Dear GOTD users,
Thank you very much for your comments and valued suggestions for our software. We noticed that many of you need the function of copy DVD to DVD folder and DVD ISP files. We do have the software can do this for you, but not DVD ripper platinum, it is called Tipard DVD Cloner 6.
Tipard Cloner 6 is designed for users to copy DVD movies to another blank DVD disk, DVD folder and also DVD ISO files easily.
For more info, please go to our websit http://www.tipard.com/dvd-cloner-6.html
We will discuss about giveaway it with gotd editor team in future. If you want to get it, please pay attention to gotd' website.
Thank you very much for your comments and suggestions again.

To Mike #22 & #23
Great posts, Mike. I appreciate the time you spent writing them and the info provided.

After product is registered. Please remove the option to "Register..." from the Help menu. And then add to the Help/About Menu that the program is fully registered to 'username.'

These are not implemented right now, and it is a bit confusing. Even though I get a dialogue box saying that the registration was successful, it really doesn't show it anywhere that I can see.

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Also, with all this "Ripping" it would be nice to INCLUDE a DVD Burner WITH this so-called "Platinum" package. And, yes, I'm well aware that Tipard offers a "Tipard DVD Creator" for this purpose, but why not just include it in this one package.

(Not to mention, I've been waiting forever, for "Tipard DVD Creator" to show up once again on GOTD .. *sigh*)

But great giveaway both GOTD & Tipard. Thanks.

I normally use DVDFab but I have been having issues with it lately. I was just telling myself this morning that I should look for another ripper. I like Tipard's DVD Creator that I got from a previous giveaway so I will give this a shot. Can't beat the price for today!

#4: "Pros:
Support editing software (My first conversion is for one short chapter to Adobe Premiere. Well done)"

If you want to edit whatever video, Do Not re-encode it 1st -- you're throwing quality away!

Almost everything you do to video [other than watch it of course] loses a bit of quality. You don't want to change formats, re-size, or re-encode needlessly. Video DVDs use mpg2, which shouldn't pose that many challenges nowadays to editing as-is -- if/when you find you have video you can't work with, try 1st to change the container [e.g. avi, mov, mkv etc.], & if that won't work, convert it to something like the UT Video codec which is near lossless [though files may be very large]. Use the free DVD Shrink if you want to trim the video 1st, dump audio tracks you don't want/need, &/or to put all the video into a single VOB file [Video DVDs have VOB files split into ~1 GB pieces to better work with hardware designed in the 90's when the spec was created]. Some software may not like VOB files -- you can find solutions at videohelp.com, like PgcDemux, which will split VOB files into audio, video, & subs, though to import into some apps you may have to add timing info to the native mpg2 video, turning it [without any re-encoding] from .m2v to .mpg, by running it through a *muxer* with or without supplying an audio file [the MPEG Tools included in some TMPGEnc apps for example works well]. Another solution [there are several] is to use DGIndex with AviSynth, or in 32 bit Windows, VFAPI. At any rate you Do Not want to run DVD video through any converter or ripper before editing.

I've done quite a bit of this sort of thing working with DVDs from a Pani DVD Recorder. To turn the results into a *normal* DVD used PGCDemux -> MPEG Tools to turn .m2v into .mpg -> a DVD authoring app to add chapters & create the DVD layout prior to burning to disc. If I wanted to edit, e.g. to cut commercials, converted the audio from AC3 to .wav, importing that & the mpg2 video into an editor [even simple cut edits using AC3 in my experience are iffy].

* * *

#9: "... What you get is a company that feels it has to resort to shady tactics to push it’s products...."

True, there are some companies that don't, but you could likely count their number on 1 hand. :)

I'm NOT condoning false comments/reviews, but rather saying that if you refused to deal with any company that wasn't completely honest about whatever it is they sell, you'd be living in a hut or lean-to in the woods. :) While it's somewhat common to hire commenters in places like China, in the US we use celebrity endorsements, &/or bribe bloggers &/or reviewers, e.g. a magazine receiving big advertising dollars from a company isn't going to trash their product in a review.

* * *

#15: "... I want to backup all of my DVD’s and just play the backup because the optical media is delicate and prone to scratch damage. I don’t understand why anyone would create a Ripper program that cannot save the original to ISO."

