Over the weekend I was sitting down looking at my DVD collection when had one of those "weekend ideas" - Would it be feasible to rip my entire DVD collection to hard disk? Copying and transcoding the disc’s video into more efficient formats makes our life easier, but ripping a latest DVD movie into an iPad-friendly format could take hours. Well, with the right software, a quad-core-equipped PC, and a little know-how, you can cut your disc-rip time from hours to 5 minutes. Plenty of tricks and traps still await first-time rippers, but we’ll show you the basics and then walk you through some of the most valuable power-user ripping secrets.
Required hardware: PC with DVD-ROM optical drive, and commercial DVDs
Required software: Pavtube Blu-ray Ripper, or DVD Ripper
Trial download: Pavtube Blu-ray Ripper / DVD Ripper
Copy DVD disc fully onto hard disk
Step 1. Run the DVD backup software, click "BD/DVD ROM" to load DVD to the DVD Ripper. When a DVD is loaded, the CSS protection is hacked.
Step 2. Click the "Full Disk Copy" button to start archiving DVD to hard drive in VIDEO_TS structure. It takes 5-10 minutes to archive a DVD-5 to hard drive and double time to archive DVD-9 (dual layer DVD).
Step 3. Click "Open" to find DVD backup in VIDEO_TS file structure after conversion completes. There are multiple .vob, .ifo and .bup files.
Playback of DVD copy
When a DVD is archived to hard disk, you can use VLC media player or XBMC to play the VIDEO_TS structure.
Some tips:
1. Have your computer networked so that the ripper can access key for cracking the copy-protections. Protected movies (with CSS) will not play properly on a computer or HD media player.
2. The Blu-ray Ripper software can be also used for doing full disc copy for protected Blu-ray Disc and rip DVD to AVI, MP4, WMV, MKV, etc.