Review 32 » DVD Rippers

Cucusoft Review: Ultimate DVD Converter

Joe Cohen — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 09:31:36 +0000

Cucusoft Ultimate DVD Converter is a fantastic tool for anyone who wants to rip their favorite DVDs into a format they can play on personal devices like iPods, Zune players, PSP, Pocket PCs, mobile phones and several others. The application can also produce files that are compatible with bigger devices such as desktop and laptop computers.
Very fast and reliable, Cucusoft Ultimate DVD Converter allows seamless conversion that is easy enough for anyone to use, and yet this is a powerful application.

Feature Set (4.5/5)

Cucusoft Ultimate DVD Converter can produce files in several audio and video formats. These formats include: H264, MP4, WMV, AVI, MOV, RM, 3GP, FLV, SWF, mpeg-1, mpeg-2, VCD, SVCD, DVD, AC3, AAC, MP2, MP3, MP4, RA, WMA. This capability to create FLV and SWF files from videos makes this application an ideal solution if you want to easily embed your videos on your web site, but don’t want to place them on public sites like YouTube or Google Video.

It supports ripping an entire DVD disc or just some clips, and it also supports selection of just a part of a video for extracting.

Another nice feature is the ability to use .IFO DVD description and menu files as input, which basically lets the user grab some additional information about the video from the DVD itself.

The ripping process is indeed fast even with the default profiles, but it can get faster by tweaking some settings.

The whole process of converting a DVD is easy enough to ensure no user will be confused, yet there are advanced settings that will please power users and those who like to tweak everything.

Ease Of Use (5/5)

The Cucusoft Ultimate DVD Converter is very simple and easy to use. No matter how much previous experience the user has, there will be virtually no problems learning to use this application. Select file, select videos you need to rip, select the output format and start the process. It’s as simple as that.

Ease Of Installation And Setup (5/5)

The Cucusoft Ultimate DVD Converter installs just as easily as any other program; run the installer, follow the steps, and you are done.

Quality Of Copy (4.5/5)

The preset output profiles are more than enough to produce high quality files, but it gets even higher if tweaked a little. However, the improvements will only be perceived by a good eye, and if the target device is a small-screen portable device like an iPod or a mobile phone, then you’ll find that the default settings are perfect for you.

Software Stability (5/5)

Cucusoft Ultimate DVD Converter proved to be very stable even when running the conversion process along with other tasks. It does not drain the system’s resources or create unstability in any way.

Summary (4.8/5)

Good speed – can be improved.
Good quality – good quality vs. file size ratio.
Can read IFO files.
Can produce flash files from video!

iSofter Review – DVD Ripper Deluxe

Nicole Perryman — Mon, 06 Aug 2007 06:20:37 +0000

The iSofter DVD Ripper Deluxe is a powerful application that allows users to make back-up copies of their DVDs (even damaged ones) with excellent compression. Fully recommended for both beginners and experienced users, due to its outstanding combination of simplicity and power.

Feature Set (4.5/5)

This application supports Audio and Movie DVDs and is able to convert them with no problems. The iSofter DVD Ripper Deluxe can convert your DVDs into AVI, DivX, WMA and VCD formats. Although most other formats can be used thanks to the external codec support, it includes many built-in codecs, so any user can start ripping immediately after installation.

The iSofter DVD Ripper Deluxe can successfully read those DVD discs that are tainted or damaged, thanks to the use of a very efficient error correction algorithm. This allows you to recover those discs that are no more played by your DVD player or computer, making a high quality back-up copy of them to watch in your monitor’ screen.

Power users will like this application very much, due to its high level of customization: every setting can be adjusted manually to ensure that “geeks” will be able to tweak everything to their exact needs and desires. In case you are not a power user, the default settings also offer outstanding quality, great compression and a more than decent speed.

The iSofter DVD Ripper Deluxe performs CPU auto detection and automatically applies specific optimizations that will ensure accurate conversion and better processor usage.

