Theres lots of freeware and shareware rippers out there. If you hunt around the directories or do a quick google you'll find theres millions. Not many great rippers are free though..so read the reviews..

Try these directories..

qarchive free, share and commercial

Fast search with freeware and shareware

Huge directory with free, share and commercial

I downloaded it. I installed it. It doesn't work. Gives an error messaage for its system. "Some components not installed correctly."
O.K. I tried to uninstall reinstall. Because it took my registration fine last night. Its not uninstallable. It shows nowhere in my system for uninstall. I tried to use the uninstall for the program. That was a lot of help too. It just tried to reinstall and tells me that its no longer able to. Time is up.
I am disappointed. I wanted to be able to watch my DVD's on here. So my woman could have her T.V. time too.
I'll be watching for something else simular soon. Hint Hint.
Now I must be off. I have to try to figure out how to get it off my computer now.
Thanks anyway
Mouse

See “The Advanced Specialist” bashing. LOL

http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/xstarter/#comment-9645

I guess the only bigger ego than using "AKA" is calling yourself "The Advanced Specialist". lol

Holy Crap... PPL just don't get the hint. The Advanced Specialist needed to defend White Rabbit and start crap with others leaving comments. I think the comment section is getting outta control. A whole page by the advanced Specailist responding to others here that have nothing to do woth the software. I don't think 2-sheds was outta line at all. He speaks the truth.

I think it's the RUN ON commments that are the problem here. And the Advanced Specialist is just as guilty as other "Bloviated Blowhards". If you can't keep the comments to the software, plz post somewhere else. Like the forum. Geez, more like the advanced babbler.

#56 For all you guys saying peole shouldn’t “complain” or post negative comments. What do you think the comments section is for? I’d rather see all the complaints and none of the obligatory thank yous since it tells me whether something is worth downloading or not. If someone walked up and handed you a pile of dog doodoo would you just smile and say ?thank you for giving me this for free”? And I’m sure the vendors learn something from the feedback as well. So grow up already and stop complaining about critiques. Sheesh.

Comment by Critic — February 15th, 2007 at 2:02 pm

THERE is a difference between these 'negative commenters' that people are talking about here, and an actual technically critical poster. These are not people who have actually evaluated the software and note technical features, the ones they are noting are people who are just plain WHINERS.

Example: There is no problem with THIS:
#50 This player looks really nice, i like the interface but without CSS support and without video scaling options? Actually, there are no options at all ;) Quick Time Alternative does much better job for me. But Thanks.
Comment by cyberfly — February 15th, 2007 at 11:54 am

THIS IS GOOD. This person is NOT a whiner. He has tried the program. He puts technical information into his comment. And he suggests a possible alternative that people can try, and to compare. This is a 'negative' comment, but it is fine, and perfect.

Now HERE is the problem:
EXAMPLE:
"#79 This program isn’t good." - Comment by john — February 15th, 2007 at 11:08 pm also known as... you know who it is.

This post is useless. It has no technical information. It does not say WHY it's no good. It then goes on to insult someone. This is not useful and this is the most annoying kind of user polluting the comments section.

ANOTHER EXAMPLE:
".... Take that you pooh pooh players. Now hand him that pile of dog doodoo and let’s hear what he has to say!
Comment by RK — February 15th, 2007 at 3:05 pm "

This user and his comment contributes No technical information, merely personal insults, no software suggestions, links, solutions to possible error messages, etc. This RK is just a whiner complainer user that is the same as yes, you guessed it.


Now for MY technical information:
This program is ok for a casual player, however one issue is how to 'save' the viewing SIZE of the video. It defaults to a smaller viewing window, then if you change it and expand it larger, but then open another video, it reverts back to its default small playing window and needs to be resized again, this is inconvenient. I poured over the settings but found no way to permanently set the size of the viewing window. This would be a compelling reason for me not to use this program.

