How to Rip a DVD on Computer with Handbrake, StaxRip and Aimersoft DVD Ripper?
Outline: Want to copy your DVDs to portable devices for watching? Want to transfer (Disney, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hollywood, Bollywood, etc.) DVD collection to your hard drive? Just get a free or paid DVD Ripper & Copier! Handbrake, Aimersoft DVD Ripper and StaxRip are the best choice. Here’s how we recommend you go about doing it.
There are endless reasons why you might want to rip and convert a movie from a DVD and store it on your computer. You might want to watch a new DVD on your tablet, smartphone, or portable media player, etc.; you might just want to backup your expensive DVD movie collection; another reason might be that your DVD collection is bulging and you want to free up some room in your house (a terabyte hard drive full of movies could save a huge amount of cubic meters in your house). Anyway…enough rambling on about why you might want to do it, ince none of those gadgets have optical drives, you can’t put any of your DVDs into them. Here’s what we think is the best way to go about ripping DVDs to your computer with the Handbrake, StaxRip abd Aimersoft DVD Ripper in some simple steps, so you can play the DVD movies wherever and however you want.
Disclaimer: The encrypted DVDs procedures currently occupy something of a legal gray area. You probably won’t face any legal consequences if you simply rip your legally purchased movie collection for your own use, but we’re just going to present the instructions and let you decide for yourself whether to follow the steps.
Method 1. How to Free Rip a DVD on Computer with Handbrake? [Free]
HandBrake is a free and open-source DVD Ripper tool that can rip movie from DVD to MKV or MP4. It has presets for Apple iPad & iPhone, Android, Amazon Fire, Chromecast, Roku, Playstation, and more. But, HandBrake doesn’t have devices optimized presets. You need to create presets on your own when necessary. It owns multiple video and audio parameter settings to alter the output file personally.
Prerequisites
1. Handbrake can’t rip copy-protected DVD and always select the wrong main title. The output quality and ripping speed are always unsatisfactory. If you want to use HandBrake to rip encrypted DVDs (actually, almost all store-bought DVDs are copyright-protected), you should firstly download libdvdcss. libdvdcss is a part of VideoLAN project capable of reading and decrypting DVDs locked by region codes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and CSS.
Get libdvdcss at: https://download.videolan.org/pub/libdvdcss/
Next, you should install libdvdcss on your computer. The process is different on Windows and Mac.
On Windows, you simply need to copy the libdvdcss-2.dll to HandBrake folder.
On Mac, you can download the libdvdcss package file and double click it to install. But if you use Mac OS X El Capitan or later, you need to install libdvdcss via Homebrew.
- Open Terminal window and enter command line ruby -e “$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)” to install Homebrew. Then, you are required to enter Admin password to install Homebrew.
- After you finish Homebrew installation, run the command brew install libdvdcss in Terminal window. Moments later, the libdvdcss will be installed on El Capitan or later.
With libdvdcss installed, HandBrake now can rip DVD with copy protection.
For Windows Users
In this example I show how to rip a DVD with HandBrake on a Windows PC, but the principle is the same for Mac.
Step 1. Load the DVD you want to rip into HandBrake.
Insert target DVD into the DVD drive of your computer. Then, open HandBrake and you will be able to see Source Selection where your DVD should be already detected. (Tips: HandBrake can also rip DVD VIDEO_TS folder and ISO file to mainstreaming format.)
Click target DVD and HandBrake will begin scanning it. Scanning time varies with content on your disc.
Step 2. Choose the DVD title and chapter you want to rip.
HandBrake will select a title for you automatically, but you can click the Title drop-down menu to choose a different DVD title. All chapters of the selected title will be covered, but you can also specify it as needed.
Generally speaking, if it is a movie DVD, main movie part should be the one with the longest duration. But this rule doesn’t apply to 99-title movie DVDs and HandBrake can’t deal with such kind of disc. If it is a TV series DVD, simply select your favorite title/episode – each usually being 20 – 44 minutes. But in most cases we want to select all episodes to rip.
Well, how to select multiple titles in HandBrake?