As said above, compression is really great. Although not as small as advertised in their website, iSofter DVD Ripper Deluxe produced very small files when tested by us.

The application also allows the user to select the interval to be ripped, and supports VOB scanning.

Ease Of Use (5/5)

The interface of the iSofter DVD Ripper Deluxe is very nice and well organized. It somehow resembles the appearance of Windows Media Player, and certainly features its simplicity and usability. This makes the iSofter DVD Ripper Deluxe a very easy to use DVD-ripping application for beginners, as the default settings are usually enough to create great quality media files.

Advanced settings are available for experienced users too.

Ease Of Installation And Setup (5/5)

Installing the iSofter DVD Ripper Deluxe was a breeze in every test we performed. As simple as double-clicking the installer, clicking a few times and that’s it. It just doesn’t get simpler than that.

Quality Of Copy (5/5)

Amazing, simply amazing. We were surprised to find that it is possible to rip a DVD into files with near-DVD quality, yet compressed several times.

Software Stability (5/5)

No problems were found when using this application. The iSofter DVD Ripper Deluxe was also found to be compatible with all popular antivirus and common applications.

Summary (4.9/5)

Impressive compression rate.
You can customize everything.
Recovers damaged discs.
Excellent quality of resulting media files.
Auto-detects CPU type and speed, and auto-applies optimizations accordingly.
Is able to use installed external codecs.

iSofter Review – DVD Ripper Platinum

Joe Cohen — Sat, 09 Jun 2007 22:32:29 +0000

The iSofter DVD Ripper Platinum is an application that was designed to make back-up copies of your DVD discs into your computer with an extremely good compression. It is also capable of converting the audio and video data in your DVDs into a wide variety of formats. Definitely recommended for both experts and novice users, who will certainly find ease of use and a high level of customization, all in the same powerful application.

Feature Set (5/5)

One of the things that become evident when using the iSofter DVD Ripper Platinum is the high quality of the resulting media files.

It supports Audio and Movie DVDs and is able to rip them perfectly. The iSofter DVD Ripper Platinum can convert your video DVDs into several formats, including the built-in AVI, DivX, XviD, VCD, WMV and MPEG4 file formats. It can also make use of any external codecs that are installed in the user’s computer.

The iSofter DVD Ripper Platinum comes with several prebuilt optimized profiles that make converting a DVD into iPod Video, Microsoft Zune, Pocket PC, 3GP Mobile Phone or any other standard MP4 player (including Archos and iRiver). Thereâ€™s even a profile to output AVI files ready for importing into popular video editors such as Adobe Premiere.

The relationship between size and quality is perfectly balanced, even when using the standard profiles. Experts will simply love iSofter DVD Ripper Platinum: every aspect of the conversion can be tweaked manually. But this application also takes beginners into consideration, as the interface is very simple to use.

The iSofter DVD Ripper Platinum autodetects your CPU type and speed, and automatically selects and uses appropriate optimizations, ensuring the best hardware/results balance you can find.

Support for batch conversion, track selection and VOB scanning are other convenient iSofter DVD Ripper Platinum features.

Ease Of Use (5/5)

The iSofter DVD Ripper Platinum is very easy to use for beginners, as the preset profiles are more than enough to ensure a high quality, one-click conversion. For power users, the iSofter DVD Ripper Platinum is highly customizable, with all features accessible with a couple of clicks.

Ease Of Installation And Setup (4.5/5)

We found that installing the iSofter DVD Ripper Platinum is as easy as any other windows installation. However, for some odd reason we couldn’t find, the installation procedure just stopped when installing on a couple of our test computers.

After rebooting and re-running the installer, however, everything went ok.

Quality Of Copy (5/5)

Although the quality of the produced media files is heavily related to the chosen conversion options, we found that even when using the built-in optimized presets the output quality is extremely high.

