How do I rip DVDs legally?
December 8, 2010 10:01 AM Subscribe
I'm out of the loop on the current state of legal duplication of commercially available movies on DVD. Please help.
I've long been living digitally when it comes to music. Buying digital tracks online and on occasion buying a disc from an independent artist and ripping it myself.
For whatever reason I've not made that same jump when it comes to movies. Eons ago I had hundreds of VHS tapes, and then dozens of DVDs, but for the last seven years or so I've really stopped buying movies almost entirely unless something *really* moves me. Lately I find myself enjoying more film, or maybe I just have more time to see film. Regardless, I'd like to start moving into the digital realm here as well.
I'm not quite ready to give up discs yet though. What I'd like to do is to buy a disc, rip it on (and to) my Mac and leave the disc safely at home as I gallivant around the globe.
I'm on a Mac with OSX and have never ripped video before. What do I need in terms of products? What do I need to know to create the best quality rips and what do I need to know to stay within the bounds of my "fair use" legal rights?
I've long been living digitally when it comes to music. Buying digital tracks online and on occasion buying a disc from an independent artist and ripping it myself.
For whatever reason I've not made that same jump when it comes to movies. Eons ago I had hundreds of VHS tapes, and then dozens of DVDs, but for the last seven years or so I've really stopped buying movies almost entirely unless something *really* moves me. Lately I find myself enjoying more film, or maybe I just have more time to see film. Regardless, I'd like to start moving into the digital realm here as well.
I'm not quite ready to give up discs yet though. What I'd like to do is to buy a disc, rip it on (and to) my Mac and leave the disc safely at home as I gallivant around the globe.
I'm on a Mac with OSX and have never ripped video before. What do I need in terms of products? What do I need to know to create the best quality rips and what do I need to know to stay within the bounds of my "fair use" legal rights?
Best answer: If you're going to watch it on your Mac I'd suggest RipIt as the solution that has the smallest learning curve and the best result. It's $25 (though I think I have seen sales) but it's well worth it for the one-stop-shop aspect.
One of the reasons I suggest it is that the resulting rip is a full dupe of the DVD, including all additional audio tracks and extras. If you're restricting yourself to things that really pique your interest then you may be more likely to want to take advantage of those things.
The other plus, in my opinion, is the lack of needing to worry about file tagging and playback devices. The resulting digital version of a disc (which is actually a whole directory structure but OSX presents it as a single file) will play back in your usual FrontRow tools.
if you want to be able to put stuff on an iPad or iPhone then this is not the solution for you (though RipIt recently added an option to rip the 'main movie' to a single file) but I think it's tops for convenience & computer based playback.
posted by phearlez at 10:44 AM on December 8, 2010
One of the reasons I suggest it is that the resulting rip is a full dupe of the DVD, including all additional audio tracks and extras. If you're restricting yourself to things that really pique your interest then you may be more likely to want to take advantage of those things.
The other plus, in my opinion, is the lack of needing to worry about file tagging and playback devices. The resulting digital version of a disc (which is actually a whole directory structure but OSX presents it as a single file) will play back in your usual FrontRow tools.
if you want to be able to put stuff on an iPad or iPhone then this is not the solution for you (though RipIt recently added an option to rip the 'main movie' to a single file) but I think it's tops for convenience & computer based playback.
posted by phearlez at 10:44 AM on December 8, 2010
Response by poster: Thanks to you both. I guess I should have mentioned that I'd like to be able to play them on my Mac, my iPad and iPhone as well as possibly streaming them to devices in my home too. I guess it's one step at a time?
posted by FlamingBore at 10:50 AM on December 8, 2010
posted by FlamingBore at 10:50 AM on December 8, 2010
I guess it's one step at a time?
For the moment. Unfortunately, Handbrake developers have resisted adding batch (in the sense of more than one input in a task) support because of the difficulty of determining filtering parameters for more than one video at a time. However, doing one input to multiple outputs should be a matter of a few extra clicks between encodes. Finally, you can take the approach that most people find they must when faced with a closed hardware platform like iDevices: use the lowest common denominator. Anything that will play on your iPhone will play your iPad and on Quicktime on your PC, but iPad compatible doesn't necessarily mean iPhone compatible.
