again): After more testing it looks like it is just the monitor. Despite being identical monitors the one plugged in through DVI has brighter colors.

So back to the main topic, different programs to rip these DVDs / Blu Rays!

 

[Supertrucker]

I use makemkv, and if I want to reburn them for play in a set top box I use dvdshrink to compress the dvds to a single layer size and bdrebuilder to do the same for blurays if needed.

 

[kristian221]

Sadly MakeMkv doesn't fit my needs it seems. The problem is mainly that the DVD itself seems to be flawed, it thinks it is a higher resolution than it actually is. This causes no problems when playing nativity but when streaming it causes the full-screen player to stretch the video out. Guess that means I need to go with an encoder. Handbreak seems like my best option so far but if anyone else has any suggestions I would really love to hear them!

 

[Supertrucker]

Makemkv, if you do a direct disk rip will change nothing about the DVD. It will be an exact digital copy of it.As would dvdfab. it sounds more like you are having a player error in that the player software is forcing a 4:3 show into 16:9 or something.

 

[kristian221]

No, the DVD is saying it has a resolution of 720x480 in all programs. When ran through MakeMkv it adds little black bars on both sides. When oppened in WMP it will ignore these bars, as if they were not part of the video. When opened on a web play, however, it acts as if they are not there but keeps the 720x480 resolution. This stretches it out by 80 pixels horizontally. Might not sound like much, but it really bugs me.

 

[habbajabba]

What you need is MKVToolnix. It takes the mkv that make mkv created and can then extract anything from that including chapters information. Then use mkvmerge (mmg.exe) to put the pieces back together into a single mkv file. Tbh, I'm not sure why handbrake and makemkv aren't working for ya to begin with. MkvToolnix can even extract the chapters as separate video files if you wish.

 

[cullam3n]

This recent article on Lifehacker applies

http://lifehacker.com/five-best-video-converters-1191180767