Alternatives: For playing, I would say ZOOMPLAYER PROFESSIONAL has many more features than this program. And it retains the viewing size. However, like the name says, it's for expert level users, which I prefer. So novice users might prefer VLC player which is more of a beginner's program. With Zoomplayer professional, which #19 "AJ" also mentioned up there, you can even program the mouse scrollwheel to slo-mo forward & backward through the file, or you can program it to zoom in or zoom out. You can also set Zoomplayer to such detail as to set the actual # of frames, seconds, or minutes to "SKIP" "JOG" or "SHUTTLE" which are features employed by professional post-production studio VTR features. Now Zoom Player may not venture into the ripping area, but as this Elecard program is given here, it does not include the ripping plugin for the program anyway, so the potential is *noted* but does not come into play here since it is not included anyway. The original "OLD" skin for this player *looked* better, but the controls were more awkward, and small (I use an extremely high resolution screen), the newer default blue skin was more functional but less appealing. I'd compare it to the OLDER one being more reminiscent of a piece of professional equipment that might be found in a recording studio for audio engineers, and the newer Default blue skin as being reminiscent of some TV remote found in BESTBUY. I'd almost prefer to have VLC player's interface (or lack thereof). VLC's interface is reminiscent of WINDOWS 95. It's good for novices because VLC will usually play things when people new to computers can't figure out how to load proper codecs and filters and so forth. That's fine, but ZoomPlayer PRO is more professional and advanced, and that is what I happen to prefer. With that, I can even edit the File Associations, I can custom modify the toolbars in Zoomplayer to include the options and icons that I prefer, I can make it do color correction, make it play 1/2speed, or slo-mo which is useful when learning Guitar or Martial Arts fighting moves because you can slow it down and review every nuance of the technique. I can use the mouse to augment or attenuate the volume by using the mouse WHEEL in zoomplayer, and I can teach it to display the RESOLUTION, the timecode, the video FILENAME, and a % progressbar. I can set A/B points for stop-start and repeat, aspect ratios, and more. Zoomplayer Pro unfortunately is not FREE, but one can evaluate it via shareware. There is a Zoomplayer standard version that has less features than the PRO version.

So in any case, much appreciated for the opportunity to evaluate Elecard dvd player, and thank you to GAOTD for providing it. It does not unseat my preferred player, but it will remain installed for perhaps use at some point.

#31 Well I can see some Bloviated BlowHards are at it again (White Rabbit). What an ego this guy must have. (”AKA”) lol.
Comment by 2-Sheds — February 15th, 2007 at 9:04 am

Actually 2-sheds, YOU are one of the main annoyances here and one of the minor users that lowers the quality of the entire GAOTD website. You harangue and riducule others, you hardly ever provide any technical information, you chime in when nobody cares and nobody wants to hear your guff. You don't provide anything helpful. Your posts are inane and useless as far as evaluating anything. Either you jump on some bandwagon or insult someone for no reason. You need to get a job or a gf or some sun, or whatever it is that is making you all cranky and sour. And stop posting again under different nicknames, you know we can see when you do that, right? We see all the various other names you try to use.

As for White Rabbit aka Stephen, he has posted some good technical information and I'd rather read what he has to say than yours.

As for your little phrase, and the reply to it:
...the phrase ‘Bloviated BlowHard’ because ‘bloviate’ is a verb...
Comment by mitch — February 15th, 2007 at 10:22 pm

I'd like to point out that unlike mitch who actually knows his vocab, 2-sheds is a little Bill O'Reilly wannabe who copied his bloviated phrase off of FOXNEWS. That's why 2-sh*s doesn't know how to use it properly. And as usual, 2-sheds doesn't know what he's talking about.

Dear all, thank you for your feedback, some comments are really helpful. Next product versions will be improved according to your notes. And thank you GAOTD for this experience :)

#9 VLC is skinnable, however, some people who are a bit technically insavvy and bother with drandom donloads like this, and also dont know how to use the powerful tool of the internet correctly and find VLC skins. I particulary like the already included skins 2 in vlc.

I'd like to point out that no one questioned the phrase 'Bloviated BlowHard' because 'bloviate' is a verb (more importantly, not an adjective) and words never have capitals in the middle of them. #31 obviously just quickly looked up that in a thesaurus and either missed or didn't understand what 'v' meant.(good one, indeed). Add that to the fact that those two words combined are repetitive and unnecessary and you've got a classic mix for the uneducated faker of intellect.

