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What's the state of the rippers?

pullman

pullman

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Feb 11, 2008
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I often buy DVDs and rip/encode them to watch on my ATV 3 (not to share/spread on the internet). I typically use Handbrake to encode, but when that doesn't work I use RipIt and then encode with Handbrake.

In recent months, I've discovered that Handbrake and RipIt often fail with current DVDs. For instance, I bought Still Alice and Paddington the other day but was unable to copy them. Handbrake didn't work at all (it "completed" after 2 seconds) and RipIt took forever to finish; when I then ran Handbrake on the rip, it warned that there was no valid source.

So it seems at least these two pieces of software are unable to deal with many current(ish) DVDs. But how are the other offerings out there? I would very much like to hear your experiences.

Thank you very much in advance
Philip
 
The decryption libraries needed to unlock dvd's within the 2 apps you mentioned are not really supported anymore and haven't been for a while, so they are falling behind this results in a hit or miss decryption with dvds. As Basic75 suggests, MakeMKV (free) is the way to go as it is routinely updated with the the most current decryption codes. Yes it's an extra step but it's it fast and really only requires you to hit a button to generate an output file than Handbrake can then transcode to mp4.
 
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It would be really surprising if DVD emcryption had been changed from the standard CSS.
I have seen DVD-s where tricks are played with sequencing the chapters, though.
Still, I wonder shy would anyone spend time and money on SD-quality movies in the era of HD video. Unless we're talking about oldies that are not available in HD, of course.
Both ways, MakeMKV works very well. Haven"t tried with any chapter-obfuscated disk, though.
 
priitv8 said:
It would be really surprising if DVD emcryption had been changed from the standard CSS.
Click to expand...
Agree with that. Just thought I remembered reading somewhere about HB not incorporating newer decryption libraries.
Never encountered a DVD that MakeMKV didn't do fine with though. But I haven't ripped anything in a couple years now, just stream everything.
 
I stopped ripping once Apple started including iTunes extra on the Apple TV and I found out I could get iTunes movies for as low as $1.50
 
I still go the RipIt, handbrake and iFlicks route, if that doesn't work I'll resort to MakeMKV before HandBrake. I think the last time I had to do that was Paddington.
 
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BittenApple said:
Older movies probably. He's just saying he'd rather pay a buck than go thru all the work. I agree with that as well.
Click to expand...

Ahhhh... OK.....

(I've recently been ripping all our DVDs that we have. I just use MakeMKV and use Plex to watch them on ATV. I never could get a movie to rip using Handbrake.... once in a great while I could get a work out video to rip... but with MakeMKV it's easy and fast!)
 
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Thank you for the replies, and apologies for the delay in writing back. For some reason I couldn't access this thread on tapatalk.

I had never heard of MakeMKV. It works like a charm, very cool. So far no disc has failed to rip. The extra step isn't a big problem as MakeMKV and Handbrake run in parallel.

I agree regarding the SD-HD thing. I prefer HD. Normally I stream using the ATV3 but I like to buy movies on DVD and often find them for about 1€ apiece at rental shops which I consider a good deal. The quality when ripped and encoded using Handbrake's ATV3 preset is ok to my eyes on my Panasonic HD plasma, though I accept it would probably be better with blue ray.

I'm thinking of getting a blue ray player in my Mac Pro but I'm not really sure that would increase quality to such an extent that the extra time needed to rip and encode would be worth it - how long does it take to rip and encode a blue ray?

So, for now, ripping DVDs and streaming work well for me.

Thanks again
Philip
 
Ripping a Bluray takes a lot longer than a DVD and takes up much more space. I have a 2012 iMac and a cheap USB external BlueRay I've only done it 4 or 5 times but it seems to take 2 to 3 hours for makemkv to go its bit, handbrake takes 6 or 7 hours and the videos end up between 6 and 12GB.
 
pullman said:
Thank you for the replies, and apologies for the delay in writing back. For some reason I couldn't access this thread on tapatalk.

I had never heard of MakeMKV. It works like a charm, very cool. So far no disc has failed to rip. The extra step isn't a big problem as MakeMKV and Handbrake run in parallel.

I agree regarding the SD-HD thing. I prefer HD. Normally I stream using the ATV3 but I like to buy movies on DVD and often find them for about 1€ apiece at rental shops which I consider a good deal. The quality when ripped and encoded using Handbrake's ATV3 preset is ok to my eyes on my Panasonic HD plasma, though I accept it would probably be better with blue ray.

I'm thinking of getting a blue ray player in my Mac Pro but I'm not really sure that would increase quality to such an extent that the extra time needed to rip and encode would be worth it - how long does it take to rip and encode a blue ray?

So, for now, ripping DVDs and streaming work well for me.

Thanks again
Philip
Click to expand...

Depends on your settings and cpu to say for sure. 3-4 hours of encoding alone for me on a 3.4ghz haswell i5. But I set the encode to veryslow, high profile, scan for foreign subtitles, etc...

I generally just start it and walk away.
 
