smartripper instructions

Smartripper Instructions Home

Extracting the DVD to Hard Disk

As soon as you begin to think they cannot make a better ripper suddenly one turns up! SmartRipper is now my no.1 ripper. And, after you try it, I'm sure you will agree with me =). What makes SmartRipper so good is it can actually read a DVD just like a DVD player! It lets you choose which language you wish to rip, and it looks at the information files (.ifo) on the DVD so it can handle mult-angle movies in the same way Flask Mpeg does in DVD mode! In fact, if it wasn't for the fact that Flask Mpeg lets you add subtitles, there would be no need to bother with Flask's DVD mode at all!

Note: If SmartRipper says "can't unlock drive" you will need to start your DVD playing in your PC DVD player (such as PowerDVD, WinDVD etc). Start it, press pause, and then launch SmartRipper.

Before I start you will need:

Smartripper 2.26

SmartRipper has three basic modes:

BACKUP MODE

This mode backs up the entire DVD. It doesn't let you choose what language you want to use or what angle of the movie to rip. It is used solely for the purpose of copying exactly the whole DVD unchanged to your hard disk. It does, of course, decrypt the DVD but all files remain the same.

Backing up a whole DVD in one go takes a lot of space, something like 6-9GB. For this reason we will not be using backup mode for this guide. But either way its laughingly easy to use: simply choose where you want to save your DVD file by clicking on the 'Target' button. Then click on the large Start button. That's it!

FILE MODE

File Mode is almost the same as Backup Mode except it lets you choose which files to copy. Again, it does not read multi-angle's or let you choose which language it will rip, it literally just copies and decrypts any file you point to.

Note for Flask's DVD mode:

If you are going to use Flask Mpeg in DVD mode, then SmartRippers File Mode is the best way to rip the files for Flask to use. In File mode SmartRipper automatically selects the correct files for the main movie for you - they will have a TV screen picture by them. But don't forget to copy the IFO file that belongs to the movie as well. This will be called by the same name as the first movie file. For example, if the first movie file is called VTS_01_0.VOB the IFO file to copy with it will be VTS_01_0.IFO.

Remember, the main movie will not always have the same name. So if first file of the main movie were called VTS_02_0.VOB then the IFO file to copy with it will obviously also be VTS_02_0.IFO

For more details on this subject read the article called "Introduction to the Structure of a DVD" in the appendix section.

File mode is easy to use too; select where you wish to save your files in the 'Target' section. Tick the boxes next to the files you wish to backup. Then click on the large Start button. Your done!

MOVIE MODE

Movie mode is SmartRippers default mode and is by far the most powerful. Put in your CD and start SmartRipper and up pops the picture below. It looks complicated but I'll explain the features one by one.

1. DVD Selection Box: This lets you change the CD drive that SmartRipper is reading.

2. Movie Selection Box: This shows a list of movie titles SmartRipper has found. You can choose which movie title to rip. Since SmartRipper is reading the DVD like a DVD player, it will not rip half a movie or parts of the movie in wrong order. Each Title and Angle represents a whole DVD feature, be it a trailer, special feature, main movie, or even the menu selection! Each feature is identified by its DVD Vob name, such as: vts_something. The main movie is automatically chosen by SmartRipper, so you don't need to think much, just press start =). If more than one 'angle' appear for a single title, the correct one will usually be the longest in length. If they are the same length its probably a true multi-angle movie so choose the angle you prefer or just the first one.

3. Chapter Selection: This lets you extract individual chapters from each title. It is useful if you want to extract small clips for testing purposes before you spend the time converting a whole movie.

4. Cell: This doesn't seem to do much. Vob files can be divided by Cell or Vob ID, but so far I haven't had a DVD that needed this feature.

5. Audio Selection: Lets you select which audio track you wish to rip with the video.

6. Total Selection: This is a display to tell you exactly what will rip when you press the start button. It offers useful info on data rate, cells, filesize and the length of the title.

7. Chapter: This offers the same information as 6 but only for the chapter you have selected in box 3.

8. Video Info: This offers general information on the DVD. The aspect ratio is not usually correct, but such information is not needed anyway.

9. Settings: If you want to get even more technical, you can play about with the rip settings too. But you can quite happily leave this section alone if you prefer - the movie will rip perfectly without you touching it!

Finally, there is one option in the settings (9) that you may want to know about. SmartRipper is automatically set to 'max-filesize' in the 'File-Splitting' section. Instead of ripping every Vob separately, it will merge all the Vob files into one. But it will split them into separate files when it reaches the 'max-filesize' shown at the bottom. In the picture below this is set to 4000 MB (4 Gigabytes).

There are two reasons for this feature. Firstly, Mpeg2avi and Flask Mpeg will only convert about 7 Vob files at a time. This means if the DVD has more than that, you will not be able to convert it without problems. To avoid this, Smartripper will merge the files into as few as possible. Secondly, in Windows 95 / 98 there is a storage limit of 4GB per file. So, instead of trying to create a file larger than this, SmartRipper has the 'max-filesize' amount set to split them at 4GB. For more information on this read the "The AVI Four Gigabyte Limit Explained" section in my appendix.

That's it! Because SmartRipper can handle most multi-angle movies you will be able to rip difficult movies like The Matrix without problems. There are still some very rare movies that neither Flask Mpeg nor SmartRipper are able to rip completely! One example is Terminator 2. This is a multi-branching movie and can currently only be done perfectly with vstrip. Check out my "Repeated Sequences and multi-angle" guide if you come across any of these movies.

Whenever you rip anything to hard drive its always a good idea to check it has been decoded correctly. The best way to do this is to play it in your computer DVD player. DVD Station, Power DVD, Win DVD ect., should all play them perfectly. They shouldn't have green or pink blocks and they shouldn't have any repeated scenes - although its quite normal for it to have a slightly squashed looking image. Check out the aspect ratio section of my appendix for an explanation of this.