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Contributing Editor Emeritus
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 1,097
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Ripping Your DVDs the Quick, Easy and Free Way
The term 'Ripping your DVDs' has been around so long now it's worked it's way into our everyday language to the point that even people who don't use computers know what it means. The idea of ripping a DVD to watch on your Pocket PC or laptop has become as commonplace as ripping a CD was five years ago. However, that isn't to say it's become as easy or widespread as ripping a CD has become. In fact, ripping a DVD is nowhere near as clear as ripping a CD. Many tech-savvy people don't do it because it's just not obvious how to do it. It's not like Window Media Player has a 'Rip DVD' button.
This is, of course, because the movie studios and the DVD industry don't want you to rip their (your) DVDs. They've even gone so far as to outlaw the ripping of DVDs in many countries, including the United States. They're afraid that giving us the ability to rip DVDs would promote movie pirating, and they might even be right. I'm not going to argue the silliness of outlawing something that's OK to do with CDs or go into the inherent evility of denying our freedoms to secure profits � I could write an entire article on that alone. No, for the purposes of this guide, I'll simply state that I find nothing wrong, immoral or unethical about ripping my own DVDs to files that I can watch on my laptop or Smartphone or convert to play on my Zune.
The question is then how? Well, there are hundreds of different methods out there and innumerable programs that tout 'one-button DVD ripping'. I certainly haven't tried all of them, or even most of them, but I can tell you my method is straight-forward, painless, flexible and didn't cost me a dime. Interested? Read on�
The Programs
My method requires two programs: DVD Decrypter, used to decrypt the DVD and copy it to my hard drive; and Auto Gordian Knot (AutoGK), which is used to convert the ripped files to a useable .AVI file. DVD Decrypter is banned in several countries, and it's technically illegal for me to tell you where to get, so I can't provide a link. It is, however, freely available with a quick Google search. I get it from a certain .org page in the UK. :wink: AutoGK can be found here. Install both DVD Decrypter and AutoGK with the default settings. AutoGK actually installs and runs a number of different programs, so don't be alarmed when it takes you through the installation of those. If you want to create DivX files from your DVDs, you can do so, but AutoGK only supports the older DivX 5.2.1 (sadly, not yet version 6.x), so if you don't already have that installed, you'll need to do so. I found a mirrored link here. The free, open-source Xvid codec is included with Auto GK, so if you want to transcode to Xvid, you won't need to install anything further.
Once you have everything you need installed, select the DVD you wish to rip and put it in your drive. For this guide, we'll use my beloved copy of Aliens (Special Edition). After dismissing the auto-annoy dialog, launch DVD Decrypter.
DVD Decrypter
The first thing you'll notice are two windows: One the main window and the other the log window. The log window contains marginally helpful information, and will display the various properties of the DVD in question. Ignore the log window as we'll be focusing on the main window in this guide.
In the main DVD Decrypter window, you can see on the right had side that, having read the DVD, it has already determined the track that is most likely to be the movie and selected it. You can tell it's the right track because it's the only one that's over two hours. 9 times out of 10, it will have selected the correct track. Sometimes though, a DVD will have a second track that's very similar, often a 'view movie with alternate ending' version. Usually these will be the second track and DVD Decrypter has correctly selected the first track. Also, if you're ripping an 'episodic' DVD (like your favorite Sopranos DVD), you will see them all there on the right side, though you may have to go hunting for them in the tree structure. When ripping an episodic DVD, you'll need to ensure that the proper episode (track) is selected (they're usually in order).
Once you've ensured the proper track is selected, select a destination for the ripped files by clicking the folder icon near the center of the window and browsing to the correct folder. I've created a folder on my drive called 'DVD Rip', under which I've created folders with names corresponding to the DVD I've ripped. When ripping episodic DVDs, I create sub-folders that are numbered with the corresponding DVD track number (e.g. folder '4' is for the fourth episode on the disc) and rip each episode into them. For our guide here, I've created a folder called 'Aliens'.
After selecting a destination folder, click the 'button' in the lower-left that shows a DVD (I know that 'cause it says so :wink and a green arrow pointing to a hard drive. The ripping process will begin and the main window will convert to a progress indicator window. The speed of this step depends on the reading capabilities of your DVD drive. Mine took about 19 minutes to copy all the files of this 2.5-hour movie. When it's done, a cheery little sound (that you can mercifully turn off in the options menu) and an operation successfully completed! box will appear. Click OK to return the main DVD Decrypter window. If you're ripping multiple episodes, you'll need to repeat the last few steps for each episode, ripping each one to its own folder. Exit DVD Decrypter when you're done.
AutoGK
Next, open AutoGK. As I said, AutoGK is actually an amalgam of various video processing programs, all presented in a simple interface for ease of use. As you look at the main AutoGK window, you can see that each step is in fact numbered for you. I'll take you through each step.
