bitRipper : One-Click Free DVD Ripper for Windows
There are all sorts of reasons you would want to rip your DVD’s to AVI files. In my case it is getting rid of my space killing DVD collection.
I am going to be packing ‘em up and putting them away for storage.
But that shouldn’t mean I can’t have access to any movie I own at any given time…
Right?
Well for a long while, if you wanted to rip DVD’s that meant you needed to know how to decrypt your DVD’s and then you needed a little geeky know-how to convert those “vob” files and other crap to something playable.
Times they are a’ changing because this little free application called bitRipper includes a de-crypter and a converter in one package. That means throw the DVD into your DVD drive and click START RIPPING!
It is that easy. It’s easy enough for your mom to do it. For real!
If you don’t believe me, go check it out for your self. Grab the installer direct from here or visit the author’s homepage here.
My download did not require a registration code but the author does include this on the download page:
If your download requires entering username and regcode, please use the following ones:
Registration code:
User name:
bitRipper also has advanced configuration modes available where you can get at some settings but the two best features are the included DVD decrypting and On the fly writing.
On The Fly DVD Writing does not require you to use almost 5 gigabytes to rip your dvd before burning the AVI. That’s right it converts video on-the-fly, copying data and writing it to your AVI file at the same time.
bitRipper was originally commercial software when I first came upon it but it is free now and occasionally updated. The author points out that he has added these features in the recent past:
- Ability to control the ripping process system priority
- Internal video bitrate calculator to fine-tune the compression level
- Authorization support for protected discs
- Episodical discs support (multiple DVD tracks containing multiple parts)
- Support of the most of video export formats including AVI, MPEG, DivX
- Reduced installation package, maximized stability and reliability
bitRipper is an amazing find and a regular part of my DVD ripping activities! Give it a shot.
What do you use to rip your DVD’s? Something as easy and free? Put me on it in the comments.
By Karl L. Gechlik of http://www.askTheAdmin.com. Karl is a super hero of the IT industry and helps answer free tech support questions at his website. Stop by and tell him MakeUseOf sent you!
I started using this yesterday but I came across a small problem which stops this from being 100% perfect.
Basically bitRipper doesn’t have an option to switch languages in the DVD.
I have a lot of German DVD’s which also have the option to switch to English. But bitRipper doesn’t give me the option to switch languages. So it immediately rips the disk in the default language which is German. But the English language option is there! I just can’t get to it!
It would be nice if the bitRipper developer could fix this in an upgrade.
Hmmm thanks for pointing this out Mark. I only watch English DVD’s so it wasn’t something I tried to do. Maybe the author will see this post and fix it up for ya Mark!
huge problem for me it just wont work. first of all u must put a dvd in the drive before opening bitripper otherwise it cant see the disc. secondly when i go to rip it says an error occured cant find the video file even tho it sees the dvd and asks u which part of the dvd u want to rip. anyone else having this issue im running it under windows xp pro sp3
Well that IS strange because even if a disk isnt in the drive, bitRipper detects a disk when one is finally put in (for me anyway).
I don’t have your second problem either.
It works perfectly for me, despite the problem I mentioned earlier.
I tried it on XP SP3 and Vista SP1 without either of these issues. Do you have issues opening or playing the disks? Is the drive light staying on or stopping after recognizing the disk?
Do you have other apps using the drive? bitRipper needs exclusive access to the drive.
I am a bit suspect of the links to the porn sites at the bottom of their page. Clicking a couple makes Firefox not want to let me go to them… hmmm.
So do you always just click on random porno links?
How does ripping on the fly and encoding compare to ripping to hard drive first, and then encode?
Using the latter method, it takes me about 3 hours total for the entire setup. I cannot fathom that this program will take less time, but rather more time!
This program is definately MUCH faster. When I ripped a DVD to an AVI file yesterday, it took about one hour.
46 minutes to rip a full DVD on the fly vs about 4 hours for a rip to disk and then de-crypt and convert. This is awesome. I can be so more productive now!
(Comments wont nest below this level)I just downloaded it today,and received nothing but errors and finally the beloved Blue Screen of Death.
I am running it on Vista SP1
Ian are you logged in as an Administrator?
What are the errors? Maybe I can help you out?
Hi Karl
The errors i get are similar to Razors..cannot find disc,and then when I click on rip,programs does nothing and finally locks up,shortly after I received the blue screen.
I usually use DVD Fab HD Decrypter, that also decrypts CSS …
http://www.dvdfab.com/free.htm
It can be used as a one-click-decrypter but also offers more options like language selection.
