Ripping the DVD

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Extracting the DVD to Hard Disk

The guide you are reading will show you how to rip the DVD to your hard disk. To do this, we will be using SmartRipper 2.02. If you do not have it yet, you can download it from my software page, or by using the hyper-link above.

After we have SmartRipper installed, the first step will be to put a DVD in your PC and start SmartRipper.

Note: If SmartRipper says "can't unlock drive" you will need to spin up your DVD in your PC DVD player. No big deal, just wait for it to load, and then close it down. If you still get the same error, re-load your DVD player and play a little bit of the movie. Then try pausing the DVD while you load SmartRipper.

SmartRipper has 3 different modes, MOVIE, FILES, and BACKUP. Movie mode just happens to be the default, and is the most powerful. It allows us to look at and choose all aspects of our DVD rip. Although we will be using Movie mode to rip, below is a brief description of the other two modes.

BACKUP MODE : Backs up entire DVD. Different angles, menus, the whole thing. You cannot choose what pieces you want, or what language you want to use. The only purpose is to take everything exactly as it is from the DVD. Powerful, yes. But a little overkill for our purposes. This feature will be good when DVD-Burners are a little less expensive ;-)

FILE MODE : Similar to Backup mode except that you can choose which files to copy. Doesn’t handle multi-angles or language selection.

Once you get SmartRipper successfully loaded, you will see the picture below :

1. DVD Selection Box : Let's you change the DVD-ROM drive that SmartRipper is reading

2. Movie Selection Box : Shows all of the titles found. SmartRipper automatically chooses the main feature.

3. Chapter Selection : Let's you choose individual chapters

4. Cell : Doesn't do much. VOB files can be divided by Cell or VOB ID. Don't worry about it.

5. Audio Selection : Let's you choose which audio track you want to rip.

6. Total Selection : Exact details of what you are going to rip.

7. Chapter : Same as ( 6 ) only for the chapter that you have selected.

8. Video Info : General DVD information. Useful to quickly find the region coding of your disk.

That’s about it when it comes to the user interface. Now, in order to rip a DVD, you have to look at a few things before you press the start button. First off, if you plan on doing the whole thing in one sitting, make sure that you have enough space on your hard drive. To do this, look near the botton of the SmartRipper Movie Mode, where it says TARGET. Then look at the two rectangles that say FREE DISK SPACE and REQUIRED DISK SPACE. If FREE DISK SPACE is green you have enough, if it is red, then you need to delete some stuff, or do your movie in parts. I know it sounds difficult to do it in parts, that is why I have made the "Joining DivX" guide.

I always suggest that before you take the 20 minutes or so to rip the whole thing, rip 1 chapter to make sure that you have the right angle, audio, etc… So MOVE TO THE CHAPTER SELECTION WINDOW, and click the NONE button. Now choose the chapter that you want to rip, and the audio track from the AUDIO SELECTION window. CLICK START. You should get a screen with a progress bar, and when the rip is finished, a little box will pop up saying “Rip Complete”. Now open up a DVD player such as WinDVD, PowerDVD, or whatever program you are using to play DVD’s, and OPEN the newly created VOB. If all else fails and you can’t open the VOB in a DVD Player, use Media Player. When everything is kosher, rip as much as you can using the process above. If it is the wrong language or something like that, try a different audio track. You should get a perfect rip with SmartRipper. Once you have mastered the Ripping process, move along to the next guide.

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