Software Stability (5/5)

The iSofter DVD Ripper Platinum proved to be very stable, showing no undesired or harmful operation. Even when tested under the minimum requirements, no problems showed up.

Summary (4.9/5)

Very high level of customization.
Awesome compression.
Great output quality.
Preset built-in profiles.
Auto-detects CPU type and speed.
Speed could be improved, but it is indeed very good.
Is able to use installed external codecs.

Avex DVD Ripper Platinum Review

Joe Cohen — Thu, 03 May 2007 19:34:21 +0000

Avex DVD Ripper Platinum provides all the great features you will ever need for DVD ripping, plus generation of iPod and Zune compatible files for the serious portable video lover. A combination of four different applications, Avex DVD Ripper Platinum suite gives you the power of Avex DVD Ripper and the convenience of DVD to iPod, DVD to Zune, DVD to PSP and DVD to 3GP converters all in a low cost, conveniently priced package that every serious DVD ripper will simply love.

Feature Set (4.5/5)

The Avex DVD Ripper Platinum suite allows for conversion of DVD discs into several different file formats.

The first application in the suite, Avex DVD Ripper, is intended to make playable back ups of any audio and movie DVDs, providing accurate conversion at a very good speed and with optimized output files. It allows ripping any DVD into several formats, including AVI, XviD, DivX, Windows media video (WMV), MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4 and H.264.

The other parts of this suite (Avex DVD to iPod converter, Avex DVD to Zune Converter, Avex DVD to PSP converter and Avex DVD to 3GP converter) are designed and optimized to generate audio and video files fully playable by Apple iPod, Zune, Sony PSP and 3GP portable media players directly from your DVD discs.

The ripping and conversion process is performed at a very nice speed thanks to Avexâ€™s built-in X-Speed! Transcode technology, although it is not the fastest application we tested.

The Avex DVD Ripper Platinum suite comes fully optimized to take advantage of Hyper threading and Dual-Core processors, as well as several multimedia-specific instructions present in some CPUs, like SSE/SSE2/MMX and 3Dnow!.

Avex DVD Ripper Platinum supports several devices, including most popular MPEG-4 compatible portable players, as well as PC, Pocket PC, Palm and mobile devices.

Supports Dolby and DTS Surround audio standards, and has a good deal of customizable settings.

Ease Of Use (5/5)

The Avex DVD Ripper Platinum suite was found to be one of the easiest applications to use. One-click conversion for new users and a fare amount of customizable settings and adjustable option for the expert make this pack a very simple yet powerful solution for all DVD ripping needs.

Ease Of Installation And Setup (5/5)

Installation of Avex DVD Ripper Platinum is as easy and smooth as any other windows-based software installation. The software was installed quickly and without any problems in all tests we performed.

Quality Of Copy (5/5)

Avex DVD Ripper Platinum can produce audio and video of the highest possible quality if you “play” a little with the advanced settings.

If you just use the defaults, the resulting output files will have a nice quality too, but not as good as “perfect”. We think this is intended for slower machines.

Software Stability (5/5)

Avex DVD Ripper Platinum was found to run smoothly under Windows 98, Windows ME, WinNT, Win2000, winXP and even the new Windows Vista. No undesired operation or system hangs occurred in our testing.

Summary (4.9/5)

Supports a lot of target devices.
High quality of output files, although you have to tweak settings a little to get the best.
Accurate conversion with decent file size, but could be faster.
Easy to use – One-click conversion.
Supports the latest sound standards like Dolby and DTS Surround.

ImTOO DVD Ripper Platinum Review

Nicole Perryman — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 16:04:44 +0000

ImTOO DVD Ripper Platinum is one of the best DVD ripping applications we have tested, featuring an extensive set of options to enhance your DVD ripping experience. Its wide range of supported formats and its ease of use make this a number one choice for every user’s DVD ripping needs.

Feature Set (5/5)

ImTOO DVD Ripper Platinum has a very nice set of features which place this application on top of the list of the most useful DVD ripping software. It can take any kind of DVD disk as an input, including Movie DVDs and Audio DVDs, which can be ripped flawlessly.

