ImTOO DVD Ripper Platinum is Pretty Good
As I prepare to depart for Iraq, I’ve developed a renewed interest in ripping DVD movies from Netflix into DivX format, which is more easily stored on a hard drive or DVD-R for easy replay later. To that end, I initially turned to a tutorial, How to Rip a DVD to MEG4/DIVX, which involved several steps, including installing and running a cracked DivX codec. Needless to say, I was underwhelmed.
Then I stumbled upon ImTOO DVD Ripper Platinum. I downloaded a..erm..eval copy from a torrent, and did a test rip. It runs surprisingly slowly on my P4, and its support for ‘hyperthreading’ and ‘dual core’ consists of ripping two chapters at once in separate processes. Since this doesn’t help a single, long chapter finish any quicker, I regard it as lame and kludgy.
I also find the DivX codec lags during periods of full-frame movement like camera pans, which is quite annoying. However, this is tolerable, particularly in exchange for one-button ripping of encrypted DVD titles to DivX.
Tags: divx, dvd-rip, Migrated from Drupal, tech diary