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  1. I recently upgraded my home server to WHS 2011 and have been interested in backing up some of my DVDs to the server for awhile. I know there are A LOT of different ways to go about ripping DVDs, but I was wondering if using DVDFab 8.1.0.0 (Dvd Copy Function to copy them to the hard drive) was a good preliminary step?

    Obviously using Handbrake I could compress or re-encode at a later date once they are on my drive, but is this a decent first step to back up a DVD?
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  2. Member hech54's Avatar
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    If you are copying the whole disc then even the free portion of DVDFab (DVDFabDecrypter) should do the job unless the movie is a brand new release and you are in a hurry to rip it.
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    handbrake and VidCoder, which is just a cleaned up handbrake work better than anything to me. that's all you really need to do what you just said.

    I'm gonna kind of hijack your thread here lol. Myself I would kind of want to give dvdfab some of my money for putting out a ripping product that actually works. The converter they have though in the free trial never got the subs right or allow multiple subs so I would certainly not purchase that part of it.

    I'm kind of interested in DVDFab passkey but I'm a little concerned about the licensing. It seems to work great with vidcoder. The problem? well I heard if you buy a lifetime license it's really not lifetime. In other words you can only put it on two computers or your key becomes invalid. So my two computers fail after two years and I have to purchase it again. That doesn't sound like lifetime to me. Maybe a two year key would be better for me? I'm not a big fan of software that kills itself after a period of time though. I'd be ok if that were just updates but I wouldn't want the program to stop completely.

    What do other people think of passkey, the prices and the license? I'd rather ask it here instead of the dvdfab forums for several reasons.
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  4. aBigMeanie aedipuss's Avatar
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    'lifetime" in software speak usually means the lifetime of the current product. if they change the name or make a major revision it's done and you're screwed. had it happen a few times to me and always felt burned. now i mostly use free software whenever possible.
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    well, I feel like I'm in the mood to buy some commercial ripping software. Some of them sound like they will work great. However the last time I did that I got an any-video-converter clone package. I gotta tell you the dvd copy software and video converter was advanced yet kind of dodgy. Ripping most DVDs it would be all garbled with the dvd ripper or with the dvd copy software it would corrupt both of the IFO files on better protected dvds. Not to mention when I complained they sent out a group of what I suspect to be Chinese men to debunk my claims. So far the only ones I've tried that work are anydvd and dvdfab hd decrypter. I can't buy anydvd since it's euros.

    the dvdfab products do look good. I may buy passkey, but I'm not too sure. It seems as though I could get more for a cheaper price with imtoo but of course it could be kind of crummy too. I think there's a reason why it's not listed here. I heard of some folks ask about imtoo on these boards but can't seem to find the correct postings relating to the dvd copyer.

    Also I noticed a site called smallvideosoft.com that comes up in google searches for dvd rippers. Is this legit or a scam? a free DVD decrypter? It just sounds too good to be true and I wish someone would look into it.
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  6. Member tuna1's Avatar
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    Ideal DVD Software this works for me and cheaper than dvd fab and anydvd
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  7. As to DVDFabPasskey, it works pretty much like AnyDVD, with the exception of not having the option to rip to hard drive. You can of course do this yourself with copy/paste or use ImgBurn to create an ISO image.

    If you don't want the extras in DVDFab like re-encoding, etc, Passkey is a good alternative. IMO, Fab's encoding is not up to the various freeware programs available here anyway.

    Fab sometimes doesn't rip properly. I'll give an example: The Blu-Ray version of Harry Potter 7 (part1) has a difficult newer protection on it, worse, it has fiendishly complex java interactive menus. Decryption goes okay, but the complex java structure is not re-mapped properly. This will defeat any effort to re-encode the disc to fit a BD25. The solution is to run Passkey and extract main movie with Clown_BD, which *will* disentangle main movie from the disc structure. It may be that an update to Fab will fix this.

