Ripping CD's is increasingly difficult because of the protection that manufacturers place on the disks.

Now however, there are some programs strong enough to break that protection such as RipIt4Me. These encryption methods cannot be dealt with by most major DVD rippers and burners because they employ such encryption as ARccOS and RipGuard DVD techniques that totally immobilise programs such as DVD Shrink or DVD Decrypter. RipIt4Me is an incredibly powerful ripper which can handle just about any encryption. Of course, it should only be used for non commercial use - such as your own personal backups of your own commercial discs. The program is very simple to use with a "One Click" wizard to take you through the very simple ripping procedure which consists of little more than inserting a disc, browsing to a save location, and off you go. In it's latest incarnation, the program now has an automatic updater and an encryption decoder which detects whether the DVD appears to be protected or not. You'll see this displayed in the main window during the first step of the wizard.

This is a remarkably powerful ripping tool that can rip just about any copyrighted DVD (although not all) but only use it for your own backups.

Download RipIt4Me 1.7.1.0 in Softonic

If you want to edit DVD video files on your computer, the first obstacle you must overcome is copying the DVD files onto your hard drive.

Now DVDDecrypter can help you with this task, by providing you with easy means to rip the contents of your favourite DVD movies right onto your hard drive for further processing and editing.

Simply load the DVD movie in the computer's DVD drive and wait for DVDDecrypter to read the contents of the disc. You can then select all of them - or only those which you're interested in - and extract them directly on a selected folder of your hard drive.

Despite its simplicity DVDDecrypter includes interesting features such as support to decipher the CSS encryption algorithm, ability to remove the region code during the ripping process and support for multi-angle DVD movies.

The only drawback to this program is that it doesn't include any documentation and the support links inside the Help menu in the program don't work either. At least you can have a look at the step-by-step tutorial included in the developer's website.

DVDDecrypter is a compact yet powerful DVD ripping tool with which you can copy the contents of a DVD movie right onto your hard drive.

Download DVD Decrypter 3.5.4.0 in Softonic

SmartRipper is a free DVD application that you can use to create backups of DVDs on your hard drive. If you’ve got a big DVD collection and need a backup, then this is the sort of program you should be looking for. However, be warned that is only intended for backup purposes and not for duplicating commercial DVDs. The popularity of this program on Softonic is no doubt due to the fact that it is able to bypass many DVD encryption methods. However, development of SmartRipper recently ceased due to the legal implications of this so be sure that you only use the software to backup DVDs on which you own the copyright.

The first thing to know is that SmartRipper does not install itself on your machine. The download simply consists of the binary files including the SmartRipper.exe. All you have to do though is double click on the SmartRipper disk icon and the program interface pops up immediately. Unless you’ve got a DVD disk ready in your drive, the first thing you’ll receive is an error message saying ‘No DVD found’.

To use the program, simply insert a disc into your DVD-ROM drive. SmartRipper will automatically detect it and a short authentication process takes place to ensure that all files are readable. Once done, you’re presented with the main window. The program supports three copy modes: ‘Movie’ (copy the movie only), ‘Files’ (copy selected files only) and ‘Backup’ (copy whole disk). Obviously, the most flexible option is ‘Files’ mode since it allows you to select and deselect the check boxes next to the parts of the DVD you want to save. If you’re new to DVD ripping though, make sure that you know what you are ripping as it may not be clear from the file names on the DVD exactly which ones you want. If you’re unsure what you need from the disk, just start in ‘Backup’ mode and it will save absolutely everything on the disk.

Advanced users will be particularly impressed by SmartRipper. In the bottom half of the screen, the program gives you a breakdown of the technical data relating to each file on the disk. It automatically displays statistics such as the aspect ratio, display mode, resolution and max/min/average bitrate for every chapter. This is not much use for the average user but for multimedia specialists, it could prove useful if you plan to edit the DVD footage later. However, its advanced features go way beyond this, enabling you to refine almost every aspect of the ripping process.

