I want to start putting my old DVD collection on to my Mac. Over the years I got well over 200 movies. What would be the best software(free if posable) to do this? What would the best format to use? I think I'm going to get a 2tb Time Capsule to store everything.
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Ripping DVD's to HD.What format,software
- Thread starter noah76
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How to backup/copy/rip video DVDs to your HDD and transcode them to another format in Mac OS X.
How-To: Automating DVD & Blu-Ray (Backup, Encoding & Tagging) for Mac OS X 10.6
How-To: Automating DVD & Blu-Ray (Backup, Encoding & Tagging) for Mac OS X 10.6
And since that is an arduous undertaking, also think about a backup for the contents of the TC, as every HDD will fail, some sooner, most later.
If you are just ripping, I recommend Mac DVD Ripper Pro or RipIt (neither is free)
If you are also going to encode, then Handbrake is the choice (free)
You can also rip+encode in one step with Handbrake + VLC
If you are also going to encode, then Handbrake is the choice (free)
You can also rip+encode in one step with Handbrake + VLC
With that number of DVDs I would rip a bunch first and then set up encodes. I've used Fairmount (requires VLC to be installed) which decrypts the DVD and mounts it on your desktop, allowing you to just drag and drop its contents into a folder to copy it. Then I would use Handbrake to reencode to MP4s around 1GB in size. Rip time will depend upon the speed of your DVD drive and unless you've got a fast Mac (or a really slow drive) encoding will take longer than the rips. I used to rip a bunch of DVDs and then run the encodes overnight.
If you've got an iMac, Mac Book Pro, etc with a slim DVD drive I'd recommend buying a full-size external drive as it will make the rips go much faster. That is if you can find one without riplock or a way to disable it. I had been doing rips on my PC but found that my Mac Pro acts a bit odd with the drives I had in the PC so I'm hunting for a decent drive for ripping on the Mac.
If you've got an Intel Mac booting into Windows will give you more free options for ripping than are available on OS X. I tried RipIt recently and it seemed OK. I've used older versions of MacTheRipper and it never worked as well as the PC software that was around at the time - seemed to run into a lot of discs it couldn't rip.
If you've got an iMac, Mac Book Pro, etc with a slim DVD drive I'd recommend buying a full-size external drive as it will make the rips go much faster. That is if you can find one without riplock or a way to disable it. I had been doing rips on my PC but found that my Mac Pro acts a bit odd with the drives I had in the PC so I'm hunting for a decent drive for ripping on the Mac.
If you've got an Intel Mac booting into Windows will give you more free options for ripping than are available on OS X. I tried RipIt recently and it seemed OK. I've used older versions of MacTheRipper and it never worked as well as the PC software that was around at the time - seemed to run into a lot of discs it couldn't rip.
Thanks guys. I had Mac DVD Ripper Pro it was free from the company. They had a giveaway some time ago. I will try a few things and see what works.
DVDs are not HD
Remember that DVDs are not HD; they are anamorphic 720x480, so setting any resolution in excess of that would just be a waste of file space.
Remember that DVDs are not HD; they are anamorphic 720x480, so setting any resolution in excess of that would just be a waste of file space.
Just want to chime in that I ripped over 400 of my DVDs with RipIt. They all sit nicely on my external HD. I only encode with Handbrake if I want to add it to an iPad. With AirPlay Mirroring coming to Mountain Lion this summer, I'll be able to watch my movies without any connected cables.