Streaming depends on what software you're using and what devices are receiving. DNLA based setups can very widely in their capabilities. Generally, though, most iDevice compatible stuff will play on an Xbox 360 and probably on a PS3. For home media playback of various formats most people are better off with a dedicated HTPC or networked media tank rather than trying to get everything to play nice with ill-designed Apple or Microsoft encode complexity limits.
posted by Inspector.Gadget at 10:57 AM on December 8, 2010
For the moment. Unfortunately, Handbrake developers have resisted adding batch (in the sense of more than one input in a task) support because of the difficulty of determining filtering parameters for more than one video at a time. However, doing one input to multiple outputs should be a matter of a few extra clicks between encodes. Finally, you can take the approach that most people find they must when faced with a closed hardware platform like iDevices: use the lowest common denominator. Anything that will play on your iPhone will play your iPad and on Quicktime on your PC, but iPad compatible doesn't necessarily mean iPhone compatible.
Streaming depends on what software you're using and what devices are receiving. DNLA based setups can very widely in their capabilities. Generally, though, most iDevice compatible stuff will play on an Xbox 360 and probably on a PS3. For home media playback of various formats most people are better off with a dedicated HTPC or networked media tank rather than trying to get everything to play nice with ill-designed Apple or Microsoft encode complexity limits.
posted by Inspector.Gadget at 10:57 AM on December 8, 2010
Handbrake is still the best available. Unfortunately, the author made the (unfortunate, IMO) decision a while back to outsource all the decryption parts to VLC. So you need to have that installed as well. This, I have found, makes it significantly less reliable and more fragile than it used to be ... I have stuck with an old, pre-nerfing version, in which everything is included in one binary, for this reason. But YMMV.
If you just want to make a playable copy of a DVD on your hard drive, the most full-featured ripper is still probably MacTheRipper. But it allegedly violates the GPL and for that reason I recommend it only halfheartedly. It does a few things that RipIt doesn't, including removing region codes.
Although I think if you are content to only ever play the DVD image using VLC, you don't really need to worry about decrypting it as you copy; if you copy the VIDEO_TS folder (encryption and all!) VLC will just de-CSS it on playback. This won't work if the disc has any of the more sophisticated copy-protection schemes, though. (I'm about 80% confident this is the case but don't have a way of testing it for you.) If you do this, you won't be able to play the folder using Apple's DVD Player or most other tools, though.
I can't comment on the legality of any of this and I am assuming for the purposes of this response that you live on an abandoned oil platform in the North Sea.
posted by Kadin2048 at 10:59 AM on December 8, 2010
If you just want to make a playable copy of a DVD on your hard drive, the most full-featured ripper is still probably MacTheRipper. But it allegedly violates the GPL and for that reason I recommend it only halfheartedly. It does a few things that RipIt doesn't, including removing region codes.
Although I think if you are content to only ever play the DVD image using VLC, you don't really need to worry about decrypting it as you copy; if you copy the VIDEO_TS folder (encryption and all!) VLC will just de-CSS it on playback. This won't work if the disc has any of the more sophisticated copy-protection schemes, though. (I'm about 80% confident this is the case but don't have a way of testing it for you.) If you do this, you won't be able to play the folder using Apple's DVD Player or most other tools, though.
I can't comment on the legality of any of this and I am assuming for the purposes of this response that you live on an abandoned oil platform in the North Sea.
posted by Kadin2048 at 10:59 AM on December 8, 2010
Response by poster: Crust on a cracker!
A. You're all speaking Greek to me, but I'll be doing my level best to decipher this all over the weekend when I endeavor to do this for the first time.
B. It kills me that there are still so many variables to this. I guess it's this way, in part, to appease the studios? The more difficult it is to do something legally the more difficult it is to do something that's illegal?
posted by FlamingBore at 11:22 AM on December 8, 2010
A. You're all speaking Greek to me, but I'll be doing my level best to decipher this all over the weekend when I endeavor to do this for the first time.
B. It kills me that there are still so many variables to this. I guess it's this way, in part, to appease the studios? The more difficult it is to do something legally the more difficult it is to do something that's illegal?
posted by FlamingBore at 11:22 AM on December 8, 2010
Issues of legality I leave up for others to discuss.
