Need a recommendation...

... for a good (easy to use) DVD ripper. My roommates are totally irresponsible with my movies, and while they do buy me new ones when they lose or destroy a DVD, sooner or later one will get lost that cannot be easily replaced. So I've decided to start ripping a few select movies. I have lots of experience going the other way (AVI or MPEG to DVD/VCD) but have very little experience going from DVD to AVI, or just copying the full DVD to the hard drive. I've seen RipIt4Me, but their home page is dead. And I've seen AutoGK, and Catalencoder (haven't tried 'em yet).... I need something easy and effective. Some movies have protection, and I want to be sure I can back them up in case of disaster. I own these movies, and I'm not doing anything shady or illegal (even though that's exactly what someone would say if they were doing something illegal). Check my other posts, I've shot down folks asking for help with copying illegally downloaded movies and such. I'm a stand up dude, with lame disrespectful roomies, with an endangered DVD collection. HELP!
Thanks!

 

DVDFab Platinum.

 

I don't do much DVD ripping myself so I'm not sure how much money this software goes for. You might if you have not already considered it, paying 150 to 200 bucks for a stand alone DVD recorder.

Hope this helps some.

 

or to do it all for free ----
DVDFab _free_ version to rip the files to your drive (it does full-disk rip only, no options).
If you want to burn to a disk, the easiest way I've found is to then use DVDShrink to shrink the files down to fit on a DVD-R disk (there might be some quality loss or compression artifacts if you go smaller than 70% or so, your eyes must be the judge).

Shrink can also be used in "ReAuthor" mode to pick and choose just the parts you want, but the menus won't work then. I always just keep Movie Only, and use Shrink to save the files into ISO, then ImgBurn *wonderful burning app* to burn to disk. (ImgBurn can also build the ISO, but I've had problems a few times, so I stick with Shrink for that step)

 

if you need to burn the dvd to a hard drive first "dvd shrink" is the best. i then use "easy burning" to burn the dvd. :zzz

 

Great info so far! Thanks guys....
Any other ideas out there in Geekland?

 

I use #1 DVD Ripper and Magic DVD Ripper, they are kind of basic but they work just fine for me. I would recommend #1 DVD Ripper over the two, it has a nicer interface, much simpler to use, and supports ripping to a variety of formats. Both can copy to avi, and both can copy protected DVDs. (I use #1 DVD Ripper for converting DVDs to my Zune's format.)

 

DVD43 (When that fails, see below)
DVDFab HD Decryptor (free)
DVD Shrink
IMGBurn

Thats my list of apps, in order, that I use when the need arises.