A good example is the way it grabs the audio tracks. In ‘File’ mode, there are three options to choose from – ‘Direct stream copy’, ‘Demux to extra file’ and ‘Extract to new VOB (VOB means DVD Video Object – in other words, data on the DVD)’. ‘Direct stream copy’ does the standard ripper job of taking the 1:1 audio track from the disc. ‘Demux to extra file’ is a great option if you want to save the soundtrack without the video. It enables you to save the audio in a separate file away from the rest of the contents of the DVD. You can only save in WAV format but you could easily convert this to Mp3 with a simple converter. Finally, ‘Extract to new VOB’ does a similar job but the saved file will still be a valid VOB file. This means it can still be re-burned onto a DVD and is really useful if you want to extract the audio, edit it and then replace it back on a disc.

SmartRipper can be as simple or as complicated as you want it to be. It’s this wide appeal which makes this program one of the most popular DVD Rippers on Softonic.

Download SmartRipper 2.41 in Softonic

You probably have lots of different videos and films on your computer you would like to play on your home DVD player. Unfortunately, many DVD players can only read the standard DVD format and it's therefore a waste of resources to burn DVDs with avi, mpeg or wmv files.

DVD Flick comes in handy because it converts PC video files to a proper DVD format, readable by all standard devices. The final file size is much bigger than the original, for example: a 600mb requires a whole DVD. The conversion process is also very slow, but you can leave the program working while you use other applications, as you can select the priority your system gives to the conversion software. The final result will be an audio_ts and a video_ts folder, which is the standard for all DVDs and you can also chose to create an iso file which can be burned again at a later date. It would have been good to have the possibility to add subtitles but unfortunately this feature is missing.

If you are patient enough, DVD Flick is the perfect solution for burning your holiday movie to DVD, meaning that whatever DVD player your friends or family have, they’ll have no escape from your not-quite-Oscar-winning production.

This is a reliable program that does what it's meant to but at the end of the day, DVD Flick is really only going to be useful to people without a multi-format DVD player.

Download DVD Flick 1.2.2.0 in Softonic

Subtitle Workshop is the most complete, efficient and convenient freeware subtitle editing tool. It supports all the subtitle formats you need and has all the features you would want from a subtitle editing program. Subtitle Workshop makes subtitle creating/editing/converting tasks almost a pleasure, the amicable and intuitive interface mixes easy to access menus & must have features with advanced functions and a remarkable speed and stability, drastically reducing subtitle editing time. It includes spell check function and an advanced video preview feature which will ease the task even more. The best choice for the beginner, expert or the fansubber.

Download Subtitle Workshop 2.51 in Softonic

DVD Shrink enables you to copy a DVD very easily. Copying a DVD doesn't get much simpler than this. Put DVD into DVD-ROM or DVD burner. Choose either either a Full Disk (1:1) copy or a main movie only. It'll analyze DVD, encode video files , and finally burn a copy of the dvd to DVD±R media. Thus you have a excellent quality dvd copy of your original DVD.

Download DVD Shrink 3.2.0.15 in Softonic

FlasKMPEG converts digital video in the MPEG format to other formats. FlasKMPEG is very easy to use and at the same time powerful and fun! Here are some of the features:

• Full MPEG1/MPEG2 software video decoding
• VCD/SVCD/DVD video transcoding
• A52/MPEG audio decoding

Download FlasKMpeg 0.78.39 in Softonic

DVD protection is advancing at an ever increasing rate but unfortunately for the manufacturers, so are the ripping programs. If you’ve ever had problem’s copying one of your favourite DVD’s (just to make sure you’ve got a backup of course) then DVDFab could be what you’reve been looking for. It has proved popular a hit with thousands of Softonic users so far and there seems little prospect of its popularity waning.

