To burn or not to burn? That is the question. Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the absence of your DVD collection on your hard drive, or to take arms against those who poison your collection with various "protections," and by opposing end them. If you side with the latter camp, then you'll be interested in DVDFab HD Decrypter, a free program for Windows that copies an entire DVD movie to your hard drive, and removes all the protections (CSS, RC, RCE, APS, UOPs and Sony ARccOS) while copying. The program also provides full HD-DVD and Blu-Ray support (hence the "HD" in the name).
The program is straightforward. Insert a DVD and click Start, and DVDFab HD Decrypter will copy the DVD contents (the Video_TS folder) to a specified location on your hard drive.
You'll notice that the interface includes a lot of extra menu items on the sidebar, including Split, Customize, Merge; as well as various options to convert the DVD file to a format playable on various mobile devices. If those options make your mouth water, take notice: they're only available in the Platinum version ($50). The only function of the free version is to make a direct backup of a DVD to your hard drive. If that's what you're looking for, then you've found it.
Version 4.0.6.2 includes some bug fixes and new features. Windows only.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
2-07-2008 @ 4:40PM
chrisaroz said...
I just want a program that will take the main movie from the DVD and turn it into a WMV or Divx file...
Reply
2-07-2008 @ 4:49PM
Thayne said...
oh what in god's name would you want to export to WMV or divx for? Yuck.
Try handbrake.
2-08-2008 @ 8:28AM
jedipunk said...
Slysoft CloneDVD Mobile
2-07-2008 @ 8:22PM
Ian said...
I tried DVDFab a while back, but for some reason, I just never hooked on to it like I did with RipIt4Me (a GUI wrapper for DVD Decrypter, FixVTS and DVD Shrink), which has been my mainstay program for the last few years.
Maybe I'll give DVDFab another go and see if it does the job as well as (or better than) RipIt4Me -- which is no longer under development.
If only Mac burning were this easy and free. Thanks for the heads up, DS!
Reply
2-07-2008 @ 9:49PM
Arjun said...
Ian, Mac burning gets even simpler than this.
There's the unbeatable combo of MacTheRipper + Handbrake.
2-08-2008 @ 2:06AM
Zac said...
Even moreso, Handbrake on the Mac does most DVDs just fine.
I think it's Windows that's sincerely lacking a good all-in-one solution to get DVD video onto mobile devices.
2-08-2008 @ 1:28PM
Ian said...
I do have MTR and Handbrake on my Mac, but here's what I don't like about that combo:
1) MTR has a very unfriendly UI and confusing options settings. It took me 10 minutes to figure out where to click to actually make the rip.
2) Handbrake doesn't have a preview pane where I can view what streams I'm compressing, or pick which streams are part of the audio output
3) Handbrake outputs to a file, rather than a direct burn to a blank DVD, like DVD Shrink (+Nero) gives you
4) Handbrake has 18(!) different encoding presets. Maybe it's a tyranny of choice, but I have no idea what one is best for making copies of my son's birthday video
If I'm off base here, by all means correct me -- I've used Windows and Linux a lot longer than I've used Mac (and Mac software), so I wouldn't be surprised if I'm off base here.
2-08-2008 @ 8:09AM
Robert Seay said...
I like the Hamlet bit - ay, there's the rub
Reply
2-08-2008 @ 8:30AM
Ray said...
We've been using this program for about a year now and it just keeps getting better. The authors are constantly improving it and the upgrades are free. Yea, WMV. Sorry guys, but the movies are bigger and look better on my Zune than my Ipod!
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2-08-2008 @ 9:12AM
bmanice said...
for windows...
ConvertXtodvd
there you go
Reply
2-08-2008 @ 9:43AM
Geoff the Ripper said...
FairUse Wizard - takes dvd converts it to xvid of specified size. Super easy to use and the quality of the ouput files is damn near perfect (depending on the length of the movie and how big you want the output to be) I believe the free version only allow 700MB output, but with the full you can set it to any size and even split up the output into multiple files (say 1400MB / 2). You can also split files by chapter or title for those TV show DVDs (again, only in the pay version i believe). http://fairusewizard.com/
Reply
2-08-2008 @ 4:50PM
trippy said...
Also look for AutoGordianKnot 2.48. Works well too, is free, and doesnt have the limitations of free ver of Fairuse Wiz.