More appalling is the great deal of people who let this go unchallenged. And we wonder why we can't choose a good president...

All else beside, this program works for my situation, but I certainly wouldn't have payed for it.

not worthy, i found to basic and i got an erron whej i firth try it.
Even if its free, i prefer windows media classic with Klite codec pack.

Um....Whiterabbit is the one with the long boring essays???? Thanks for informing us about Mr. Kettle. It's good information. Keep up the good work, Mr. Pot.

As harsh as it is... El Fabuloso has got a point in there. I like to read constructive comments specifically about the software. Being a "Bloviated Blowhard" (good one 2-sheds) achieves nothing but self serving worth. I like BladedThoth's stuff (in depth and a choice to read it or not). We don't have that choice with some of the long winded ppl here sometimes.

But I digress, lol. I like the DVD software today. I didn't like the "Crystal Player" all that much. This one's a bit better I think. Easier to use. Thx Devs and gotd.

I can't help but notice that my comment from this morning has been "edited" and tagged with the phrase "personal insults removed". I find this a bit confusing as the part that was deleted only stated that WhiteRabbit shouldn't be deciding what gets deleted.
I stand corrected.
Aparrently, if you're a big enough suck-up, GOTD will do whatever you ask. But if you're someone who points out that both positive and negative comments are helpful, or that there are forums for off-topic subjects, don't count on any support from the "team". DO count on being bombarded with long, boring essays about WhiteRabbit's personal life, opinions, and views on life. I've seen people in this section practically beg this clown and a few others like him to take their self-love sessions to the forums, to no avail. We still have to sift through their nonsense to find helpful remarks about the day's software.
There are many commenters in today's section (2-Sheds #31, missvonnie #38, Idaila #39 among others) who state very clearly and briefly what comment sections are for and what forums are for. If only GOTD would show them the deference they show the grovelers.
For those of you who feel I'm taking up a lot of space myself, have no fear, this post will be deleted soon enough by WhiteRabbit's buddies. This is a great site, but it's no bastion of free speech unless you're a very special boy, like Stephen. I just wanted the opportunity to vent.
Oh, I just remembered what was so "personally insulting" about my comment this morning: I called WhiteRabbit a brown-noser. Well, he proved me wrong about him being able to dictate what gets deleted, but he also proved he's one of the most childish, shameless butt-kissers on the planet.

For however long this stays up here, I remain,

el fabuloso

Thank you Bladedthoth (#29). Your reviews are the most professional of the bunch and are really helpful. And, thank you GAOTD. Although I have downloaded just a handful of the offerings, those have all worked fine for me. (BTW I do find the references to freeware useful and they in no way reduce the value or service provided by GAOTD.)

sorry, but im going to join the vlc gang.
vlc not only does this, as well of a hell of a lot more..
and its free every day of the year

Sorry to go off topic more than usual, but personal comments are really below the belt, especially when they are repeated in the games comment section for no good reason. No need to write who the culprit is, do we Mr hut.

Nothing wrong with negative comments. They're helpful.

Just because it's free doesn't mean we have to like it or say we do.

is this at all like a dvd ripper?

@ all you peeps complaining at people for complaining (rofl): Why did they include a comment box if they didn't want any negative feedback? I thought the POINT of being able to comment is so they can know what rocks and what isn't worth the bandwidth usage. Besides, how's somebody like me to know whether I should download a prog or not if everyone isn't allowed to say what they think?

If a complete stranger stopped me in the street and offered me a pound, I wouldn't say "Is that all?"
What I see on this forum, every day, is nothing less than the words of leechers. They expect so much and yet give so very little. There are plenty of other boards that cater for people like you, who want cracked copies of Acrobat and PhotoshopCS3. I would suggest that to anyone who expects premium licenced software for completely free.
I won't be downloading this prog, but not because I don't appreciate the offer. I use WMP, included as part of Windows XP.

