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  1. Member
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    Jan 2012
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    In the Woods with the Copperheads
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    I had been using the same PC for the last 6 years and was using old versions of DVDcrypter, DVDShrink and Nero... but that HD bit the dust and I am setting up this new Laptop to make future copies of my newly purchased DVDs for use in my car and on the road during business trips.

    Made a copy of a couple of purchased CDs using ImgBurn, but it can't read the copy protected DVDs.

    Just picked up Ides of March and want to make a copy from my pristine disc before I watch it.

    What freeware programs are the current best to use?

    Thanks!
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  2. Member
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    Nov 2003
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    West Texas
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    The most commonly used free program for decryption is DVDFab HD Decrypter. It is contained within the full version of DVDFab, but once the trial for the full version of DVDFab stops, the HD Decrypter section will continue to function. The only caveat is that the free section is not updated as quickly as the full commercial version. DVDFab does have compression abilities, but the free section does not. You could use DVDShrink to compress if you want.

    There are a couple of other free options. One of those is MakeMKV. The problem with using it is that it will only copy the main movie, and will put it into an mkv file. No compression.

    The other one is called BDLot DVD ISO Master. It will decrypt and output as an ISO file, so it isn't nearly as convenient as DVDFab, but you can open the ISO with DVDShrink and compress, or output to dvd-video file format with no compression if you prefer. You can also play the ISO file directly with VLC media player. If you are burning to disks, ImgBurn will burn the ISO file with no issues, though you might need compression to fit onto a single layer dvd as most commercial dvds are too large.
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  3. I'm a MEGA Super Moderator Baldrick's Avatar
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    Aug 2000
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    Sweden
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    dvdfab decrypter. But it might not support all latest movies.
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  4. - DVDFab HD Decrypter (instead of the old DVD Decrypter wich cannot deal with newer DVDs)

    - DVDShrink (still good but if you need higher quality try DVDRebuilder)

    - ImgBurn (use instead of Nero, there´s even a modified version of DVDShrink that works
    directly with it, look it up in the tools section)
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  5. - DVDFab HD Decrypter puts their name on your output file for a few seconds now & then for BR.
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  6. Member
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    Mar 2011
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    What julitomg said, though I haven't used DVDRebuilder. Just remember to change the dvdfab settings to automatically output to DVD-9 format.

    I've found dvdshrink gives you excellent results if you use the 2 pass mode, which they call deep analysis. You can't change the bit rate (ie. compress/expand) and reliably get high quality without 2 pass. For a good explanation of this I'd recommend the docs for Handbrake (another excellent program but it's a ripper/converter not a copier/decrypter).

    DVDshrink also has filters to sharpen or soften the output. Softening is pretty useful if you're copying a 2 1/2 or 3 hour DVD9 to DVD5.

    DVDFab hd decrypter may not handle all the latest copy protection but it's pretty well supported. If there's a freeware program that's better at decrypting the newest schemes I'd like to know what it is.

    It's funny. DVDFab decrypter, the free part of DVDFab, is the only part of it I'll use. It has a lot of features but since it doesn't have 2 pass encoding none of them work well. Every encoding I ever made with it had pixelation when scenes changed quickly, and the video often stuttered.

    Using one program to decrypt and a second one to compress it sounds slower than one to do it all. It isn't. That surprised me, and I haven't actually timed it, but I'm pretty sure it's faster. Even using DVDshrink video processing filters.

    It seems to me that the difference is that you're doing the low CPU horsepower stuff, the decryption, from the DVD. And the high horsepower stuff, encoding, from the HD. Separating the DVD reading from the processor intensive stuff speeds up the process (the optical drive is by far the slowest thing in your computer).
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