After you select a title, choose a preset, and then you can click the drop-down arrow of Add to Queue. There’re three options: Add Current, Add All and Add Selection.
- When you click Add Current, HandBrake will add currently selected title to the queue.
- When you click Add All, HandBrake will add all DVD titles to the queue simultaneously.
- When you choose Add Selection, HandBrake will pop up a window where you can specify which titles to add to queue.
So that’s how to rip multiple titles off DVD or copy several/all episodes of TV show DVD.
Step 3. Configure output.
HandBrake DVD ripper empowers you to copy DVD to MP4 or convert DVD to MKV format. In addition, it offers dozens of output presets, grouped under General (1080p, 720p, 576p, 480p), Web (Gmail, YouTube, Vimeo, Discord), Devices (Android, Apple, Chromecast, Playstation, Amazon Fire, Roku, Xbox), Matroska (H.264, H.265, VP8, VP9), and Production. You can choose any one at will, or add personalized preset by clicking Save New Preset.
When choosing a preset, don’t choose 720p and 1080p presets for DVDs. The resolution for PAL DVD is 720 x 576 (576p), while the resolution for NTSC DVD is 720 x 480 (480p). Choosing a larger preset won’t make the output look better but bigger.
One more thing, “Fast” and “Very Fast” presets will sacrifice some output quality, while “HQ” and “Super HQ” presets will slow the DVD ripping speed and increase output file size.
Besides container format and preset, HandBrake also allows you to select subtitle, specify audio track, tweak video parameters like codec and framerate, set quality, and do so much more. But if you know little about those features, just keep the default settings untouched.
Step 4. Specify the destination to save your DVD rip file.
Navigate to Save As section and then click Browse to choose the location for storing the resulting file. HandBrake allows you to rip DVD to computer hard drive or external storage devices.
Step 5. Ask HandBrake to rip DVD in no time.
If you have nothing to modify, simply click Start Encode button at the top menu bar to start ripping video/audio from DVD with HandBrake. Then you will see a display bar and can estimate the time remaining to complete.
For Mac Users
Handbrake for Mac is a free open source DVD ripper for Mac, Windows, and Linux. It can free rip DVD to MP4, MKV and WebM, with the ready-made profiles for Android, Apple, Roku, etc.
But if you plan to rip encrypted DVDs to MP4 using Handbrake, you have to download and install libdvdcss to partner with it. Otherwise, you will encounter errors, such as no valid title found. HandBrake itself is unable to deal with copy-protected DVDs.
Step 1: Install HandBrake.
Go to the official site of HandBrake to download and install the latest version of HandBrake on MacOS.
If you open up HandBrake right now, the Mac might remind you, “HandBrake” can’t be opened because it is from an unidentified developer. If you see this notice, press OK to exist.
Press System Preference to launch up the Security & Privacy panel. Hit Open Anyway, and then press the Next button on the shown up new panel.
Step 2: Install Homebrew.
Press CMB + SPACE, enter Terminal to start up Terminal. Alternatively, you can go to Finder > Application > Utility to locate Terminal, and click on this to open the Terminal application. Herein, enter the below Homebrew install command line, and then press RETURN.
- MacOS Mojave or later: /bin/bash -c “$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install.sh)”
- MacOS High Sierra or earlier: /usr/bin/ruby -e “$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)”
Note: Some users might come across a pop-up panel that asks your permission to install the developer tools. In this case, press Enter > Agree. Hit Done once the process finishes.
Enter the administrator password when the Terminal application reminds you to enter your password for proceeding. Your trusty Mac computer now starts to install Homebrew. This may take minutes.
Input brew help when you are reminded to run ‘brew help’ to get started. Press RETURN to proceed.
Input brew doctor when you are reminded to make a choice for further help. Press RETURN to proceed.
Step 3: Install the Libdvdcss Library.
Enter command line brew install libdvdcss on the Terminal window, press RETURN. Now, you should have libdvdcss successfully installed on your Mac.
Step 4: Select the Target Protected DVD.
Insert the protected movie DVD onto the computer. Launch up HandBrake. Select the right DVD drive on the pop-up sidebar, and choose Open. HandBrake starts to scan the titles of the chosen DVD.