DVDFab is an all-in-one DVD copying/converting/burning software. In just one or two steps, you can copy DVD’s to DVDR/PSP and even iPods. For such a powerful package, it only requires a mere 1.3MB of your hard drive hardrive so its not bulky like similar packages. However, note that this is the ‘lite’ version of the software; and the fully featured Express edition will probably weigh-in at somewhat more than this.

The conversion process itself couldn’t be easier. There are 5 DVD to DVD copy modes available - Full Disc, Main Movie, Split, Customize and Clone. To use any, its simply a matter of inserting your disk and Windows will ask you if you want to open it with DVDFab amongst other programs installed on your PC. In Full Disc mode, all movies, menus and trailers, are copied to a DVD in one click. In “Main Movie” mode, only the movie is copied with your specified audio. In “Split”’ mode, you can copy a DVD-9 onto two DVD-5 discs but also preserve the original menus on both discs. According to the developers, this rare little feature is apparently ideal for TV series DVD’s.

The handy “customize” mode allows you to personalize your DVD’s by recording such things as only your favourite scenes, removing adverts or selecting only certain audio tracks. Finally, “Clone”’ mode allows you to make exact 1:1 bit-to-bit copy of DVDs or even copy games disks such as PS2 DVD’s. There is also a DVD to Mobile option so you can reduce your favourite films to watch on your iPod or other favourite hand held device. Formats available include MPEG-4, DivX, XVID and Mp4.

DVDFab is a tough cookie – even those disks that refuse to be copied with other programmes can usually be cracked. The customise option allows you to get rid of pesky files that stand in your way and just rip the actual movie or essential files. It can also help in reconstituting recovering scratched or dirty disks that don’t play properly in your DVD player anymore. In addition, the ripping speed is remarkably fast. Depending on the size of disk, you can record a new one in less than 10 minutes although the average time is around 30 minutes.

One of the minor drawbacks to this ripper is that the inevitably heavy processing power needed to rip a disk often results in crashes. This will obviously be less of a problem on more powerful machines but on machines with old processors, using DVDFab may become impractical. Many user forums are however full of praise for DVDFab claiming that it can rip more disks and whatsmore, faster than comparable products such as DVD Shrink or ShrinkTo5. At the end of the day, most users consistently report they appreciate the simplicity and power of this rip-roaring ripper.

Download DVDFab HD Decrypter 5.0.9.0 in Softonic

SubMagic is an application to convert, edit, sync or create movie subtitles. It supports several formats, has a lot of features and functions, is easy to operate and best of all, its free. SubMagic is written in C++ using Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 and doesn't need a .NET framework or any other external libraries. DirectX 9.0c is needed for video playback.

Download SubMagic 0.70 in Softonic

FixVTS is a very tiny tool that allows you to adjust your DVD files into better DVD compliance, so they can be opened in DVDShrink or vobblanker. FixVTS does a similar job as what's called an "IFOEdit Mock Strip", but only adjusts as little information as possible in the VOB and IFO files to allow opening in other apps while keeping the DVD as similar as the original as possible

You would use FixVTS if you messed up your DVD, for example by applying the wrong tool, or aborting in the middle of some processing, and the result can no longer be used. Another good use is for DVDs that have been authored with errors in the IFO or VOB files, such that they still play on your player, but won't open in DVD editing tools such as DVDShrink, vobblanker and others. Yet another use is fixing DVDs created by DVD-VR.

Download FixVTS 1.603 in Softonic

StaxRip allows you to easily convert your DVD's, DVB or DV captures, or almost any other source format. As a open source application StaxRip is completely free. The program supports the most popular video formats (DivX, XviD, x264, MPEG-2, MPEG-4), audio formats (MP3, AC3, MP2/MPA, AAC, DTS, WAV) and container formats (AVI, MP4, MPG, MKV, DivX).

