We're aware that some users are experiencing technical issues which the team are working to resolve. See the Community Noticeboard for more info. Thank you for your patience.
📨 Have you signed up to the Forum's new Email Digest yet? Get a selection of trending threads sent straight to your inbox daily, weekly or monthly!

DVD ripper

Options
Hi.

We are looking at putting all of our films from DVD onto an external hard drive. The DVD's can then go in the loft and so we would have saved lots of space (Very important at the moment, due to a little one here now).

Can anyone recommend any programes that can rip DVD's to hard drive, so we can easily play them on our TV? All the ones I have seen either you have to pay for, or alters the picture (putting black bars top and bottom or either side).

We have a smart TV and will either connect the external hard drive, or play remotely via the modem (remote connecting to the laptop).

Comments

  • fwor
    fwor Posts: 6,862 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Name Dropper
    Assuming that these are commercial, copyrighted films, this is a subject that can't be discussed here, because if anyone tries to be helpful, the thread will get deleted.

    There are lots of other forums where it ~can~ be discussed though - have you tried AVForums?
  • Dave_C_2
    Dave_C_2 Posts: 1,827 Forumite
    edited 23 July 2012 at 5:32PM
    fwor wrote: »
    Assuming that these are commercial, copyrighted films, this is a subject that can't be discussed here, because if anyone tries to be helpful, the thread will get deleted.

    Not quite true

    The following is my opinion of the legality of copying legally bought DVDs (and CDs) for private use and as such should not upset any mods as I don't say how to do it in any shape or form.

    As copyright is a civil matter, any film company (copyright owner) can only sue for loss of earnings. As anyone copying DVDs for personal use or backup will still have the original DVD, the film company cannot reasonably claim any loss of sales.
    This is very different to file sharing, where uploading a DVD or CD onto the net can easily be shown to deprive the copyright owner of income (sales)

    However format shifting (for instance CD to iPod) happens all of the time. More recently format shifting DVD to media player/phone etc. is becoming common. We are now in the position where legislation has fallen so far behind the real world that the government must change the law. The cat is out of the bag.

    Last August the government recognised the situation and were talking about making it OK for folks to copy their own DVDs and CDs for personal use. Sadly this hasn't happened yet.

    Dave
  • fwor
    fwor Posts: 6,862 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Name Dropper
    I wasn't referring to the legality or otherwise of copying DVDs.

    I was referring to the fact that forum rules specifically forbid the discussion of "breaking copy protection". Your opinion on the subject will not change that.
  • Dave_C_2
    Dave_C_2 Posts: 1,827 Forumite
    fwor wrote: »
    I wasn't referring to the legality or otherwise of copying DVDs, I was referring to the fact that forum rules specifically forbid the discussion of "breaking copy protection".

    Agreed. Apologies, as I didn't make it clear that just the first line of my post was in reply to your post. The rest was a bit of an opinion piece from me. I suspect that my opinion won't change much at all :)

    Dave
  • rrf494g
    rrf494g Posts: 371 Forumite
    I make no assumption about where your DVD films came from other than you are entitled to copy them. I note here that we are all now entitled to record live transmission TV films to DVD discs for the purpose of "time-shifting" our viewing. This will mean that a large number of films are being legally recorded, off-air, to dvd's. Also, if, like me , you have a selection of grand-children you may have a growing collection of family dvds that are taking up an increasing space at home.

    I like to use free, reliable software whenever possible and my program of choice to transfer from disc, to file on a hard drive, is "DVDfab". A problem you may encounter is that the DVD format (VOB files etc) are VERY big (say 5 gb per film) so that even on a large hard-drive, size can be a problem. The best compression program I have found is "DVD shrink 3.2", although "NERO Re-code" can also do the job. These programs can half the size of the file (with some loss of quality). For more drastic reduction, a change of format from DVD VOB files to "DivX" or somesuch is needed. This is out of the scope of this reply, as there is a large choice of formats and coding programs.

    hope this helps - as for commercially bought and copy protected DVD's - to reduce size I change the packaging from the huge plastic boxes to "minimum sized" plastic sleeves, and I store in aluminium DJ cases. 400 fit in a case.
    regards
  • bluesnake
    bluesnake Posts: 1,460 Forumite
    Freemake is quite handy if you want to convert non copy protected dvds to one of a numerous of formats.
  • geordie458
    geordie458 Posts: 252 Forumite
    This works and its free.
  • DaveG247
    DaveG247 Posts: 399 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 100 Posts Combo Breaker
    DVDFab or DVDshrink & Handbrake
This discussion has been closed.
Meet your Ambassadors

🚀 Getting Started

Hi new member!

Our Getting Started Guide will help you get the most out of the Forum

Categories

  • All Categories
  • 350.9K Banking & Borrowing
  • 253.1K Reduce Debt & Boost Income
  • 453.5K Spending & Discounts
  • 243.9K Work, Benefits & Business
  • 598.7K Mortgages, Homes & Bills
  • 176.9K Life & Family
  • 257.2K Travel & Transport
  • 1.5M Hobbies & Leisure
  • 16.1K Discuss & Feedback
  • 37.6K Read-Only Boards

Is this how you want to be seen?

We see you are using a default avatar. It takes only a few seconds to pick a picture.