    At any rate, the only good options are DVDFab, AnyDVDHD, and DVDFabPasskey. Nothing else is going to be reasonably reliable. And all three are constantly updated. Good luck.
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  8. Video Restorer lordsmurf's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by tuna1 View Post
    Ideal DVD Software
    Originally Posted by AaronDude View Post
    smallvideosoft.com .
    Chinese spam/scams.
    Want my help? Ask here! (not via PM!)
    FAQs: Best Blank DiscsBest TBCsBest VCRs for captureRestore VHS
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  9. DVDFab pissed me off.
    They were giving away the copy license part of it on give away of the day
    The license was suppose to last a year. This was for 8.x
    So what did the developer do, added QT to the end, poof no more updates
    Sure it installs, but the program will never launch.
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    I use the FixEverythingThat'sWrongWithThisVideo() filter. Works perfectly every time.
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  10. Originally Posted by tuna1 View Post
    Ideal DVD Software this works for me and cheaper than dvd fab and anydvd
    Yeah right, and DVDFab HD Decrypter is free, so that means you pay ME to use your shitty software? Cool, I'll give you my paypal details.
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  11. Member rickydavao's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by stiltman View Post
    DVDFab pissed me off.
    They were giving away the copy license part of it on give away of the day
    The license was suppose to last a year. This was for 8.x
    So what did the developer do, added QT to the end, poof no more updates
    Sure it installs, but the program will never launch.
    Not sure what happened with your copy, Stiltman. I also downloaded DVDFab through giveawayoftheday this past January, and when DVDFab changed to the "Qt" version, I simply downloaded the new version and installed it over top of my existing giveawayoftheday install. Currently, if I launch DVDFab 8 Qt (my current version is 8.1.0.5), it works just fine, and still shows that the DVD Copy option is enabled and doesn't expire until January 24, 2012. Bummer that it crapped out on your system for some reason, but I don't think that it was anything that DVDFab did intentionally.

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  12. Member misterbill's Avatar
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    I use DVDFab, copy the Main Movie to my HD as an .iso. Nice and easy.
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    Yeah, I pretty much figured those two were Chinese or scams. I had to ask though because I get a little excited when I see stuff for a reasonable price.

    Just a personal observation but it seems most of these paid Chinese converters produce very poor quality results or don't work quite right. FormatFactory and DVDFab HD decrypter seem to work great though and they're free. I don't really like the adware they try to install on your computer with formatfactory though.

    So it sounds like DVDFab is in most peoples opinion honest, so I can trust them. Chances are I'll go with passkey but my trial is expired because of what I did. Let me explain, I jumped the clock in windows to 2012 and back again just to see if it would expire. Guess what?, it did. So my question is if I bought it would it still think I used up a year or would it start back to where my clock is now?
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  14. Member tuna1's Avatar
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    AaronDude

    I got a license for Anydvd and DVD Fab Platinum, I got them when they were cheap lifetime license , DVD Fab is Chinese product that’s why it has monkey on it. I saw ideal copy here on a question so I look it up and use it you get 10 free use to make copies it works very good you can use image burn ,DVD clone or Nero they have a forum page also face book page . For the price you cant go wrong try it you got nothing to lose right
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    I don't want to sound like a ignorant jerk, but do you have something to do with them other than being a user? 40 bucks is actually quite a bit of money to me. My most recent software purchase was for the Aura4you package for 20 bucks and that might even work better than that. I will take your advice and give it a try though. You're right I have nothing to lose as long as I don't pay yet. I noticed It hasn't been updated in a while so I'll see how it does on recent stuff. the problem is DVDFab is a well known as an honest Chinese company and their stuff costs about the same after the discount they give.

    I do appreciate that you're helping though, cheers
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  16. Member tuna1's Avatar
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    No i don't work for them i an just a regular joe like you, just go to their forum look up can avatar be ripped page 5 in the general discussion and you will see tuna there, i know that free is better but sometimes you have to pay for something that really works great, so good luck and happy burning
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    yeah I have to admit it does seem to work well. It's one of the ugliest programs I've seen though. Seems to rip without problems and doesn't corrupt the IFO file like aura dvd copy does. The shrinking works as well it doesn't corrupt the vob file like aura does sometimes. Is it better than DVDFab HD Decrypter though? I think not, it doesn't tell me much about what it's doing, what protections it circumvents. It's a nice idea but I'm a little skeptical of what appears to be a Chinese company that may not be around much longer. I think at worst I'm going to go with xilisoft(imtoo). I will probably go with dvdfab passkey though, it just seems so polished.
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    Well, I'm certainly having fun trying out all these programs. Most are just clones of another program or seem to be scams. I thought I heard somewhere that open cloner or dvd cloner was a dvd shrink scam. On their website in the updates they list new movies that it can copy in the updates. Oh well, I wouldn't give them any of my money anyway since I didn't like the product. I will still probably end up buying some dvdfab products but I found another product I tried and really liked called 123 dvd copy.

    123 dvd copy seemed to work really well on both my machines. I purchased the platinum version that is 70 bucks at their website but since I got it from amazon it's 30 and I get a physical disk! It'll probably take a couple weeks to get here though. This is probably the only dvdcopy software sold in stores that can decrypt. Well, it actually can't decrypt out of the box, you have to download what they claim to be a thrid party plugin called 'boooya'. Boooya has decrypted everything I've thrown at it but I really don't know how it does it or what version I have.

