Ripping Video DVDs to a Hard Disk

[PlumBob]

We've got quite a few DVD movies, that we would like to rip to a hard disk drive, to save space. I'd appreciate any suggestions as to what brand of software cruisers are using to rip DVDs, and whether you are happy with it....

Thanks in advance.

PB

[Tkeeth]

I used rip dvd plus...i had 3 dvds out of about 50 that wouldnt work. Moved them to a 2 tb milspec portable hard drive then bought a $20 or so usb to hdmi video device on amazon with remote control...works great

[Lepke]

There are many easy to use softwares out there for Mac or PC that rip and or burn to a backup dvd. Also Bluray.
I used: Magic DVD Ripper - rip DVD to hard drive or blank DVD in the past and it worked fine. Any failures usually come from scratched disks that often can be repaired.
If you're going to rip a dvd, do it when it's new. If you want to do Bluray, get a fast drive.

[clownfishsydney]

I used MakeMKV which is free for a short period. As long as you do them within a few weeks, then you will be okay.

[PlumBob]

Thanks, all of you! I really appreciate these ideas. We have a moderate collection of movies, tutorials, etc that we want to hang on to, without having to keep the physical DVDs.

We're not full-time liveaboards, but the concept of being able to take everything with us, all in one nice little hard drive is really appealing.

Any others out there that have suggestions? All comments are appreciated...

PB

[slacker]

We use AnyDVD to strip the region encoding and Handbrake for the copy.
Works well and has lots of options.

[bobofthenorth]

I've used MakeMKV for several years and over half a terabyte of movies. It's open source and it has an annoying "call home" feature whereby it insists on updating itself before you can use it after some arbitrary period of time. But it works reasonably well most of the time. If you do enough DVDs from enough different sources you will discover that the rips aren't always perfect. Sometimes you need to redo them and sometimes you need to use a different ripper. MakeMKV generally works and it makes a decent quality file but it makes a relatively large file.

R.J.(Bob) Evans
www.bobandmarilyn.ca

[Macblaze]

Handbrake

It's free, fast and has tons of options. Just spent the winter ripping a couple dozen tv series for the summer cruise season — I got a little carried away :-)

[Macblaze]

Originally Posted by slacker

We use AnyDVD to strip the region encoding and Handbrake for the copy.
Works well and has lots of options.

Why do you use AnyDVD? Handbrake (at least the version on a Mac) will strip the region...

EDIT: Nevermind, I looked it up. I never realized the DRM strippers were thirdparty...

[rdempsey]

Originally Posted by Macblaze

Handbrake

I'll second that! Works great and is simple to use.

[PlumBob]

Great Information. Thanks to all of you.

Now the "real work" begins.

Fair Winds...

PB