For a solution that just plain works, I can't recommend RipIt highly enough. The interface is clean, updates are regular, and I don't fight with it. Discs that I can't rip with other solutions always rip with RipIt. The compression options also just work. Sure they don't have dozens of knobs to tweak to get the exact best compression for each particular disc. But they have settings for various typical uses (iPhone, xbox, etc) and they are good. Totally worth $25. I wish there was a similar product for Windows.
posted by fief at 11:23 AM on December 8, 2010
For a solution that just plain works, I can't recommend RipIt highly enough. The interface is clean, updates are regular, and I don't fight with it. Discs that I can't rip with other solutions always rip with RipIt. The compression options also just work. Sure they don't have dozens of knobs to tweak to get the exact best compression for each particular disc. But they have settings for various typical uses (iPhone, xbox, etc) and they are good. Totally worth $25. I wish there was a similar product for Windows.
posted by fief at 11:23 AM on December 8, 2010
Response by poster: Thanks to all - I just spent an hour on a conference call and during that time was able to download the RipIt trial and proceeded to rip a perfect copy of one of my all time favorite films in under 40 minutes.
This is a great start. I'll look at the other options here, including HandBrake and I'll play around with compression later and take a look at what it'll take to stream things to my TV this weekend.
Any other tips and tricks are more than welcome.
posted by FlamingBore at 12:47 PM on December 8, 2010
This is a great start. I'll look at the other options here, including HandBrake and I'll play around with compression later and take a look at what it'll take to stream things to my TV this weekend.
Any other tips and tricks are more than welcome.
posted by FlamingBore at 12:47 PM on December 8, 2010
I guess you don't need another recommendation for RipIt, but I'll add one in anyway. You can even set the Preferences to automatically compress the file when you insert a DVD & add it to iTunes, so you don't have to do anything but put the DVDs in. Compression does take a while (several hours per movie). I've been using the iPad format and it works great on my iPhone 4, Apple TV, and iPad.
One issue is that there isn't anything like CDDB for DVDs. If you put a CD into iTunes and import it, iTunes will look up the song titles for you. For DVDs it won't do that, so you don't get episode titles, descriptions, etc. If you just want to watch the movie on a plane once, you probably don't care. If you want to keep it in iTunes and you're ripping TV shows, you'll probably want to add in episode titles and stuff. You can either select the file in iTunes and do "Get Info" from the File menu (fairly easy) or use a program like MetaX to add in all the metadata (somewhat clumsy).
posted by davextreme at 12:47 PM on December 8, 2010
One issue is that there isn't anything like CDDB for DVDs. If you put a CD into iTunes and import it, iTunes will look up the song titles for you. For DVDs it won't do that, so you don't get episode titles, descriptions, etc. If you just want to watch the movie on a plane once, you probably don't care. If you want to keep it in iTunes and you're ripping TV shows, you'll probably want to add in episode titles and stuff. You can either select the file in iTunes and do "Get Info" from the File menu (fairly easy) or use a program like MetaX to add in all the metadata (somewhat clumsy).
posted by davextreme at 12:47 PM on December 8, 2010
B. It kills me that there are still so many variables to this. I guess it's this way, in part, to appease the studios? The more difficult it is to do something legally the more difficult it is to do something that's illegal?
No, not really. It's just that hard because digital video is a complex bastard with lots of variables. And DVDs assume they're going to be played on a DVD player. They're not just a video file on a disc.
Anyway, ripping DVDs, at all, for any purpose, is illegal due to the DMCA. Basically, while making the copy itself may fall under fair use, cracking the (pathetic) encryption that "protects" the video is illegal.
posted by Netzapper at 12:47 PM on December 8, 2010
No, not really. It's just that hard because digital video is a complex bastard with lots of variables. And DVDs assume they're going to be played on a DVD player. They're not just a video file on a disc.
Anyway, ripping DVDs, at all, for any purpose, is illegal due to the DMCA. Basically, while making the copy itself may fall under fair use, cracking the (pathetic) encryption that "protects" the video is illegal.
posted by Netzapper at 12:47 PM on December 8, 2010
Response by poster: Netzapper - Thanks for that. I had labored under the assumption that making a backup copy was fair use - and it appears it still is, but not if I have to circumvent encryption. Although elsewhere in your link it is indicated that courts have come down on both sides of the issue.