The ImTOO DVD Ripper Platinum is not just a DVD ripping and back up software. In fact, it is one of the most complete solutions for media lovers, being able to produce very high quality files that can be played in a computer, an Apple iPod and many other MPEG-4 compatible portable players, like Archos AV700, Creative Zen, iRiver PMP and Sony PSP.

It can produce MPEG-4, Windows Media Video (WMV), DivX, AVI, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, Real media (RM), QuickTime MOV, Apple TV video, 3GP, MP3, WAV, Windows media Audio (WMA), AAC and M4A files, among others.

The wide range of output formats supported by ImTOO DVD Ripper Platinum is perhaps the more extensive we have seen while testing DVD ripper applications.

The program lets users customize different things, including the size of the output file, the chapter / segment to rip, the subtitle and audio track to extract, sound normalization and many other.

The speed of the conversion process is really good, being among the fastest DVD rippers we have tested, and its simplicity of use is really outstanding.

The ImTOO DVD Ripper Platinum produces high quality files, and is able to make good use of multimedia extensions built in certain CPUs.

Ease Of Use (4.5/5)

If we take into consideration the wide range of available formats and settings, and its well organized, clean and clear interface, we can say that ImTOO DVD Ripper Platinum is one of the easiest DVD ripping applications available.

It can be used by both beginners and experts with equal ease, and the default settings are optimized for a great conversion without tweaking a single thing.

Ease Of Installation And Setup (5/5)

The ImTOO DVD Ripper Platinum installs easily and smoothly, and user interaction is required just for clicking “next” a couple of times. Installation is quick and you are ready to begin ripping in just a few seconds.

Quality Of Copy (4.5/5)

The ImTOO DVD Ripper Platinum default settings are optimized for a high quality conversion, and of course the available settings can be tweaked to get the most out of your conversion.

Software Stability (5/5)

The ImTOO DVD Ripper Platinum runs smoothly in every computer, even under the minimum required configuration.

Summary (4.8/5)

A lot of customizable settings.
High quality of output files.
Very fast and accurate conversion.
Excellent compression.
Supports many formats.
Easy to use.
Supports the latest sound standards.

dvdXsoft Review – dvdXsoft DVD Ripper

Joe Cohen — Sat, 07 Apr 2007 08:20:14 +0000

dvdXsoft DVD Ripper is a DVD back up utility featuring a very good conversion speed and the ability to produce high quality output files in a variety of formats. Easy to use, it is especially convenient for DVD ripping newbies that want to back-up their DVD discs without hassles.

Feature Set (4.5/5)

The dvdXsoft DVD Ripper application has some nice features. It can convert DVD movies into several types of video files, including the popular MPEG-1 (VCD), MPEG-2 (SVCD), AVI, Windows Media Video (WMV), DivX and XviD video formats.

Audio DVDs can be ripped into AAC and MP3 files.

The dvdXsoft DVD Ripper also gives users the possibility to tweak several settings, making it possible to split output video files to a specific size, select the DVD chapter to be ripped, produce de-interlaced videos, remove that nasty black bar of DVD movies and even preview the DVD video while ripping is in progress.

The application also supports two pass encoding to ensure a very good relationship between quality/compression, and speed of operation is certainly remarkable.

The ripping of a DVD disc is performed in a wizard-like manner. When starting a new conversion process, a 3 step window is opened. This is easy to use, but somehow more difficult than the “one click ripping” function featured in other applications.

Its superb speed makes you think that compression will not be as good as expected, but when testing, we gladly found that the size of the resulting file is as small as with other DVD rippers.

Power users may somehow feel disappointed by the few settings available, but dvdXsoft DVD Ripper is designed to be concise and efficient.

