Ripping a CD has become novice task these days, but many people are still baffled when it comes to ripping a DVD. It’s easy to understand why most people are confused by this; neither PC’s nor Macs come with a built-in application that will rip DVD’s the same way iTunes or Windows Media Player will rip a CD. Nevertheless, ripping a DVD to your computer is simple and free of cost if you know how to do it. In this article I will give you step-by-step instructions for how to rip DVD’s to your computer.
Check Your Hard Drive Space: Before you decide to rip your entire DVD collection to your computer for no apparent reason, make sure you have enough free space to do it. On average, a store bought DVD will contain about 4 – 6 GB of information. At that rate, 10 DVD’s could easily use up your entire hard drive, and that would be a bad thing.
Download DVD Decrypter: DVD Decrypter is a freeware program for ripping DVD’s. If you search for it using Google, you’ll probably come across a bunch of sites that you can download it from. Simply download the program, install it, and start ripping DVD’s. DVD Decrypter is a user-friendly, intuitive program. You should have no problem figuring out how to use it. Bear in mind, though; unlike CD’s, DVD manufactures are constantly changing the encryption of DVD’s to prevent people from sharing them on the internet. A program that can rip DVD’s today, might not work tomorrow.
Consider Purchasing an External Hard Drive: Now that you’re ripping every DVD you can get your hands on, you should consider what I mentioned earlier. All of those gigabytes are going to need a place to go. I have a 220 GB hard drive in my desktop, which is an exceptionally large hard drive, but as a rule of thumb, I like to keep at least 60 GB of free space at all times to ensure that my applications run smoothly. In other words, just because your Mac Book Pro has an 120 GB hard drive, doesn’t mean you should use every last bit of it. Another perk to storing your ripped DVD’s on an external hard drive is that you can now take your entire movie collection over to your friend’s house on a tiny box and share all of your media with them on their computer.
Don’t Get Arrested: Granted, your right to rip copyrighted material for your own personal use is protected under the Fair Use clause, but you should still be careful. I would not suggest running around all over town selling DVD copies of new release movies, nor would I recommend passing them out for free.