Step 5: Select the Wanted Titles.
HandBrake, by default, will choose the main title of the protected movie DVD. Suppose you want to rip one or several specific chapters, press the drop-down button of Title, and select the needed ones.
Step 6: Choose the Picture Quality.
On the right side of the HandBrake DVD ripper, there are several presets. Choose the one that works best for you. I myself usually select Very Fast 480p30 to rip US DVDs and select Very Fast 476p25 for EU DVDs.
Step 7: Rip Protected DVD on Mac.
Assign a destination folder to hold the output DVD copy file. After that, click on the green Start Encode button underneath the top menu bar. HandBrake now starts to rip protected DVD on your Mac.
Method 2. How to Rip a DVD on Computer with Aimersoft DVD Ripper? [Paid]
At Times you need HandBrake Alternative software to achieve better Commercial DVD movie conversion, and Aimersoft DVD Ripper is the best recommended HandBrake Alternative. There are plenty of reasons that make Aimersoft DVD Ripper surpass other competitive HandBrake Alternatives, even go beyond HandBrake itself.
Aimersoft DVD Ripper is an excellent alternative for HandBrake when it comes to ripping and converting DVD movies. It can convert any DVD movie to any format such as MP4, M4V, MOV, AVI, WMV, MKV, MPG, FLV, etc. If you are a newbie when it comes to converting movies, this alternative of HandBrake for Windows has 175 ready presets that you can choose from. This means that you do not need to have knowledge on the different aspects of video quality such as framerate (FPS) or aspect ratios. Besides, the built-in editor allows you to trim, crop, adjustment video effect, etc. to get the best overall video effect.
Also, this software will let you convert any type of DVD no matter what copyright restrictions it may have. The other advantage of this HandBrake alternative is its ability to merge multiple files into one large file for a continuous playback. Another excellent advantage of Aimersoft is that it uses your Nvidia GPU instead your computer’s main CPU. This means that you can still perform other computer related activities with the DVD ripping in the background. (See also DVD Ripper Review)
This software exceeds all the others in terms of performance, compatibility, and features. It is a ripper, editor, converter, and player all-in-one, thus making it the ideal tool for the job. To easily use the DVD Ripper for portable devices, simply download and install the software into your computer.
Once that’s done, click on the corresponding icon to run the program. Then follow the steps below:
Step 1. Load DVD
Put the DVD disc in the drive and browse to the target file by clicking on File and then Load DVD. Compatible ones are DVD-9/5, dvdmedia, ISO and IFO. Once the file is successfully loaded, you’ll see the movie title in the user interface.
Step 2. Pick the output format
To select the desired output format, click on the icon representing the video’s original format. The new window to pop out will show a long list of options. Click on “Common Video” and from there, a range of output options becomes available. Simply select the one that you prefer. Video presets for the Android, iPad Air, iPhone, Plex, Surface, Galaxy S series, Galaxy Note series, PS4, PSP, Xbox One, Zune, and other popular gadgets will show up there too.
Step 3. Start the process
Be sure to adjust all settings and select the desired output folder before clicking on the “Start” button on the lower part of the screen. Once you got everything all set up, initiate the conversion and let DVD Ripper do what it should. Then check out the output file in the folder that you assigned right after. If it’s there, then you can begin to enjoy the video in any way you like.
Method 3. How to Rip a DVD on Computer with StaxRip [Free]?
StaxRip ia a free and multimedia encoding software that can rip DVD/Blu-ray/Videos to more popular formats like: MPEG-4, Xvid, x264/H264/AVC, x265/H265/HEVC, VP9. It is an all-in-one encoding/conversion tool that has a function to convert DVD/DVB and other video file formats to DivX, Xvid, H.264, H.265. As an open source application, StaxRip is completely free. It supports output in the container formats: AVI, MP4, MPG, MKV, DIVX. Therefore, if you have no idea on how to rip DVD with HandBrake or you HandBrake just stops working, you could also turn to StaxRip.