Ease Of Use (4.5/5)

The dvdXsoft DVD Ripper is very easy to use, although there are other similar programs that are easier. Its three step conversion is simple enough to be understood by anyone, even first timers, and the results will be more than satisfying for everyone. The only thing we can complain about is that advanced settings are not as numerous as in other available DVD ripping applications, somehow disappointing those users who like to have full control of every single aspect of the conversion process.

Ease Of Installation And Setup (5/5)

Installation of the dvdXsoft DVD Ripper software is plain and simple, with no mysteries at all. Just as any standard installer, clicking “next” a few times is enough to get you started.

Quality Of Copy (5/5)

The dvdXsoft DVD Ripper is able to rip audio and video DVDs into very high quality media files, which are conveniently compressed to save space without sacrificing resolution, frame rates or quality.

Software Stability (5/5)

The dvdXsoft DVD Ripper has been tested thoroughly and was found to be very stable, with no harmful or undesired interactions with other installed applications.

Summary (4.8/5)

Great quality of output files.
Very fast and accurate conversion of all your DVD discs.
Great quality/size relationship.
Maybe not as customizable as it could be.

Avex Review – Avex DVD Ripper

Nicole Perryman — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 17:57:25 +0000

Avex DVD Ripper is an application that allows you to make accurate, high quality back-up copies of your DVD discs with ease. It is a recommended program for all users that are in need of a simple yet powerful way to rip their DVDs into their computer without losing too much quality in the process.

Avex Website
Avex DVD Ripper Free Trial
Buy It Now (40% off)
Check out our Avex DVD Ripper Platinum Review

Feature Set (4/5)

The Avex DVD Ripper allows for conversion of DVD discs into several different file formats. It is intended to make playable back ups of any audio and movie DVDs, providing accurate conversion at a very good speed and with optimized output files. It allows ripping any DVD into several formats, including AVI, XviD, DivX, Windows media video (WMV), MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4 and H.264.

As for audio, it supports most popular output formats, including MP3 and WMA; and it fully supports sound standards like Dolby and DTS Surround.

The ripping and conversion process is performed at a nice speed thanks to Avex™s built-in X-Speed!(TM) Transcode technology, although it is far from being the fastest DVD ripping application we have tested.

The Avex DVD Ripper is fully optimized to take advantage of Hyper threading and P4/AMD Dual-Core processors, as well as several multimedia-specific instruction sets present in some CPUs, like SSE (in Pentium II processors), SSE2 (in Pentium III processors), MMX (in Pentium I processors)and 3Dnow! (In AMD processors).

The Avex DVD Ripper software allows customization to a certain extent, but it is definitely not one of the more tweakable DVD ripper applications we have tested.

Ease Of Use (5/5)

The Avex DVD Ripper is very easy to use, which will probably attract a good deal of new users and DVD ripping beginners. It features a one-click extraction process that ensures successful conversion of your audio and video DVD discs with no effort.

Ease Of Installation And Setup (5/5)

As with most windows-based applications, installing Avex DVD Ripper is very easy, as simple as clicking a few times. The application installs with the default presets, which are enough for most rippers (except, of course, for those DVD “geeks” that just need to have full control over everything. Like us, hehe.)

Quality Of Copy (5/5)

The Avex DVD Ripper software is able to generate high quality copies of your DVD discs. The default settings are preset to balance speed/quality/file size, and for this reason the resulting files may not have the highest quality, but this can be solved by tweaking some easily accessible configurations.

Software Stability (5/5)

The Avex DVD Ripper program didn’t show any incompatibilities while being tested by us. It was installed and run in computers with many different configurations, running several Windows OSes, and Avex DVD Ripper performed with complete stability under all of them (including the “oldie” Windows 98 and the new Windows Vista).

Summary (4.8/5)

Could be faster.
High quality of output files, although you have to change some settings to get the best.
Accurate conversion with decent file size.
Easy to use – One-click conversion that new users will just love.
Supports the latest sound standards like Dolby and DTS Surround.
Could have more options available.