Need recomendation for a DVD to Hard Drive movie converter app

Bertmg · Sep 14, 2009

I am converting all my movie DVDs to files I can save in a hard drive and get rid of all the cloutter. I know Toast is a quite good product for this, but I am looking for a good, hopefuly free, application that can:

1. Save all the DVD content (subtitles, Settings, languages, Extra features, etc)
2. Save files in standard formats
3. Maintain the file sizer relatively small (these files are huge

)
4. Play just like DVD on my screen

I appreciate your input

thanks

TheStrudel · Sep 14, 2009

You can't get rid of the "clutter". Extra features and all that are the clutter.

DVD is about as standard a format as it gets; if you rip it as-is, you can simply play it in OS X's DVD player.

So you're asking for a couple mutually exclusive things here.

What I think you mean to ask is for software that will rip video with all the dressings as well as features in a format that plays well.

For this, I recommend Handbrake (it's free). It allows full customization in terms of what you're going to include and rips to MPEG-4 (iTunes and Quicktime friendly), space-efficient formats. You can rip special features, too. You will need to spend some time with it to find the right compression settings you like, but it's worthwhile.

ftaok · Sep 14, 2009

Bertmg said:
I am converting all my movie DVDs to files I can save in a hard drive and get rid of all the cloutter. I know Toast is a quite good product for this, but I am looking for a good, hopefuly free, application that can:

1. Save all the DVD content (subtitles, Settings, languages, Extra features, etc)
2. Save files in standard formats
3. Maintain the file sizer relatively small (these files are huge )
4. Play just like DVD on my screen

I appreciate your input

thanks

If numbers 1, 2, and 4 are important to you, then you should just rip the DVD as a VIDEO_TS folder with no compression. Just buy bigger hard drives.

If you really want to save HDD space, then like the above post mentioned, use Handbrake. It won't play like DVD anymore, and unless you extract the extras, those will be gone as well. Subtitles will have to be "burned" onto the file, no on/off like a DVD.

spice weasel · Sep 14, 2009

I thought by "clutter" OP was referring to the actual DVDs. Ripping them allows you to store your DVDs out of sight.

I agree with the recommendation of HandBrake. For the simplest solution, just use the Universal preset for compatibility with iPods, iPhones, Apple TVs, and of course computers.

DeeGee48 · Sep 17, 2009

Mac the Ripper!

Or just use Mac the Ripper. It'll put the whole DVD on your hard drive which will then run just as if you ran the content from the DVD. It won't convert for iPod, but it is the quickest way to just rip DVD's to run off an internal or external hard disk (approx. 15-20 mins per entire disk).

ftaok · Sep 18, 2009

DeeGee48 said:
Or just use Mac the Ripper. It'll put the whole DVD on your hard drive which will then run just as if you ran the content from the DVD. It won't convert for iPod, but it is the quickest way to just rip DVD's to run off an internal or external hard disk (approx. 15-20 mins per entire disk).

The problem with MTR is that the latest non-beta version is 2.6.6. It fails on many of the newer DVDs. Getting MTR3 is apparently a game of donations and emails from the developer. It's been in beta for a few years now. I won't deny a developer an opportunity to make money, but just go ahead and release it officially already.

Another alternative if you have a Windows PC is DVDfab decryptor. The free version will rip DVDs just fine. They regularly update it as well.

jampat · Sep 18, 2009

On the PC front, DVDShrink works really well. It doesn't actually shrink anything, just copies the DVD (and breaks the copy protection and region encoding).

Bertmg · Oct 22, 2009

Great information everyone.. now to norrow it down

Thanks for your great feedback too much to think about and too many options. I created a new post for the two I narrow it down after much research.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/806888/

Basically, the plan is to, additionally to my files and music, I want to digitize all my movies and if it gets too small maybe to be able to daisy chain it (I heard you can only daisy chain firewire and with fw 400 and 800 but is best with 2 of the same FW). Anyways...I have narrow it down to these two which have similar characteristics:

1. Western Digital (WD) My Book Studio Edition:
http://www.amazon.com/Western-Digita...pr_product_top

2. OWC Mercury Elite-AL Pro:
https://eshop.macsales.com/item/Othe.../MEAQ7H20TB32/

The main differences, I see are:

1. WD : plastic closing, 1 Firewire, 5 year warranty, $229,00 (or less) with free shipping.
2. OWC: (Hitachy HD)Aluminum closing, 2 Firewire 800, 3 year warranty, $283 + $7/sh

I am leaning towards #1 WD, mostly because of price and warranty. But I really had a good experience with OWC as a company and my old hard drive was from them. Please help me decide, I need to get it soon!

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Need recomendation for a DVD to Hard Drive movie converter app

Bertmg

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TheStrudel

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ftaok

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spice weasel

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DeeGee48

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ftaok

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jampat

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Bertmg

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