I must say that the free software is great! That said the Elecard DVD player didn't play any of my DVDs. So while the software's full version plays DVDs clearly this sites version that lacks CSS is more or less entirely useless. So if you're going to give away software for free as a promotional thing, as this site does, the software should work.

http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

does all this and much much more for free all the time

Like many others have said, this pales in comparison to VLC. If you want a pretty skin, go for it. Otherwise, avoid this.

And for all the people complaining about complainers, ALL KINDS OF FEEDBACK ARE THE FUNCTION OF COMMENT SECTIONS LIKE THIS, WHETHER IS COMPLAINTS OR THE OBVIOUS OVER-GRATITUDE.

Critic has it right! Take that you pooh pooh players. Now hand him that pile of dog doodoo and let's hear what he has to say!

I'm new to this site and so far the good have far outweighed the bad. I totally agree with Chad if its not for you thats ok but why bitch and complain if its for FREE, just say thanks but no thanks and move on. Thanks to gotd for a great site and the fantastic free giveaways that I have downloaded and use.

Agree with comment #27 by Star-X, $15.95 for the player + additional $39.95 for the ripper plugin for a grand total of $55 is a ripoff.

Sure, the player is free today but the ripper plugin is not and the way the player description reads you must have that ripper plugin installed in order to play already ripped DVDs contained in hard drive folders. So you don't get full functionality from the player unless you spend $40 for the ripper plugin.

Also thanks to BladedThoth for an excellent review with specific reasons as to why this one is not a good idea

Thank, but this one looks like crap. Why we pay for such crap when Windows Media is better and FREE?

Usually I don't complain but I really did want the software to work out for me. I have one DVD that for some reason crashes in WMP. I tried it in here (from a mounted drive) and had no sound (sound works on WMP). Tried another one from hard drive (other primary use I wanted it for) and it gave me a region coding error (the region is fine .. have no idea why that happened).

For all you guys saying peole shouldn't "complain" or post negative comments. What do you think the comments section is for? I'd rather see all the complaints and none of the obligatory thank yous since it tells me whether something is worth downloading or not. If someone walked up and handed you a pile of dog doodoo would you just smile and say ?thank you for giving me this for free"? And I'm sure the vendors learn something from the feedback as well. So grow up already and stop complaining about critiques. Sheesh.

I have WinDVD 8 Platinum. I've used it for years and absolutely love it. IMO it's the best out there. Granted, I haven't tried any others recently, but I've never had any problems with WinDVD.

~ Kyle

I'm sorry... I was trying to be light and not make a big deal. I just felt the analogy didn't work quite as well as you had wanted it to. I didn't mean to start anything... truly. :) Other than that... as I said... I agree with your comments, and I had hoped you would have caught that, but sometimes we get defensive. It's all good. It's really the bummer of not being able to see the good faces of each other when we post these comments. No harm meant, or taken.

#44...now you are complaining about my analogy...yikes, lighten up brother. How about freebies at the grocery store, will that work? How about you get a t-shirt 'shot' to you at a basketball game and it doesn't fit...good one? Hmmm, how 'bout a free sample of diet pills and you're perplexed as to why you didn't drop 20? Let me think....you are at the drive-through and you accidentally get a free diet coke, do you turn around and return 10 minutes to let them know you are strictly a coke drinker?

If you don't like it, that's great, SAY WHY, we'd love to hear it, as I'm sure the manufacturers would as well!

Lighten up people...life is supposed to be fun, ENJOY THE RIDE!

Have a great day!

the main advantage of this soft is its fantastic mpeg-2 decoder the product incorporates. I'd have installed the soft just to have their decoder in my system, but I'm already using Elecard MPEG player which I like much more than DVD player. Don't miss the chance to get this decoder.

This player looks really nice, i like the interface but without CSS support and without video scaling options? Actually, there are no options at all ;) Quick Time Alternative does much better job for me. But Thanks.

Thank you #29 (BladedThoth), good review! It reassured me that I should't touch today's giveaway. Not even with a long stick. I encourage all potential installers to read his review first.

GAOTD is doing a good job. However, it's impossible to come out with programs that will suit/please everybody. That's why commenting here could be useful, if it's about the software. Comments about other people's reactions, ungratefulness etcetera are completely useless here.

I agree with anything Homer Simpson would have to say about this giveaway.

