At 18.99 RipIt is a little bit pricy for most users, considering that we can get HandBrake for free. RipIt allows you to convert your DVDs into digital copies that you can store on your hard drive so that you don’t have to go and grab those disks from your DVD library.
One thing that RipIt has over HandBrake is that it is geared for the typical user–someone who doesn’t have a clue what all the settings in HandBrake mean. You pop in a DVD, click the Rip button, and your DVD immediately begins to be ripped to your harddrive.
There are no system preferences which is a little bit disconcerting as it removes many of the options for more knowledgeable users, such as file size, file types, audio and video quality and all those other geeky settings.
Which leads me to a major complaint. It makes an exact duplicate of the dvd.  Which is perfect for those of us wishing to create exact copies for backup purposes, but 7.8gb of space for one film on my hard drive is a bit ludacris, and I don’t mean in a witty rapper kind of way.
From what I’ve be able to figure out, it seems as if this application just copies the .vob files from the dvd and moves it to your hard drive placing them in a .dvdmedia file. This is something you can do yourself if you can get the vob files off of a DVD by dragging and dropping the vob files of a dvd to your hard drive then renaming the folder that it resides in with a .dvdmedia extension. Why would anyone pay anything to do that is beyond me. A little terminal magic and this whole process could be automated without have to pay $20.00.
The application sure is pretty though.
August 7th, 2008 at 3:59 pm
I have an idea – why not contact the developer and ask them where the value in the application is? Might be worth it to see where they see the value is.
Maybe there is something hidden?
August 8th, 2008 at 4:56 pm
I hope you aren't serious about “just cop[ying] the .vob files”… cause it is just a *little* more involved than that.
Read here for a better understanding of how this works: http://www.cdfreaks.com/reviews/DVD-Copying—T...
August 8th, 2008 at 5:49 pm
Hey, I didn't mean literally dragging and dropping, I guess it kind of came off that way. I meant that it seems like the application was ripping the vob files, and renaming the folder.
I'm actually in the middle of writing a post about the aforementioned 'terminal magic' (HandBrakeCLI) needed to get around the encryption/drm crap that the studios throw on there.
HandBrake, or HandBrakeCLI do an awesome job of this, and are free. Thanks a ton for the link though, and more importantly the comments :)
August 8th, 2008 at 5:49 pm
Hey, I didn't mean literally dragging and dropping, I guess it kind of came off that way. I meant that it seems like the application was ripping the vob files, and renaming the folder.
I'm actually in the middle of writing a post about the aforementioned 'terminal magic' (HandBrakeCLI) needed to get around the encryption/drm crap that the studios throw on there.
HandBrake, or HandBrakeCLI do an awesome job of this, and are free. Thanks a ton for the link though, and more importantly the comments :)