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Bolteh

macrumors regular
Original poster
Sep 20, 2007
171
0
Heyo,

After ripping the 100-odd CDs I had into iTunes, I felt it was time for me to get my DVD collection digitalized as well, seeing as my 27" iMac has been transformed into my all-round entertainment system.

I checked some options out through Google and found HandBrake coupled with VLC, but this one just hangs when scanning my DVDs for usable files, so I can't rip with that.

I also found Aimersoft DVD Ripper, so I downloaded the trial to see if it would do the job, but I just can't seem to get the aspect ratio right with that one :/ If I rip it at 4:3, it gives me black bars at the top and bottom of the movie. If I rip it at 16:9, it doesn't give me black bars, but it just stretches the movie to a 4:3 resolution.

Other tools tend to just rip a DVD into one big file, which is kind of annoying, seeing as a lot of the DVDs I have are series/shows with multiple episodes.

Anyone know how to fix either of the problems mentioned above, or now a tool that actually works?


PS: The DVDs in question right now are "The Boondocks - Season 1 & 2".
 

spinnerlys

Guest
Sep 7, 2008
14,328
7
forlod bygningen
You need the right combination of Handbrake and VLC (see point 3 for further information), or maybe try the other linked DVD rip applications I mentioned. MRoogle will give you hundreds of DVD ripping threads, thus the compilation below.

1. How to copy (rip) the content of video DVDs to your HDD

As commercial video DVDs use a copy protection scheme called CSS (Content Scramble System), additional software is needed to copy the content of a video DVD to your HDD, which is called "ripping". There are several applications to accomplish this.​


1.1. MacTheRipper 2.6.6 (free)
Insert the video DVD into your DVD drive and open MacTheRipper and click the GO button, after which you can select the place you want the video DVD's content saved to.
As this version of MTR is quite old, it will not read many modern DVDs.

1.2. RipIt (19.95 USD, trial with 10 rips free)
Insert the video DVD and press the RIP button.

1.3. Fairmount (free) - needs VLC 32-bit to decrypt the CSS (thanks to Satori for that information)

1.4. Mac DVDRipper Pro (9.95 USD)
Insert the video DVD and select a destination folder, then press the RIP button.



2. How to transcode the MPEG-2 encoded video DVD material for use on your computer after you ripped the video DVD.

As video DVDs take up a lot of space (up to 8GB), one can transcode (changing the format and encoding) the MPEG-2 encoded video into MPEG-4 encoded video via Handbrake, which might only take 1GB of HDD capacity away, while still looking good.

Handbrake currently offers to read VIDEO_TS folders, the folder on the video DVD with all the material (menus, video and audio) inside, and transcode the footage to something smaller. Currently variants of the space efficient and highly qualitative MPEG-4 codec are used, H264 or Xvid for example.
The current version of Handbrake offers two container formats, .mkv and .mp4, older versions also had the .avi container to transcode to.
.mkv and .mp4 containers accept the H264 codec, also used for the QuickTime trailers on Apple's Trailer page.
Handbrake also offers PRESETS for you to choose from. There are for the AppleTV, iPhone and iPod Touch, iPod and some more.

For more information about properly using Handbrake, either go to the Handbrake Community, read the Handbrake Guide or use MRoogle to find dozens upon dozens of threads about this.​


How to transcode the MPEG-2 encoded video DVD material for use on your computer without ripping the video DVD.



If you don't want to rip the video DVDs first, and just use Handbrake for transcoding the video, make sure to install VLC Player to circumvent the CSS I mentioned earlier.
Make sure you have the 64-bit version of both applications installed, or the 32-bit versions. Both applications will not work together, if one is 32-bit and one is 64-bit.


VLC Player 64-bit (VLC 1.1.0) - VLC Player 32-bit (1.0.5 and lower)
Handbrake 64-bit Intel, 32-bit Intel and 32-bit PPC on this page, so choose the right one


from How to backup/copy/rip video DVDs to your HDD and transcode them to another format.
 

reel2reel

macrumors 6502a
Jul 24, 2009
627
46
I'm still using MacTheRipper without issue. The only ones it has trouble with are some of Sony's ARccOS discs, though I'm not sure if that's related to MTR or my drive firmware.
 
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