Features of StaxRip:

• No spyware, adware or any other form of malware
• No registry bloat, settings are saved in files within the application's directory
• No lost settings after a fresh windows installation
• No awkward setup/installer, no system changes, system bloat and trash
• Easy to use and highly customizable
• Reasonable default values for filters, codecs etc.
• Rich help system including, online help, context sensitive help and forum support
• Rich and convenient cutting facilities e.g. to remove ads
• Batch processing (jobs)
• Rich feature set to manage, integrate and download required third party application
• AviSynth powered to achieve excellent video quality and support of virtually any source format

Download StaxRip 1.1.1.0 in Softonic

AVIAddXSubs is a simple-to-use, free program that incorporates subtitles (XSUB) from .srt (ANSI text, up to 8 srt) or idx/sub (containing up to 8 subtitles) into AVI files containing DivX/XVid video streams.

It works simply by placing the AVI and SRT file into the same directory as the videos you want to play. Your media player should automatically detect them when you open the file. However, what AVIAddXSubs can do is merge the subtitles directly into the video that's going to be played.

This doesn't mean that every time you play the film the subtitles will show however. You still need to activate them within the player that you're using. After this, you can delete the SRT file as it's no longer needed since it has been "burned" into the video. However, sometimes you will find that the subtitles simply do not appear. If this happens, you'll probably have to configure the positioning of subtitles in your video player.

AVIAddXSubs is a great way to avoid needing to include an SRT file with every video you want to view subtitles with but you may have problems locating your subtitles once they've been "burned" in.

Download AVIAddXSubs 8.0 in Softonic

Have you ever wanted to extract the audio from that great concert you have on DVD? Until now, DVD audio ripping was a complicated task that only advanced users could face with some probability to success. But with Free DVD MP3 Ripper, everything just turned much easier.

This simple tool can rip the audio track from your DVDs and save it to MP3, so that you can enjoy that concert in your iPod on the move, or extract certain movie fragments to use them in your own video creations. The program supports not only DVD but also VCD, SVCD, MPG and MPEG movies. Besides, it also enables you to choose between several MP3 settings and edit the ID3 tags of the file you're about to create.

Free DVD MP3 Ripper is very easy to use. However, bear in mind that you may need the appropriate codecs to be able to preview the video in the embedded player and also to extract audio files successfully.

With Free DVD MP3 Ripper you can easily save DVD soundtracks as MP3.

Download Free DVD MP3 Ripper 1.21 in Softonic

Magic DVD Ripper is a very easy and powerful DVD ripping software, which can convert DVD to VCD, SVCD and AVI(DivX) formats or backup DVD to hard drive without any loss of quality. You can then enjoy them anytime without DVD discs, or burn them to blank DVD or CD discs using burning software.

Compared with competitors, Magic DVD Ripper has both convert function and backup function, and faster ripping speed. And other software may give you unsync audio/video, but this software always works perfectly.

Download Magic DVD Ripper 5.3 Build 4 in Softonic

Freez DVD Ripper is a DVD ripping tool to rip your favorite DVD movies to popular DivX/Xvid AVI files, H.264 MP4 files, and even iPod MP4 video files with fast DVD ripping speed and excellent quality.

With Freez DVD Ripper, you can choose which titles and chapters, audio tracks, and subtitle tracks of the DVD you want to rip. You can also choose the output video format from AVI (DivX MPEG4), AVI (Xvid), MP4 (H264) or iPod MP4 Video. You can also set the video size, bitrate and framerate, audio channel, bitrate and frequency. Freez DVD Ripper has a user-friendly interface and you can rip DVD with only a few clicks.