The first step is to tell AutoGK what you're going to process by specifying the Input file. Click on the folder-with-arrow icon to the right of that field and browse to the folder where you ripped the DVD files. Open the .IFO file, not the .VOB files. If you've ripped an episodic DVD, AutoGK may ask you to select which episode on the disc it is, based on the information found in the .IFO file. Select the disc episode number if necessary (aren't you glad you named the folders with the disc episode number?). Next, click the folder-with-arrow icon to the right of the Output file field. You'll notice that it has already filled in the filename field with the same name as the folder the files are in. Nice touch. Click Save to exit back to the main window.
Step two is for the audio parameters. For most English movies, you'll leave these set to the defaults. However, if you're ripping a foreign film, you can select the native language track and the desired subtitles in the Audio track(s): and Subtitle track(s): fields. There are also certain circumstances where you would want to select the English subtitle track even if the audio track is in English. Any movie that has built-in English subtitling will often rely on the DVD's subtitle track. The movie Syriana, for example, is primarily in English but has a major amount of Arabic being spoken. The DVD uses the English subtitle track to display them when you're watching it on a regular player. In these cases, you'll want to select the English subtitle track as well as the 'Display only forced subtitles' option in the Advanced Settings dialog (I'll get to that in a second).
Next, select the output size. You can specify a Predefined size, Custom size (target size in MB) or Target quality (in percentage). I usually use Target quality and let AutoGK calculate the necessary bitrates etc. needed to achieve it. For most stuff I rip, I usually waver between 80 and 95% quality. For 'archival-quality', ramp the desired quality up to 100%. For our test here, I'll choose 80%.
Step four are the (optional) advanced parameters (though they don't seem so optional to me). Click on the Advanced Settings button and the Advanced Options dialog will pop up.
In the Output resolution settings you can specify what the width of the final file will be. For movies, I specify a Fixed width of 720. If I'm ripping a TV show where the resolution's not crucial, I'll often specify a width of 512. Optionally, you can choose 320 to format it for a Pocket PC screen (though I usually prefer to convert the ripped file afterwards). In the Output audio type section, I usually select VBR MP3 at 192kbps for movies and 128 for television shows. Next select whether you want to encode to the DivX or XviD codec (again, you'll need DivX 5.2 installed to encode to that codec). Finally, if the video you're encoding has a lot of subtitled languages but otherwise has an English soundtrack, checking the 'Display only forced subtitles' box, along with the English subtitle track on the main screen, forces AutoGK to only display the subtitles that the DVD track calls for (forces). With all the Advanced options set, click OK to exit back to the main window.
In the main AutoGK window, click the Add job button to add your rip job to the queue. You can queue up as many DVDs to process as you want with this process. When you're happy with your settings, click the Start button to begin processing. First it will analyze the entire film, then decode, normalize and encode the audio (using the LAME engine). After it's done with the audio, it will begin the video encoding process. The speed of the encoding will depend on the speed of your processor. It took an hour and fifteen minutes on my (admittedly aged) machine to process the entire set of files, which gives me a total approximate rip time of 2:15 (for a 2.5-hour movie). When it's done, the Job finished message will appear in the Low window area, at which point you can close AutoGK.
The File
Browse to the encoded file, in this case 'Aliens.avi', found in DVDRip\Aliens. Try not to be stunned at the file size. My example file is 2.72GB. Remember, you asked for a good quality copy. Try fiddling with AutoGK's Output size settings to get a smaller file size. Now, just to be sure, play the file you just encoded. Make sure there's audio and that any subtitles are displaying correctly. Skip to the end of the file and make sure the credits are there. If everything's where it should be, great! If not, go back over AutoGK's settings and try it again. Try encoding the audio with a constant bitrate (CBR) of 128kbps if you're having audio problems. Sometimes I get a file that's just too big. My NASs are FAT32-only, which means they're stuck with a 4GB file-size ceiling. Sometimes I rip a movie that gives me a 4.5GB file size and they just can't be stored externally.  These are the cases where I go back and choose a lower quality or resolution (width) and re-encode.
Once you've verified that you have a good file, you can safely delete the .ifo and .vob files. They're gigantic and you don't need them hanging around.
That's it! You've done it! You now have a portable .avi file that you can watch in comfort on your bed, on your deck or in the park on your laptop or Pocket PC. A little converting software can make it easily playable on a PSP, Zune or other Personal Media Player. So schedule up a few CPU cycles, sit back and relax.
Remember to use your new-found power wisely.
Damion Chaplin is a graphic artist and digital media connoisseur living in the San Francisco Bay Area with his lovely wife Lorri and the ship's cat Grimalkin (The Kitty). He doesn't like paying to do something in 1 minute that he can do for free in 2.
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