Free DVD Ripper

[Gerowen]

About a year ago I purchased Roxio's Easy Media Creator, and have kept the download file stored for my own use until recently. In an unfortunate series of events I accidentally deleted the file. Upon going to Roxio's website I got a message telling me that my download window had expired and that I would have to pay for CDs of the product to be shipped to my house. The problem is, I'm leaving on an extended business trip and they won't be here before I leave, and I am wanting to rip a bunch of my DVDs to my hard drive so I've got something to watch from time to time. So I'm looking for a good, free dvd ripper so I can rip my DVDs to playable files, like the 700 MB .avi files you see floating around all over the place.

I know of handbrake and I'm about to try it out, but I am aware that a lot of these pieces of software do not include decryptors and therefore are useless to anybody who isn't trying to rip a home-made DVD.

[Fatzo757]

the best option is to use Anydvd from slysoft. It will make any DVD look like it is unencrypted.

[Grogi]

Smartripper for ripping and VirtualDubMod for compressing.

[x9248]

+1 for Smartripper for ripping

Personally I'd grab a copy of imgburn and make a 1:1 copy of the DVD into an ISO file and just keep it on the HDD. Of course if hard drive space is an issue well then maybe 4GB ISO files are out of the question :p Encoding 2hr movie files is quite tiresome.

[LJ50]

I've always used DVD Decrypter with the RipIt4Me front end. Nice simple straightforward combination.

Then just pop it through PocketDivXEncoder to convert for the device you're using.

You can also use AviDemux as a better option, but PocketDivXEncoder is just as simple as it gets.

[joker999]

http://www.dvdshrink.org/

[+John. Subscriber¹]

I've always used a combination of DVD Decrypter and DVD shrink, but when that fails, maybe Smartripper.

[ozgeek]

DVDfab is very good too but is not free but they do have a very basic free version.

[Jimmy0]

Combination of DVD Decrypter and AutoGK gets the job done for me.