    The boooya plugin does not seem to be a third party plugin. The domain is registered to bling software which is the maker of 123 dvd copy. I'm guessing they just did that to cover their butt so they don't get in trouble.

    anyway everything works well but it's overly simplistic. Also the conversion software which uses the open source software can't convert MKVs, add subs, or select audio stream. I don't care though I'll probably just try it out for fun with a couple of movies that don't need that.
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  19. Ooh, you really should have asked about that one first. Or done a search, it was discussed a good bit a few years ago., going all the way back to 2004 at least. I see it was last updated (supposedly) a *year* ago. I'm surprised to see they're still selling it.

    Now I may be wrong, but my bet is that before long you're gonna have a problematic disc that your program can't handle. Then another, and another. Might as well have stuck with the free DVDShrink or DVDDecrypter. Not to put too fine a point on it, but there's a reason this site doesn't list it in the tools section.
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    well amazon managed to cancel it for me. I just have a tendency to not go mainstream. it seemed to work great but like you said I could end up with a lot of coasters and movies it just can't rip. I'm trying to broaden my horizons from dvdfab and slysoft. Slysoft is out my league period. I'd rather buy three dvd rippers that can rip some each than to get slysoft for 100 bucks. Plus the way it sounds it doesn't sound like I can put dvdfab or slysoft on multiple computers without the key being killed. For 100 bucks I would kind of expect I should be able to put it on what I want without worry. A lot of these other ones they don't really care and you can stick it on any computer you want. In most license terms they say only one machine but who really abides by that? If I can install it on both of my computers now and a future computer I would be happy to go with dvdfab. It sounds like dvdfab and slysoft are very strick, these other ones don't sound like they care.

    There is also the problem with these other ones that they won't be around in another year or two but since they're cheaper I'm still more tempted to go with them. I would rather give the little guy money as long as he's being honest with me. Although dvdfab hd decrypter is free now who is to say it will be a year from now or something happens to them? I'd rather not put all my eggs in one basket.
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  21. Lots of people use DVDFabHDDecrypter with success. Now I know it says on their website that the free version doesn't receive updates as quickly, but I don't recall anyone saying they came across a disc it couldn't rip without waiting for an update. And mind you, examine the changelogs and there's nothing to distinguish the free version from paid.

    So if you're unsure, I see no reason *not* to use the free version, as was suggested in the first reply to this thread. But DVDFab and DVDFabPasskey are good value for money and worthy of support. Most (all?) the other shady programs are, I venture to say, rip-offs of the Fab code. Again, that's it for good rippers/decrypters, aside from AnyDVD. Nothing else is worth considering, as veterans of this site will tell you.
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    I noticed MakeMKV can decrypt discs and is listed on this site. seems as though a lot of people swear by it. I noticed though that it's still in testing stages. It kills itself after 60 days then you need to download a new version. It says the price on the videohelp page is 70 bucks. That is kind of steep I think. I think I would buy it though if it was 40 to 50 but I really wouldn't pay more.

    What I've been doing anyway, decrypting a disc and copying it to harddrive and then converting to a mkv with multiple streams with VidCoder(much better handbrake). makemkv looks like it could really help with that. How much longer until they start charging?
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  23. I only back up Blu-Rays any more and MakeMKV has been unreliable for that in my experience. The reason it's free right now is that it's still beta. Understand, I don't mean to run it down, but it's not a finished product yet, although no doubt it will be eventually.
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    Ok so with the reasonable price of dvdfab dvd passkey for a two year subscription I will get that. Less than fourty bucks for a full two years for the only product that actually works other than slysoft. Hopefully I'll be able to sneak it on my laptop too without the key expiring.

    Next problem, getting them on the hard drive with a good program and then burning backups. I can get the Nero multimedia suite 10 for 55 bucks or I could get he roxio creator 2011 for 50 bucks or even the NTI Media Maker suite for 70. I don't know if I need all the extra features but it would be fun to play with and see what kind of products I can come up with. I'm pretty sure passkey would work with any of them, I honestly don't see why it wouldn't.
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  25. You don't need any payware apart from a decrypter to backup DVDs or Blu-Rays. Plenty of options in the Tool section over <-- there. Once a DVD is ripped to hard drive, use either DVDShrink or DVDRB to fit to disc (full disc or movie-only), then ImgBurn to burn it.
    And I certainly wouldn't recommend either Nero or Roxio.

