DVD Ripping: Intro

My first few posts are going to be a series of HOWTOs.  I've been working on ripping my DVD collection so I can a) watch them on my droid, and b) let people borrow them without being terrified they'll scratch the disc all to pieces.  To paraphrase my boss, there are only so many times you're willing to buy the same Pixar movie because of irremovable PB&J fingerprints.

On that note, let me just say that,  if you're here & reading this because you're some kind of script kiddy trying to augment his DVD collection for free, then screw you.  It's self-absorbed cretins like you that motivated the content distributors to start infecting our media with DRM.  So unless you actually own the movies you're trying to rip, go get your piracy walkthroughs somewhere else.

There.  That should be a sufficient disclaimer.

So when "ripping" a DVD, there are a few different things we are talking about.  I'll try to make an analogy with CDs since it's probably a safe assumption that anyone trying to figure out how to rip a DVD has probably already ripped a few CDs.

When ripping a disc, there are usually three different results a person is going for:

1)  An exact copy of the disc

2)  An exact copy of the media files on the disc.

3)  A portable version of the disc's contents.

Looking at these from the perspective of a CD, we would want the rip to produce:

1)  A copy of anything on the disc, including uncompressed audio files and extra features such as flash videos, images, weblinks, or other "extra features."

2)  Uncompressed audio files, probably .aac files on the order of 100 MB per song.

3)  .mp3 or .ogg files on the order of 5-10 MB per song.

You're probably the most familiar with the third option, since it's what you would use in your iPod, smartphone, or other mp3 device.  But numbers 1 & 2 also have their uses, especially when we start to consider DVD movies.  With DVDs, we have the same 3 options, only with a few extra details:

1)  An exact copy of the disc, (although we may want to remove region encoding so we can watch it wherever we are).

2)  An exact copy of the movie, (which may not include the menu, trailers, special features, subtitles, or even language track you want).

3)  A portable version of the movie, probably a .mp4 file you can view on your iPod, smartphone, or similar device.  File size can range, but something along the order of 750MB for 1 hour works as a "rule of thumb."

My next few posts will address each of these points, and address further possible issues you may come across.