Am I to assume that all DVDs come with some form of anti-piracy encryption and therefore this question is null and void?
posted by FlamingBore at 12:59 PM on December 8, 2010
Am I to assume that all DVDs come with some form of anti-piracy encryption and therefore this question is null and void?
posted by FlamingBore at 12:59 PM on December 8, 2010
I've been doing this one way or the other for as long as it's been doable and it still gives me a headache some times. Don't feel bad.
I think it will help if you think of this in a drill-down way.
A DVD is a collection of video clips with the additional of a "rich" menu structure - there can be video playing in the background, you can be forced to watch clips, FF/REW can be disabled - and the clips can have chapter markings and multiple selectable audio tracks. Commercial discs are almost always encrypted with CSS preventing a copy from being made or even playback unless some sort of decryption methodology is included.
If you use something like RipIt to copy the DVD you end up with a full copy of the disc, including all those features and audio tracks, minus the encryption. It is such a perfect dupe of the disc that you can pretty much use any disc playing software - including what is built into MacOSX - to play it back with an identical user experience.
While RipIt turns this copy into something that looks like a file it's really a bundle with all the files in it, unencrypted. If you right-click or control-click on it you will see "show package contents" which will reveal the file structure. You could actually take that whole structure and burn it to a blank DVD and you would have a perfect dupe of the original DVD, minus the encryption.
This means that, armed with that bundle, you can point something like Handbrake at it and create new files you could play back with iTunes or the like. You cannot simply copy them and play them directly out of that unencrypted bundle because they are in this whole slew of files, almost always multi-part. You also would likely want to use a better compression option to make them a more reasonable size - something else Handbrake does.
I stick by my suggestion of RipIt for the computer-based playback. For simple but not-free conversion of that I have been happy with WonderShare Video Converter Pro. Unlike Handbrake you can batch-add stuff, which is not so important for movies but indispensable for tv shows on DVD. It'll do straight from DVD as well.
The only other thing you should be aware of is that the iPad/iPhone/AppleTV have some upper limits on resolution & bit rate. I found myself with some stuff that wouldn't play on them because I'd been very aggressive in my encoding. You won't have this issue if you use one of the pre-set targets that almost everything has now, Handbrake included. But I warn you because the warning messages Apple spits out on this are INCREDIBLY NOT-HELPFUL and don't specially mention resolution when they refuse to play back the file.
Good luck. It's a pain in the ass but completely worth it not to be shackled to a single scratchable disk which has to go back in a big plastic case and is only watchable in limited locations.
posted by phearlez at 1:01 PM on December 8, 2010
I think it will help if you think of this in a drill-down way.
A DVD is a collection of video clips with the additional of a "rich" menu structure - there can be video playing in the background, you can be forced to watch clips, FF/REW can be disabled - and the clips can have chapter markings and multiple selectable audio tracks. Commercial discs are almost always encrypted with CSS preventing a copy from being made or even playback unless some sort of decryption methodology is included.
If you use something like RipIt to copy the DVD you end up with a full copy of the disc, including all those features and audio tracks, minus the encryption. It is such a perfect dupe of the disc that you can pretty much use any disc playing software - including what is built into MacOSX - to play it back with an identical user experience.
While RipIt turns this copy into something that looks like a file it's really a bundle with all the files in it, unencrypted. If you right-click or control-click on it you will see "show package contents" which will reveal the file structure. You could actually take that whole structure and burn it to a blank DVD and you would have a perfect dupe of the original DVD, minus the encryption.
This means that, armed with that bundle, you can point something like Handbrake at it and create new files you could play back with iTunes or the like. You cannot simply copy them and play them directly out of that unencrypted bundle because they are in this whole slew of files, almost always multi-part. You also would likely want to use a better compression option to make them a more reasonable size - something else Handbrake does.
I stick by my suggestion of RipIt for the computer-based playback. For simple but not-free conversion of that I have been happy with WonderShare Video Converter Pro. Unlike Handbrake you can batch-add stuff, which is not so important for movies but indispensable for tv shows on DVD. It'll do straight from DVD as well.
The only other thing you should be aware of is that the iPad/iPhone/AppleTV have some upper limits on resolution & bit rate. I found myself with some stuff that wouldn't play on them because I'd been very aggressive in my encoding. You won't have this issue if you use one of the pre-set targets that almost everything has now, Handbrake included. But I warn you because the warning messages Apple spits out on this are INCREDIBLY NOT-HELPFUL and don't specially mention resolution when they refuse to play back the file.