I don't have a problem with negative comments as long as they are constructive and indicate why the software is not liked. I am sure the creator of said software would be more than happy to know where perceived weaknesses appear. This is a great test market for them. However just saying "It's no good," IMHO has little to no worth.

I gave it a try and put in Star Wars Episode 3 in the drive. The warnings came up (FBI etc...) then the music for the menu was playing but the picture was stuck at the warning screen. It then proceeded to lock up and then BSOD the WinXP pro. So it is now uninstalled.

Good luck.

I think Crystal Player Pro was a great giveaway, I'm still using that,thany you GAOTD. All you need is a codec pack and you're set, this player does have an advantage, it has the capability to playback mpeg2 directly without a plugin pack that you'd have to purchase for this feature. So this still has some value since it plays mpeg2.

To #16 and #22 -- First, let me state that I agree that the negative comments are a bit pointless (even if they do kind of help me decide that I don't want to bother with downloading the program myself). However, the analogy that Chad uses fails. Here's why. He is comparing buying girlscout cookies and comparing them to purchased oreos. That's not the case here. The correct analogy would be if the girlscout GAVE us the cookies that normally cost us and said that they would be better than my grandma cookies that are always free. What these people are commenting on is that grandmas cookies are a heck of a lot better and they are always free, compared to the girlscout cookies that are normally being sold. They are not comparing them to Oreo cookies that are also being sold, but rather grandma cookies. See the difference? And, as we all know... grandma always makes better cookies than the girlscouts - because they are made with love without thought of profit. Well, that's my two cents worth.

Having said that... there are times I am a bit disappointed with the offering here... but I keep my mouth shut and recognize that once in awhile I get a gem which makes it worth me checking here every day. Thank you GAOTD team for the rare gems.

Chad, lighten up. This is a COMMENTS section for good, bad, or indifferent reviews. If someone doesn't like the software I want to know about it. If someone likes the software I want to know about it. I like the DVD player, but like many other people here I think if it comes to paying for it, I would not because there are many other FREE players available. Remember, this is for software COMMENTS that can be good or bad and people reading them shouldn't try to tell others what they should or shouldn't say.

ELECARD?? Use at own risk. Beware of your Windows Media Player giving you a message of your Codec expired and the picture all scrambled. I am not sure how I got ELECARD on my system, maybe from a download on this site?? If, IF this happens, just uninstall the ELECARD and the scrambling should go away. Convenient that the ripper stuff is separate. I will pass on this one.

Regarding #16 - Right on, man!. I think that most of the negative comments being posted here are by spoiled children. I believe that the "raison d'etre" for this website is to provide a forum for developers to promote their software. It is a great idea. The developers win and we win. To me, it's a lot of fun. I look forward to checking first thing in the morning to see what is available. Most of the time it is nothing that I personally can use, but sometimes I find a real gem. I am really happy to have found this website. Thanks to the people that put this website together, and thanks to the developers who are offering their software for free.

In regard to the complainers...I don't mind them so much if they at least note in their post WHAT the problem is with the program. Isn't that what the comment section is for? I would like to know if the program is useful to me before I download it, which is the main reason I read the comments first. I realize it's free, but I only have so much drive space and would like to use it efficiently.

Thank you Giveawayoftheday for providing great programs for us, and thank you to the posters who make note of the deficiencies of some of these programs so that those of us who don't know may download intelligently.

This program looks pretty nice. I think one point about the negative comments would be that constructive criticism would probably be helpful for the software creators, even if it isn't a rave review. If the companies are looking for serious input for improving their next editions of software, then suggestions are probably more than welcome. I am sure that mentions of freeware could be useful, especially when those commentators talk about what they like in the freeware vs how they view the featured software.

My comment as to the software today isn't helpful one way or another, but I hope it's helpful as concerns the ongoing discussion.

thx for the life story 22

:( No luck. It hates Spinal Tap

Oh, and to 15.

Windows Media Player never plays DVDs for me, so you might as well have said Quicktime.

AVS DVD player has sucked for me.

VLC fails for looking too odd.

This one might actually work better then PowerDVD which I forked out $25 for. Danke for a good download.