Nowadays rippers/converters convert -- copiers copy... just using the wrong sort of app. As for saving DVDs as ISO files, that's a bit unnecessary & can be a bit inefficient. There are several players & media center apps that handle DVD folders, & if you simply make an ISO out of every DVD you own, you're including language tracks & subs you'll never use, not to mention sometimes several GB of trailers/ads. If you just save the movie itself you can probably cut the HDD storage requirements almost in 1/2. Convert to AVC with a bit rate ~ 1.5, & you can retain almost all of the quality, yet cut the storage requirements by ~ 2/3 - 3/4. The biggest challenge is if like me you need to keep the subs... Easiest is Nero Recode up to v. 10 [later versions actually make it a bit harder to use], which converts & embeds the subs together with the AVC video & AAC audio in a single file. But fewer players will display those embedded subs, so if you need them as separate .srt files, use something like the free Subtitle Edit which does a pretty good job of OCR.

Tipard DVD Ripper Platinum is a ffmpeg-based video converter that uses QT code to speed up performance, but it only accepts DVDs as input, rather than accepting pretty much any video you want to feed it like several alternatives. That's not a huge deal -- converters/rippers that accept more kinds of video may simply be a better value for your money, depending of course on the price. As far as these ffmpeg-based converters/rippers go, Tipard DVD Ripper Platinum doesn't appear to vary a whole lot from the rest of the crowd. It does have some editing capabilities, but other than including them because they're in the converter this ripper is based on, I'm kind of unsure why...

Since you can only use DVD source material, adjusting anything wouldn't be called for, & wouldn't do much good. If you got the DVD from a recorder & wanted to cut commercials, if the audio's the usual AC3, there's an excellent chance you'll have sync problems, though not everyone notices or is concerned about that sort of thing. It can be useful to trim the end credits off a movie to get a smaller file, but while the credits add enough to the file size on a DVD to matter, converted to AVC video, not so much. Cropping the video to remove any letterboxing can be a good thing, but it can also get you into trouble if/when you use one of these converters to prepare video for your handheld, which is after all what they're best at... if/when you crop off the letterboxing for a movie you've got a wider, shorter video frame that'll display fine on a PC in whatever player's window, but on a cell or tablet or other handheld the video's more likely to be displayed full screen, & there's a very good chance your cropped video will be stretched taller, making everything thinner than it should be. So test 1st.

That said, while I don't have a huge need, I'll hang onto Tipard DVD Ripper Platinum because like the average converter on GOTD, it has a pretty small footprint, & may use a later version of ffmpeg than the others. Most of these converters using ffmpeg & QT code perform really well encoding AVC for a handheld [I remember when doing this conversion with high quality was quite the challenge], but every so often a conversion will give me problems [in those cases I *think* there's usually something "Off" about the source], so I'll run through my collection of converters until one of them works. It may even be only a couple/few lines of code are different, but whatever, my only concern is that it works.

Ffmpeg [ffmpeg.org] is distributed as source code as well as compiled into the files you're used to seeing, but it's pretty difficult to tell which version's used in whatever app unless the developer gives you that info. There was a major update in July -- you can read the changelog on the ffmpeg home page. Commercial apps that use ffmpeg tend to incorporate new versions more slowly than free &/or open source alternatives, if for no other reason than they need to do a lot of testing to help make sure customers don't have problems -- if you have a problem with free software the best you'll often get is thanks for filling out a bug report. Still, if you want to use the latest ffmpeg you might want to check out the compiled Windows versions, front ends, & tools at videohelp.com -- http://www.videohelp.com/tools?toolsearch=ffmpeg&submit=Search&convert=&s=&orderby=Name&hits=50

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FWIW...

Hollywood's a bit like the cable & satellite providers, Netflix, Amazon's streaming service etc. -- the quality you get is what they feel you'll likely settle for. Video DVDs are intended for standard, interlaced TVs -- pretty much the same boxes that people have viewed in their living rooms for over 1/2 a century. Broadcast quality to those TVs was/is rather poor, so Video DVDs had/have really a pretty low threshold to meet or beat. If you're after quality you can usually do Much better starting with a HD source [e.g. Blu-Ray], converting it to DVD or lower resolutions for your handhelds.

If quality isn't as important to you [after all we're not talking about big screens], you may not want to bother with all this conversion stuff to start with. Software can stream DVD video from your home PC to your cell or tablet, or you can use VLC Mobil for instance to play the mpg2 video as-is -- run the DVD through DVD Shrink to put the video in a single VOB file [the setting is in the preferences], & copy that to whatever your tablet for example uses for external storage, e.g. a micro SD card, hopefully using a USB 3.0 card reader to keep the copy times to a minimum.