Greets
slAcker
The other issues I have is that when I click on settings,nothing happens, no pop up window appears at all.Any ideas would certainly be helpful
I use SimpleDivX which works pretty nice with language selection, and I’m also using Windows Vista.
Judging from the interface, SimplexDivX needs some time to learn but it does a good job.
Won’t even open… just says BitRipper has stopped working and closes out.
Tried both BitRipper and DVDfab
DVDfab freeware is a stripped version of DVDfab platinum which is actually 30 days trialware. I hate it when they do that so I did not try to use it.
BitRipper is real freeware, works real fine with all features available as soon as the installation is completed.
For me, the choice was easy …
Pierre Ouellette
Exactly Pierre - Free is for me
I’ve been using bitRipper for awhile. I like it! It’s so much simpler than more complicated apps like Handbrake (which does have its devotees, I know).
It’s not perfect…every now and then it’ll chew on a disc for a long time and not completely rip it, but I think that’s a copy protection issue (other rippers tend to also have problems with those DVDs). And I agree with the other commenter that being able to choose something other than the default language would be awesome (Japanese anime purist, who, me?) But overall, I keep coming back to bitRipper: it’s small, it’s simple, and it’s relatively quick. It’s all I need.
Wow! So many people are using bitRipper. How come no one ever put me on?? Thanks for the comment Aster!
Wow, hadn’t heard of this one. Great find…I’ve been looking for something to get the most out of my DVDs.
can we convert .vob file to .avi WITH the english subtitles? any help would be appreciated. thanks!
ok so forgive me if this is the stupidest question but i am SO not a computer person. i am trying to find a way to put MY dvd’s that i own on my new ipod and having one he!! of a time. are the AVI files like the mp4’s??? and if i rip the movies where do they go? stay on my desktop or do i have to burn them to disks? like i said you are probably laughing so hard you can’t read this anymore but i really need help:) thanks for your time! sarah
Hey, Sarah. No worries, we were all newbies once.
.avi files are a type of video file, but it looks like ipods can’t play .avi files, so BitRipper probably isn’t going to help you. What you’ll need to get your DVDs onto your iPod is software that will A) decrypt your DVDs (ie, get through the copy protection and make a copy for you) and B) convert them to a format that your iPod can read. I’m not sure if this is totally up to date or not, but this site seems to have a nice tutorial on how to do this with free tools (note, I haven’t tried that tutorial myself, just found it via Google and looked over it briefly. I’ve seen DVD Decrypter and Videora software recommended before, though, so I think they’re legitimate. Still, I’m not a professional, make sure you check it out beforehand, blah blah blah.)
Good luck!
worked great the first 1-2 times, but now it crashes a lot, or it says it is complete but it isn’t the whole movie
What OS are you running? What else do you have running? What is your processor and installed memory?
Win XP sp3
(Comments wont nest below this level)Rainlendar, KeePass, and some system processes were running, but all in the background, nothing else was eating up ram
1.73 ghz with 2 gb ram
1.73? What kind of a processor is that? When the conversion was going on was the processor or memory maxed out?
What are you running for Antivirus or other real time protection? Was that disabled?
Why are some people saying that it can take them 4 hours to rip and burn a DVD using other software?
I use DVDShrink which rips a DVD in about 20 minutes (depending on the DVD) and then burn it with Nero, in about 15 - 20 minutes (I always burn at 4x on 16x Taiyo Yuden DVD+R discs).
I will give BitRipper a go tonight.
Tried bitripper today but all I get when trying to rip an old is an error pop up saying:
Can’t access DVD data. Disc is not authorized, anyone hade that one and knows how to get around it?
Cheers
LK
i recently stumbled across bitripper as i was looking for something quite easy to use to be able to add movies to my MP4 player (does play .AVI
) however after 2 dvd’s bitripper will not work anymore.
i go to “start ripping” and bitripper just closes and 16.48mb of data is dumbed on to the harddrive.
System Info:
Windows XP sp3
AMD Athlon *2 2.61GHz
2GB ram
does anyone know how to fix this so i can continue ripping?
Crashed out of the gate, oh well
windows 64 bit vista
I tried it on vista 64bit, works great. my only complaint is that it shrinks the size of the video. When you go fullscreen with the ripped video it is smaller than the original. I’ve tried a number of settings and can’t seem to get rid of the “black border” around the video.
Best DVD Ripper
Try dvd-ripper. Not dare to say it’s the best, but it works perfect on my computer!