Ripping movies using My Movies software

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I thought I’d write a bit about what I’ve learnt about ripping movies from DVD. The process is a lot more in depth then it first may seem.

Logically, you may think it’s as easy as ripping a CD. Unfortunately, as I have now found, there is more to it.

I first started getting interested in this topic, when I got recommended a very useful movie cataloguing app called “My Movies“. I love stats, and tracking what I watch. I love IMDb, and being able to track actors across films, and genres.

I started looking into how to to import DVDs using the My Movies for Windows app which has an import feature. It works well but this is where I started getting caught up in the DVD encryption issue. So, logically, DVDs have encryption to prevent you from simply copying them with built in software.

Import disclaimer

My Movies works with either DVD Fab Passkey or AnyDVD to decrypt the movie and import it into the My Movies database. Together they work very well but a disclaimer is shown, so check local laws before proceeding (does anyone really check?).

I tested importing some DVDS for as long as trial copies of both import tools worked (around 1 month each). From what I found:

  1. The speed of your PC directly impacts the conversion process.
  2. Ideally, you want the fasted optical disk drive you can get to reduce the copy process to a minimum.
  3. You need plenty of local disk space – the movie is copied from the disk first, and then converted to a format your TV/console/player can deal with before giving you the opportunity to remove the imported version.
  4. If you have foreign language films, dealing with subtitles is the biggest pain in the ass — something which has led me to take a break from the whole test.

For now I will continue to use My Movies for it’s cataloguing and database apps. I have the iOS app and the features on that are great. I love being able to scan the barcode of a film to add it to your collection. You can also mark films out “on loan” so you don’t lose anything! Great product, overall.

I’ve only scraped the surface here but will probably write a followup post somewhere soon.