Good luck. It's a pain in the ass but completely worth it not to be shackled to a single scratchable disk which has to go back in a big plastic case and is only watchable in limited locations.
posted by phearlez at 1:01 PM on December 8, 2010
I personally hate the VLC+Handbrake option. I got RipIt during a recent MacHeist bundle, and it's totally worth it.
posted by malaprohibita at 1:51 PM on December 8, 2010
posted by malaprohibita at 1:51 PM on December 8, 2010
Am I to assume that all DVDs come with some form of anti-piracy encryption and therefore this question is null and void?
The only DVDs that won't have some form of encryption layer are self-published ones done with a burner. So, my friend's recent film project. But, probably not even the smallest print-run DVDs.
So, yeah, if you want to follow the letter of the law, there is no retail-available DVD that can be backed up legally.
posted by Netzapper at 1:57 PM on December 8, 2010
The only DVDs that won't have some form of encryption layer are self-published ones done with a burner. So, my friend's recent film project. But, probably not even the smallest print-run DVDs.
So, yeah, if you want to follow the letter of the law, there is no retail-available DVD that can be backed up legally.
posted by Netzapper at 1:57 PM on December 8, 2010
Anyway, ripping DVDs, at all, for any purpose, is illegal due to the DMCA. Basically, while making the copy itself may fall under fair use, cracking the (pathetic) encryption that "protects" the video is illegal.
The continued viability of that illegality is exactly what's unsettled. The US Copyright Office has granted an exemption for CSS cracking for educational, artistic, etc. purposes, which would work in concert with fair use to allow ripping DVDs to use short segments for some purposes. While that's no comfort to the home user at the moment (that user is, after all, not doing much in the way of "transformative" use in most cases), it probably reveals changes to come. In any event, the legality of ripping your own DVD collection for your own use is not going to be tested on an individual basis, and thus most people can safely disregard the legal risk.
Again, not legal advice.
posted by Inspector.Gadget at 2:10 PM on December 8, 2010
The continued viability of that illegality is exactly what's unsettled. The US Copyright Office has granted an exemption for CSS cracking for educational, artistic, etc. purposes, which would work in concert with fair use to allow ripping DVDs to use short segments for some purposes. While that's no comfort to the home user at the moment (that user is, after all, not doing much in the way of "transformative" use in most cases), it probably reveals changes to come. In any event, the legality of ripping your own DVD collection for your own use is not going to be tested on an individual basis, and thus most people can safely disregard the legal risk.
Again, not legal advice.
posted by Inspector.Gadget at 2:10 PM on December 8, 2010
I use Gordian Knot to convert my DVD box sets down to avi for viewing on my PS3. I prefer Gordian Knot because it allows of A LOT of minute control over the conversion process.
good luck
posted by zombieApoc at 5:43 PM on December 8, 2010
good luck
posted by zombieApoc at 5:43 PM on December 8, 2010
FYI, there is a VLC app for iPad and iPhone that plays various formats, might save you some converting
posted by rux at 9:58 PM on December 8, 2010
posted by rux at 9:58 PM on December 8, 2010
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On OS X, all you need for transcoding is Handbrake. Install VLC to /Applications to ensure that you can handle many forms of DVD copy protection. x264 is the primary encoder included in Handbrake and is currently the most efficient video encoder available for a given output file size. You will probably want to use the Matroska (MKV) container if you're looking to retain the original audio from the disc. If you don't care about retaining the original audio, and will be watching it on a laptop or similar, go ahead and use the MP4 container with stereo AAC audio. Handbrake includes presets for the various iDevices so you don't break compatibility if that's your goal.
If hard drive space is no issue but ripping time is, consider MakeMKV instead; it will dump given DVD title(s) (you probably want only the main movie or the handful of TV episodes on a disc) to a Matroska file containing the original video and any audio/sub tracks you'd like. MakeMKV is trialware (all else I've mentioned is free software). If you want the original disc EXACTLY AS IS, you can use RipIt (also trialware) to make a full copy. Matroska files, disc images (.ISO), and DVD-Video folders (VIDEO_TS) can be played back with VLC.
posted by Inspector.Gadget at 10:37 AM on December 8, 2010 [3 favorites]