DVD&BD drives have a read-speed limitation (aka riplock) set in firmware. To get rid of it, you need a modified firmware.
As can be seen on MakeMKV forum, for my LG drive I now can get 148 minute movie off the disc in 30 minutes.
With my slightly modified HandBrake settings for aTV 3 (1080p), I get the re-encode in about real time (ie. transcoding takes the time equal to movie length). It is a MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Early 2013) with 2,7 GHz Intel Quad-Core i7

http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/answers/increase_dvd_ripping_speed_by_removing_riplock
 
I tried using MakeMKV to rip one of my DVDs to my computer to watch through Plex. Unfortunately, it ripped it into individual scenes, so I have something like 20 files all about 3-4 minutes each. Is there a setting that I am missing in order to put the movie together all as one file? First time attempting to do this so its very well possible that I am doing something incorrectly.
 
bbednarz57 said:
I tried using MakeMKV to rip one of my DVDs to my computer to watch through Plex. Unfortunately, it ripped it into individual scenes, so I have something like 20 files all about 3-4 minutes each. Is there a setting that I am missing in order to put the movie together all as one file? First time attempting to do this so its very well possible that I am doing something incorrectly.
Click to expand...

You need to just select the main video source when the list of what you can copy pops up, usually it's the largest file. Then if you want under the sub menu you can deselect foreign languages and subtitles. Then click make mkv in the upper right.
 
The Grandfather of all the DVD Rippers is MacTheRipper (MTR).

http://www.ripdifferent.com/mtr/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=467

As compared to the other DVD rippers it offers the most sophisticated tools for handling DVDs that have manufacturing tricks to foil DVD copies. The downside of this is that it can rather difficult to figure out how to use the various tools when you encounter a problem. And it will only produced an image file so if you are converting to mp4 or h264 or h265 you will need another program, such as handbrake. A donation (of any amount) is required. The donation processes is a bit convoluted.

It's my preferred solution when I want to create an ISO image file so that Toast can burn me a backup DVD. When handbrake chokes on a DVD this is where I go.

My blu-ray rips via mkmkv take about 45 minutes on my MacPro with a resulting file size, depending on the disk, of about 40 GB. I tend to rip to .mt2s rather than mkv as I ran a few tests and the mt2s's seemed to be a bit smaller.
 
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It's nice to see the large variety of apps people use. I think the answer for the 'best BD ripper (and/or encoder)' is whatever works best for you.

I value as close to vanilla/source settings as possible so I can rip everything off the disc (images/art, special features, multiple languages and subtitles, etc) if I feel so inclined or avoid certain things. Other people may want a quick, easy to use UI. They all get the job done.
 
I think with the change in direction of streaming, possible lack of blu-ray support(?), and its just easier to get the movies via iTunes made it hard for them to keep up with a niche area.

I used to use HB to convert all my movies & tv show collections, some of which still aren't on iTunes. so they're backed-up but I've gone the iTunes code & cheap charts route to find movies I have and just get the iTunes copy, that way I'll have it everywhere instead of having to manage or sync stuff anymore.

Thats why I stopped with HB, it took more time than necessary to encode, get all the artwork & data for it (not i think subler or meta-z does it for you automagically, when i hand did it before :p ) and more importantly is the quality. now I can get HD video instead of DVD quality and i presume if movies in the future in iTunes are enhanced or have better resolutions as it changes Id be able to upgrade that easily. where as you're stuck with the rip you have and managing a library is not something i also wanted to continue.
 
I won't purchase movies from iTunes anymore, specifically cuz they do t have DTS audio. I'd rather buy the bluray and rip it to my media server. The fact that iTunes doesn't/won't have movies with DTS (let alone DTS-HD/True-HD) is ridiculous. Another reason why I won't buy an AppleTV. Talk about antiquated *smh* I'll go buy a Minix Neo X8-H Plus or a U1 for the native H265 support and DTS pass-thru.
 
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simon lefisch said:
I won't purchase movies from iTunes anymore, specifically cuz they do t have DTS audio. I'd rather buy the bluray and rip it to my media server. The fact that iTunes doesn't/won't have movies with DTS (let alone DTS-HD/True-HD) is ridiculous. Another reason why I won't buy an AppleTV. Talk about antiquated *smh* I'll go buy a Minix Neo X8-H Plus or a U1 for the native H265 support and DTS pass-thru.
Click to expand...

You should really get then the NVidia Sheild.
 
caligurl said:
I never could get a movie to rip using Handbrake.... once in a great while I could get a work out video to rip... but with MakeMKV it's easy and fast!)
Click to expand...

That is very strange. I ripped my large DVD library over the past couple years and now have about 600 movies and 600 TV shows. All ripped with Handbrake with the built-in presets. Out of all those, there were perhaps 12 that would not rip. I tried RipIt and a couple other rippers on those and had no luck either.

But Handbrake has always worked well and it's fast. Just received two DVD's as a gift last week and ripped them both in Handbrake with no problems.
 
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