The below steps would show you how to rip DVD with StaxRip in detail:
- Download and install StaxRip on your computer. And get your source DVD movies ready.
- Launch StaxRip on your computer and select “Source” in order to load DVD files to this program.
- On the pop-up window, select “Single Or Merge” and select ALL the VOB files that you want to rip from your DVD file. Then click “OK”. StaxRip will now demux, index and merge the VOB files.
- In the “Target” box, set an output directory.
- Click the “MKV” button to choose output format. You could choose MP4 here for iPad. Click the “DivX Plus” button to set output quality and size.
- You could also click the “Config Codec” and “Config Container” options according to your own needs.
- Under the “Audio” options, you could adjust output audio parameters.
- Then, click the “Next” button.
- On the new pop-up window, click “Start” to start the encoding process. You can view the H.264 encoding process in the Log screen. And the encoding process will complete itself.
After converting, you will get video files from DVD movies to playback on your tablets, smartphones, TVs, HD Media Players and so on.
P.S. Learn more Handbrake alternatives here.
DVD Rippers Comparison: Handbrake vs Aimersoft DVD Ripper vs StaxRip
In order to let you learn more about these 3 solutions, we have made a comparison table for you.
| HandBrake | Aimersoft DVD Ripper | StaxRip | |
| Convert DVD | Yes, no-commercial only | Yes | Yes |
| Rip and convert commercial DVD movies to videos | No | Yes | Yes |
| Supported output video and audio formats | MKV, MP4 | Over 200+ formats | Many poplar file formats |
| Edit DVD movies before converting | No | Yes | No |
| Adjust output video and audio parameters | Yes | Yes | yes |
| Apply 3D movie effect | No | Yes | No |
| Select subtitles and audio tracks | Yes | Yes | No |
| Play back DVD movies | No | Yes | No |
| Take screenshots | No | Yes | No |
| Merge DVD files to one file | No | Yes | No |
| Availability | Windows, Mac | Windows, Mac | Windows only |
Conclusion
Overall, all the DVD Ripper tools mentioned above can rip DVD on computer. All have their own virtues and drawbacks.HandBrake could help you easily convert non-commercial DVD movies to MP4/MKV file. And with extra plugin like libdvdcss, HandBrake could convert commercial DVD movies. StaxRip could rip and convert DVD movies to videos on Windows only. Most of HandBrake errors are result from copy protections. And the best way to fix them could be trying a HandBrake alternative like Aimesoft DVD Ripper, capable of processing various encryption schemes. This software supports nearly any DVD copy protection schemes, like general CSS mechanism, Sony ARccOS, UOPs, APS, RCE and Disney X-project DRM. It can rip Disney DVDs even with 99 confusing titles, workout DVDs, special Japanese DVDs, and others, without hassle.
Other than these, Aimersoft DVD Ripper could help you do more things like editing DVD movies, applying 3D effect, protection, playing back DVD movies, etc. The alternative to HandBrake has the advantages not only in wide range of supported DVDs, but also in more well-configured output presets, more output file formats, super fast speed, high output quality, intuitive interface and more.
Aimersoft DVD Ripper features better stability and compatibility than Handbrake itself. Has been tested time after time by our team, Aimersoft DVD Ripper is proved as 100% safe upon Windows. As for unexpected issues, their prompt technique support will offer you timely assistance (response within 24 hours; for HandBrake however, you need to wait months until they publish next version).
Hivimoore does not advocate ripping protected DVDs for any commercial purpose and suggests referring to the DVD copyright laws in your countries before doing so.
Editor’s Recommendation:
High quality and Easy to use.
Aimersoft DVD Ripper can help me to rip DVD with different format. and the quality is perfect.
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Aimersoft DVD Ripper helps in ripping Commercial DVD-video content in video and audio formats, be compatible with popular devices. There are so many preset profiles for me to choose for my portable device. Moreover, the app adds new preset on regular basis.
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I want to watch DVD movies on my Computer as High Definition format and this software helps me.
With Aimersoft DVD Ripper software, I can also convert and transfer the DVD movies on iPad Mini 3 directly. So confinience.
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