Thread: Ripping DVDs.

I just bought the first three seasons of slayers on region 1 DVD. When I went to watch them on my computer it told me something about swapping regions and only having a limited amount of swaps (I don't know if this is a windows thing or just the software winDVD 5).
Anyway, I wanted to rip the DVDs so that I can watch them at any time without locking my drive to a region. Normally I would do this with some software called Fairuse wizard 2, however there is a problem. All the episodes on the disc are in a single large stream, fairuse won't allow me to select custom parts of the stream (I only have the free version) and it won't allow me to create videos larger than 700MB (I would need about 2000MB to retain any kind of quality).

I'm not asking for a pirate copy of the full version (thats against the rules), but are there any free alternatives that don't have such restrictions?
Or are there any other ways to rip DVDs?

DVDFab HD Decrypter 5.1.1.0
AVIDEMUX
XVID Codec

1- Rip with DVDFab
2 -use AVIDEMUX to
-> Crop (remove any and all black borders, even half-black)
--- For that use the slider bar at the bottom to select a spot in the middle of the movie.
--- Press the Video Filters button.
--- Add Transformation -> Crop and click on "Auto Crop", check then hit OK.
-> Resize
--- Normally, resizing improve quality, and since we croped we need to resize to get the correct aspect ratio.
--- Ok, back to the Filter list
--- Select the input aspect ratio (16:9 if its widescreen/4:3 otherwise) and target aspect ratio (1:1)
--- Now select your resizing method: Bicubic (its anime you get little benefit over lanzco)
--- You may also check if the final width and height are multiple of 16..

-> more filters
-- This is where you going to add stuff, like subtitling, denoiser, deinterlacer,etc...
-- You may want to encode little parts of your video, and check if its what you want or not.. (action scenes being the best)

-> Chose encoder
--- we go with xdiv, click on configure, and set to 2-pass encoding, click OK

--- Use the calculator, make sure its on AVI, select your medium(final filesize) and click apply..

-> Select audio
-- the main track is usually the one that comes with the region, english for DVD1, if you want to add any other track, go to "Audio -> Second Track"

Now check the sync, turn on the filtered output preview mode and make sure the audio is synced, if not, you need to use the "shift" to fix it.

-> Audio encoder
MP3 with LAME or you can keep the AC3 Track, if you have a 5.1 sound..

->audio filters
-- if you wish to do anything with your audio.

===================================

FILE > SAVE > SAVE VIDEO

Sit wait, and watch..^^

Note on DVD regions:

AFAIK, you usually have to defeat 3 region locks:
- The first is in the DVD player software you're using (but not all software enforce this)
- The second is Windows
- The third is embedded into your DVD drive's firmware (unless you're on of those lucky enough to have an RPC1 firmware in your drive - which would render it region free).

The last one is the most problematic, since you either have to reflash your drive's firmware (with the possibility of bricking it) or change your drive altogether. There are alternate firmwares with the region restrictions removed, Google up RPC1 firmware, just be wary of the risks involved.

Oh, if the drive firmware has region restrictions enforced, you usually have 5 changes.

Thanks for the method and links Irecinius (I'll try that tonight) and thanks for the info qualia (I don't expect to use R1 much, but if I do I think I install a spare drive and use that as a dedicated R1 drive).

Ironically I just found out my regular DVD player is region free, its just a shame I get embarresed about watching anime without headphones. lol