Take a look at what this program features:

• Rip DVD movies and convert DVD to MPEG-4 DivX / Xvid AVI format
• Rip DVD movies and convert DVD to H.264 MP4 format for Apple TV, PSP
• Rip DVD movies and convert DVD to iPod MP4 format
• Rip both encrypted or unencrypted DVD movies
• Select DVD source from both hard drive and real DVD
• Select the titles and chapters to be ripped from DVD
• Select the audio tracks and subtitle tracks to be ripped from DVD
• Set the output video resolution, video bitrate (up to 2500 kbps) and video framerate
• Set the output audio channel, audio bitrate and audio frequency
• High-speed conversion

Download Freez DVD Ripper 1.5 in Softonic

AVIPreview is capable of playing partially downloaded AVI movies. To make it unique, it is capable of playing files which are in the process of being downloaded (i.e Kazaa .dat files). Compatible with Morpheus 2.0, eMule, eDonkey2000, WinMX, Bearshare 4, GetRight.

• Preview AVI files without interruption of the download process
• Uses standard DirectX framework - no additional software needed
• Does not change your original files in any way

AviPreview enables you to view some of the video content of DivX3 or DivX4 AVI files when the file has become corrupt and you no longer have the start or end parts. AviPreview will save a movie out to a separate AVI file, made up of scenes that it managed to salvage from the corrupt file, so you can see what was in the file and decide whether or not to keep the corrupt movie. The current version also supports MPEG audio extraction, and has preliminary support for codecs other than DivX3/DivX4.

Download AVIPreview 0.85 Beta in Softonic

ImTOO DVD to MP4 Converter is a fast, easy to use DVD to MP4 ripper which helps you rip DVD's, convert DVD's to MP4, AVI, MPEG4, DivX, XviD, Apple TV video and PSP AVC video format. With formats changing and developing all the time, a new profile of PSP AVC video in 480 X 272 (PSPEXT) has been added, while the profile of Apple TV video has been improved to improve playback.

The output movie is playable on most portable media players (MP4 players that is) which the developers say includes Archos AV500, Archos AV700, Archos Gmini402, iRiver PMP-100, Creative Zen Vision, PSP and iPod, etc.

The problem with many similar converters is that there are few customisation settings for those that need extra control over how their video comes out. ImToo DVD to Mp4 Converter does not disappoint here offering tons of options over such things as the aspect ratio, compression format used and other technical settings.

As a result, this program is not really suitable for those that just want a simple Mp4 conversion but is a solid product for those that need a bit more control over the output file.

Download ImTOO DVD to MP4 Converter 5.0.35.0515 in Softonic

DVD2SVCD automates the complex multiple steps, and the latest techniques, to backup DVDs to CDRs for later playing on a standalone DVD player (that supports playing VCD/SVCDs). DVD2SVCD supports all steps from extracting the video information from the DVD, to the final creation of ready to burn to CDR the popular .bin/.cue format files (CDrwin/Fireburer/Nero/others).

Download DVD2SVCD 1.2.3.1 in Softonic

SubFind was developed in order to search subtitles in multiple web sites at the same time. The aim is to save time for users and to enable them to find the wanted subtitles quickly.

The integrated browser opens all sites and lists the results in its interface. The important point is that the listing is done only from the first of the result pages. Since the program works as a normal browser, it does not occupy the bandwidth of the sites in vain. When you double click on the chosen subtitles, the default browser opens the related download page of the web site of which the subtitle presents, as a new window page.

Download SubFind 1.7 in Softonic

If you've had problems watching ripped DVD's then RatDVD may be able help. It allows you to keep the full DVD feature set and watch it on any DVD player - without losing any features of the original DVD.

RatDVD takes a full featured DVD-9 movie and puts it into a highly compressed .RatDVD container format file of about 1.x GB in size while preserving all the features of the original DVD such as:

Full anamorphic picture, 16:9, 4:3, Pan/Scan, WideScreen, Lettorbox based on original DVD video content.
Support for full seamless branching, 9 multiple video angles, 32 subpictures, 8 audio channels, etc.
Keep movie versions (Directors Cut, Theatrical version, etc.), Alternate story endings, making of, visual commentary , cut scenes, animated anecdotes, etc.

This powerful DVD viewer could help you where others have failed.

Download RatDVD 0.78.1445 in Softonic