Don't forget about the FREE DVDSmith Movie Backup 1.08:
http://www.freewarefiles.com/DVDSmith-Movie-Backup_program_43011.html

In Full Disk Mode, DVDSmith Movie Backup can backup, clone or copy DVD movie to computer as DVD folder (TO HARD DRIVE) or to ISO file.

Giovanni am i missing some thing , this GAOTD doesn’t rip to ISO format i thought iphone use the ios format did you not see this or did not bovver looking. With a rather wide range of output video formats, this DVD Ripper Platinum can rip DVD to prevailing portable devices, like iPhone 5, iPad 4, Kindle Fire HD, Windows Phone, Samsung Galaxy Note/Tab/S, HTC One X and more. In addition to converting DVD to portable devices, this DVD Ripper Platinum can also rip DVD to editing software, including Adobe Premiere Express/Elements/Pro, After Effects, Encore, Pinnacle Studio and stuff.

@#9 Cindy I suspect you may be correct. A whois search shows Tipard and Aieesoft are both privately registered through Godaddy AND they show updated both within 1 day of each other. Also Tipard was registered 6 months after Aieesoft in 2008.

I'm sure it's just a coincidence though.

I downloaded this a few weeks ago (although I'm writing this from work and can't be sure that it is the same version)and the one issue I have with it is that when I use it to convert a DVD to an .avi file it works quickly and smoothly but the output movie is always "letterboxed" in the center of the screen.
I'll uninstall the old version and try this one (because it works great when you are converting for a specific device) but if anyone can shed some light on my letterbox problem I would be extremely grateful...

Very similar to some features in the Aiseesoft program. Though it doesn't do Blu-Ray of course. Doesn't remember the output destination folder after it's shutdown either whereas Aiseesoft does.

Framerates available to Tipard: 20 to 30
Framerates available in Aiseesoft: 20 to 60

Resolutions range in Tipard: 176*144 to 1280*720
Resolutions range in Aiseesoft: 960*540 to 1920*1080

Bitrates in Tipard: 256 to 2500 kbps
Bitrates in Aiseesoft: 3000 to 30000 kbps

Depends what you need to do I guess.

Can't complain about a free program.

#10 No my friend.

I was excited about this program until I read that it cannot save to ISO format. I want to backup all of my DVD's and just play the backup because the optical media is delicate and prone to scratch damage. I don't understand why anyone would create a Ripper program that cannot save the original to ISO. That is just a basic feature that should always be included.

#12 thx Giovanni for the free app it works great!!! as for this program the DVD Ripper Platinum 6.2.2 it don't make an iso file nor do it make an dvd folder file so I have to make it an avi file and convert it with another program to dvd format to make a dvd. that takes up space and time.

Handbrake is a free full-featured alternative.

hey...

my bad...forgot to mention this brand-new FREE APP:

http://www.dvdaux.com/index.html

As you can see it supports both NVIDIA CUDA and Intel Quick Sync acceleration technologies and unlike this GAOTD users can copy a DVD of theirs not only to a blank DVD Disc but also to an ISO file and DVD Folder without any hassle, with the ability to clip the videos, set their video and audio bitrate, resolution, frame rate and aspect ratio, as well as change the output audio tracks and subtitles with ease.

Thanks to its constantly updated technology, it's also able to decrypt and remove even the latest DVD copy protections, including CSS encryption, region code, Sony ARccOS, UOPs, APS, RCE and much more.

Yes...it's FREE....Simply amazing!!

Enjoy!!!

P.S. Yes, agree with comment N.9....this ridiculous high rating and inflation of THUMBS UP in a blink of an eye sounds very fishy.
They probably use the same dirty tricks played by Aieesoft, namely use several proxies to fool GAOTD rating system!! And honestly this is absolutely ludicrous and senseless, since most of their products are very good indeed!! So why cheating readers by manipulating the GAOTD rating system? And why GAOTD team do nothing about that??

Well, this GAOTD doesn't rip or backup to loseless DVD folder or ISO format, which is or better yet should be an essential feature for any DVD ripper out there...

So why give it an astonishing 80% THUMBS UP??

Once again the GAOTD rating does NOT reflect the real value of the software!!

