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[duesy]

Cany anyone recommend a high quality DVD ripper? I want to play back extracted DVD video/audio (including 5.1) via MediaCenter. Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

[NickM]

This is a thorny issue, as most effective DVD ripping software conveniently removes all DVD protection.  As you must know, even if you own the original DVD, ripping it and removing the protectin is illegal.  It is even illegal to discuss the various code protection algorithms.  Have a look at this link and read the background white paper http://www.doom9.org/index.html?/software.htm

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[Matthew]

There are two very popular DVD rippers on the market its called; DVD43 and AnyDVD. Simply do a search on google to find them.

[Mr ChriZ]

Is there any 100% opensource Rippers?
If so I'm wondering if it would be possible to use the source
to create a MC Open Source Plugin?

(Only for backing up home videos of course).

[Alex B]

This is a thorny issue, as most effective DVD ripping software conveniently removes all DVD protection.  As you must know, even if you own the original DVD, ripping it and removing the protectin is illegal.  It is even illegal to discuss the various code protection algorithms.  Have a look at this link and read the background white paper http://www.doom9.org/index.html?/software.htm

We could speak only about unrestricted DVD videos. Like if you have made DVDs with menus etc from home videos and would like to rip the DVDs later. Also, many educational or other uncommercial DVD video discs don't contain any copy protection, only the DVD file system.

[JohnT]

We could speak only about unrestricted DVD videos. Like if you have made DVDs with menus etc from home videos and would like to rip the DVDs later. Also, many educational or other uncommercial DVD video discs don't contain any copy protection, only the DVD file system.

In that case, you can just copy the DVD files to your hard drive and play them from there. There's no need for specialized ripping software.

[Mr ChriZ]

In that case, you can just copy the DVD files to your hard drive and play them from there. There's no need for specialized ripping software.

Ah but by using something like XVID those files would be taking up much less space (50%) for the same
quality, which is a bonus till they start bringing out those terrabyte hard drives.

[duesy]

JohnT brings up an interesting point. I was under the assumption that DVD material would require a similar process of extraction/compression as used for ripping audio clips from CDs? John, are you suggesting that this is not necessary, whereupon one could merely copy DVD files into a storage drive, and MC will recognize and play back DVD content? I thought native DVD files would require some type of conversion?

[Alex B]

Ah but by using something like XVID those files would be taking up much less space (50%) for the same quality, which is a bonus till they start bringing out those terrabyte hard drives.

Yes, I meant something like that. For example the Matroska file format can contain compressed video, subtitles, chapter information, separate audio streams, file tags etc in a single container file. A DVD ripper would take the DVD structure, convert it to a computer friendly format and fill the library database.

However, I think most users fancy about using their PCs as a HD jukebox for personally owned commercial DVD discs. Just like they do now with Audio CDs. In my opinion that would be perfectly fair use, but the movie industry thinks differently.


Edit: fixed the Matroska description

[Alex B]

JohnT brings up an interesting point. I was under the assumption that DVD material would require a similar process of extraction/compression as used for ripping audio clips from CDs? John, are you suggesting that this is not necessary, whereupon one could merely copy DVD files into a storage drive, and MC will recognize and play back DVD content? I thought native DVD files would require some type of conversion?

http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=31228.0

[Alex B]

I have recently bought DVDs mainly from online shops. In a perfect world I would buy and download DVD quality video files in Matroska or similar format instead. From time to time, if necessary, I could burn an occasional DVD video disc for using with "old fashioned" DVD players. 

[Mr ChriZ]

Matroska does look really good. I had not heard of it before.
Does MC support it?

[Alex B]

MC supports basic playback through DirectShow, but not any advanced features. It would be nice to have MC listed in this page: http://www.matroska.org/technical/guides/playback/windows/index.html.

You may want to make a forum search for Matroska. Set the message age to between 0 and 900 days.

[Rob L]

RatDVD is a very similar format, based on your description of Matroska.


On the point of ripping though, people do sometimes mean different things, though obviously it always involves copying the files from a DVD to a hard disk - you can get 'ripping' software that just removes the encryption and copies it to the hard disk in exactly the same format, just without the encryption. Most DVD playing software will happily play the files from a DVD copied onto a hard disk.

However, sometimes people mean taking the content (protected or not) and converting it into a compressed format, such as XVID. There's now a lot of software available to do that, particularly since the arrival of the PSP, though clearly any software you buy in a shop isn't going to handle cracking the encryption, it will only do unencrypted content.

[duesy]

My interest is strictly that of private use of my purchased DVD collection. Like audio CDs, I got sick of shuffling disks and now use MC to play back music from a host server. I would like to duplicate this scenario with video, particularly concert footage and band bio's. So, to accomplish this, do I merely copy the DVD's contents to my server, import video files into MC (whatever format??), and play back content as I would audio clips? Would any imbedded encryption prevent me from making Tag changes?

[NickM]

You cannot store tags in the .vob files, nor can you rename them ( and still make them play in sequence), so you will have to reply on MC library to do that for you ( so remember to back it up ).
The encryption stops you from ripping the DVD correctly, not from altering the file.
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