    Somebody help me out here.
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    Lol I am a noobie pain. Well I'm gonna buy nero if for nothing more then to play with it and look at how perty it is. I'll let you know how awful it is lol. Really though I don't think it'll be that bad. I've been using the free trial for several hours now and like it. I like the idea that it can be my one stop media place for the most part. Of course it won't replace handbrake, vidcoder aura4you/any-video-converter for converting. I'm gonna go buy the 47 dollar disc. I've always wanted to try a paid nero product to see what all the fuss is about. About the only nero product I've used was one that came with m HP lightscribe burner. I liked that, other programs would give me coasters while nero would always work. I got other things I wan to do with it as well so I'm sure I'll be happy.
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  27. Sheesh, I got a boxful of Nero install discs, from v.6 on up. It seems I get one free with every $20 burner, even with OEM drives sometimes. Those bundled versions don't have all the bloatware extras, but most of them usually. Nero has gotten to the point it does almost nothing well, it's too big and all the extra funtions are done much better by dedicated tools.

    Nero is okay for data discs, audio discs or the odd time you need to burn a bootable disc. It does *not* burn DVD-Video correctly, with 32k gaps between IFOs and BUPs. Most times I use ImgBurn, it's better and free.
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    Well aint gettin nero after all. backorder so canceled. giving imgburn a try right now. gonna see what I can do with this iso. Bought passkey 40 bucks for three years.
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    Ok imgburn is nice for a disc image but it's pretty much useless if I want to convert into anything. In other words put video on my psp and sansa. Every converter but handbrake chokes if you feed it one of them. I really need the folders. I understand I can copy from windows explorer but that is as slow as hell. Nero? lol
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    OK, I'm back and I'm still trying to figure out a good way to digitize my collection so I can play it on my laptop computer I might also want to convert it for my PSP or Sansa Fuze+ when needed. I didn't take anyones advice and bought Nero 10 a few months ago anyway. The backup software that came with it is pretty useless because it will mess up and delete files on your harddrives even if you tell it NOT to delete any files and just add them. I can't believe that useless pile of poo made it past quality control. The burning software is about the only thing that works well. I have fun burning with this and it works better than cdburnerxp but cdburnerxp is free so...

    I just can't get nero recode to shrink and rip DVDs well. It's pretty much DVDShrink but with more problems. I'm using DVDfab passkey with it by the way. I can really only rip and shrink the main movie or else I get some error saying something about invalid structure or something with half of the DVDs making it pretty much useless to rip an entire DVD and shrink it. I was thinking I wanted to keep my DVD intact with their extras and stuff so I started ripping with ImageBurn and ripped a good chunk of my collection with that. The problem was since it makes an exact image and doesn't compress the files are big. With the price of harddrives these days I think that matters since it may be at least a couple years IMO until they go back down again. I then just tried MakeMKV with DVDFab Passkey. It probably doesn't need passkey for most dvds but I had it decrypt them before sending it to it anyway. I've been running into problems with MakeMKV as well though. It just doesn't want to save some movies even after it appears to successfully rip them. Hell it still has the problem even if I send the same movie to it with a regular image on my hard drive.

    So I decided I'm gonna start over again and I'm not really sure what to do? I got a 300 dollar compaq laptop that I recently bought with a bottom of the line sempron processor(recent by two years lol) and all that so I really want to be sure of what I'm doing if I convert using handbrake or something. This machine is slow for most video conversions and will be the one I'm using since it's the only machine I got now that works.

    So I'm thinking just regular Folders with VOBs, IFO and all those files? Maybe just the main movie as well? I think I'm out of options if I want to shrink a whole disc cause Recode and Shrink won't do it for me.

    The main problem I have is once I actually get the image file or the dvd video folder on my hard drives is that nothing wants to convert them. I mean nothing but handbrake. I was using vidcoder but anymore that just crashes all the time and that obviously is just handbrake with a better UI so it's better just to use handbrake. Freemake, Format Factory, Aura Video Converter(which is a clone of any-video-converter) or anything for that matter can't convert them with subtitles or without large garbled sections of video. Handbrake seems to be the only thing that converts them to my mobile devices well or to any now popular format. I don't see how anyone can recommend anything other than handbrake, or maybe, just maybe Freemake since it works some of the time. The foreign developers of all this video conversion software need to fix the problems it has like audio video sync issues and such.

    I now I understand handbrake is the most powerful tool of it's kind available because it actually works, but what if development is halted on it? Heck they haven't even had an official release since the beginning of the year. I would really like an alternative if some day it becomes broken or highly outdated.

    So if I'm looking to the future and maybe five years down the road want to convert or play my video collection I have stored on my hard drives what would be the best format for that? Should I just rip the main movie and compress it with handbrake in a MKV container? If I did that would i be able to convert it from a MKV five or more years from now? Obviously I plan on living a long time so I kind of want to future proof whatever I do. Maybe I should just use imgburn and create ISO files even though they seem to be pretty useless? I'm kind of leaning toward ripping just the main movie with nero recode and shrinking that to about 2500-4000 mbs. Is there much of a noticeable quality loss if you shrink a DVD 20-40%?
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