BEST (and BETTER) FREE ALTERNATIVES

* BDlot DVD ISO Master
Terrific FREE utility which helps you backup ANY protected DVD to a cross-platform ISO image 1:1 copy, compatible with Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, BSD, and Unix, without any remarkable video or audio quality loss (it takes some time to do that though!!)
Then, once you have created the ISO IMAGE, you can easily burn it to a DVD/CD/Blu-ray disc at high speed, or play it by the majority of media players out there (PotPlayer, VLC, Mplayer, DAPlayer etc...), or better yet watch it on a virtual disk drive after mounting the image over it using a FREE DVD ISO mounter like "Gizmo Drive".
This is one of the few FREE tools out there able to unlock DVD region codes and defeat ALL those bloody copy protection and well-known damn restrictions which make a DVD copy pretty much impossible, such as CSS, CPRM, CPPM, APS, UOPs, ARccOS, Rip-Guard, and unlike this GAOTD, even Disney X protection.
And with this magic FREE tool you can forget quality loss due to burning errors once and for all, since it also sports an unique "Error Proofing Technology" designed ensure to the integrity and sequence of DVD data after burning.

http://www.bdlot.com/dvd-iso-master

* DVDFab HD Decrypter

This GEM is an amazing FREE all-in-one DVD copying, converting & burning software, which can remove almost all DVD protections of a whatsoever DVD and then copy your DVD/Blu-ray to your HD at high speed.

http://www.dvdfab.com/hd-decrypter.htm

Full tutorial:
http://www.dvdfab.com/tutorial/DVDFab-HD-Decrypter

Enjoy!

My 2 cents for today's giveaway!!

Would this software also work on Copy Protected DVD's?
I did a quick check of the website and did not find the answer.:(

I strongly suspect Tipard and Aieesoft are either the same company or closely related. Again we have a ridiculous inflation of thumbs up votes right from the start that is only found with these vendors. Add to that the obvious planted comments praising the software in the same fractured English. What you get is a company that feels it has to resort to shady tactics to push it's products. That's not a company I trust. Thanks, GOTD, but I'll be passing on this one.

Frankly speaking, there is much software but I do love Tipard. Maybe its software is not the so-called best one (I do not have so much energy to test all software), but I have used their software to solve problem one by one. And they have a good support team. As one being offered with excellent service, I support Tipard.

I recently got a fire-new DVD and with hesitation I tried this DVD Ripper Platinum to convert my DVD to iPhone 5. To be frank, the speed is just so so (maybe because of the computer configuration and it does not have multiple CPUs) but the output video seems original. I recommend it.

Installed and Registered OK on Win 7 Ultimate, 64bits.
The video quality is very good. I have edited the few titles into files (removing commercials etc) and press the 'Merge' symbol, then I pressed the convert symbol, running the program in background, the conversion was completed about half an hour, and I got a perfect file. That’s really wonderful.

Downloaded and installed easily with no problems. Unzipping ALL the files to the same directory lead to the program being registered at installation.

Pros:
1. Load DVD well（I tried home DVD and commercial DVD, the add and preview goes well, my second conversion is processing.）
2. Support editing software (My first conversion is for one short chapter to Adobe Premiere. Well done)
3. Support latest devices (See the list of profile and has not try)
4. Have basic editing effect. (The crop is useful when I need to change the aspect ratio.)
5. Too simple to be easier.
6. Another one should be mention is the speed (I have acceleration, the speed is very fast compared with others I used)
7. Welfare of 50% off coupon (I like it.)

Cons:
1. Language interface could be more (Although it has four already)
2. I think it will attract more individuals if it embeds one player.

Thank you GOTD and TIPARD.

From my part, it is a must-have DVD ripper program & DVD to 3D converter, esp. for those one who want to convert DVD video to portables players or play DVD movies on HD TV for enjoyment.

1. To better use Tipard DVD Ripper Platinum, please read the simple operation guide displayed below:

Operation Guide:
Step 1: Download the installation Zip package.
Step 2: Unzip the package to get Setup.exe and readme.txt files.
Step 3: Follow the instructions to finish installation and registration.

For more details or tutorials about Tipard DVD Ripper Platinum, please visit: http://www.tipard.com/dvd-ripper.html

Note:
1. Please finish registration within 24 hours;
2. For GOTD users, Tipard specially provides a 50% off coupon: TIPABLD (valid from Sept 20th to Sept 27th), and you can gain any product from Tipard (http://www.tipard.com)

Pros
*Convert DVDs to other video formats
*Works with DVD discs, folderes, and ISOs as input
*Supports bypass of DRM protection
*Supports many output formats

Cons
*Cannot output/store as DVD folder or ISO

Free Alternatives
Review of best free DVD ripper for Windows

Final Verdict
Click here for final verdict and full review