MacTheRipper

One of my favorite pieces of software for the Mac OS is MacTheRipper. This free DVD ripping (extracting) tool not only allows for full feature extracts (rips with full menu usability, etc.), but will also find and remove any kind of region code or copy protection with ease. Oh, and did I mention you can fast forward through almost every part of a movie? No more FBI warnings for everyone!

What does this mean for the end user? You can now make back up copies of all of your movies to other disks for damage protection. I know on more than one occasion I have found a DVD lying around and thought to myself "Hey, I haven't seen this in awhile, maybe I'll watch this later." only to throw it in a DVD player and have it skip when the action seems to be getting good. (Why is it hard-copy media always acts up like this during the good parts? Who cares if it starts skipping during the credits...)

Thinking about it, hard copies may not be the thing you can enjoy most about this software. Remember, I said that you can rip the DVD media directly to your hard drive. If you have a laptop computer, or even a descent sized personal media player (read: iPod), you have the ability to take the the DVD with you where ever you go in full digital form.

There are two downfalls to MacTheRipper which, although I regard them as small and rather insignificant, others may find to be sticking points. The first is that the raw extraction files are HUGE. If you are going to rip a full length DVD with everything included on the disk, you can expect the files to consume in between six and seven GIGABYTES. On a desktop, this probably is not too much of a problem due to the massive storage capabilities of 3.5" drives but throw in a laptop as the primary target and you will be out of space in no time. Any descent desktop will come with at least 400-500 gigabytes and expansion capabilities but if you are looking to back up every DVD you own in full quality, you can plan on spending some extra cash on storage. An external hard drive for a laptop would be a necessity.

The second downfall is that MacTheRipper (currently) does not have the ability to re-encode the files it extracts into other formats. This feature would be useful if you plan on playing the video at a lower resolution (iPod, Zune) and would also greatly reduce the size of the files. I can routinely shrink a 6 gigabyte file down to about a half gig for playback on a Zune.

All in all, MacTheRipper is a definite download. It's free, it works great, and it can save you some time and money if you ruin an original DVD disk. MacTheRipper HD anyone?