DVD Encryption

DVD Encryption

I bought a DVD from which I would like to extract about 15 minutes of video for my class. (Yes, I could use the segments that appear on the menu, but that's a bit more time than I would like to spend, and it's clumsy interrupting it in the middle.) There is no shortage of tools out there that will copy DVD to a disk file, breaking the copy protection schemes. But the problem is that most of them don't work very well.

DVD Encrypter is a popular freeware program--but it produces video with no audio. There are reportedly some ways around this, but they seem clumsy.

The is something called Smart Ripper--but it seems to have the same problem.

There are several variants of something called DVD-TO-MPEG which does what the name suggests--but very, very slowly.

I could, I suppose, test all eight zillion such programs, and eventually find one that works. But I am hoping one of you has experience in this area, and can recommend one that actually works.

If I don't find a solution, I'll just play it in my DVD player, and feed the RCA jack output into my video capture box--but that seems so...clumsy, when the DVD is already digital.

UPDATE: A number of readers suggested using HandBrake to convert the output of DVD Decrypter into something that ULead Video Studio can use. But HandBrake's output seems to be a file format that ULead can't read.

A couple of readers like DVDShrink--but at least with the default settings, it seems to produce the same no audio result as DVD Decrypter. I am starting it with some different audio settings to see if that solves it.

AVS Video Converter takes the output of DVD Decrypter and converts it to an MPEG. It seems to work (although it takes a while, unsurprisingly). The trial version puts a watermark on the beginning of the output, which wouldn't be a big obstacle, since I am not going to use the very beginning, but the registration fee is only $59 for a lifetime license, so I will probably buy it, if I can't find a free solution.

There is a tool called CloneDVD recommended by another reader, which is $69.95. This appears to be a one step process, and miht be worth spending the extra $10 just for that reason.