It’s been said that physical media is dying. Instead of buying a DVD or a Blu Ray, people prefer to download movies or use streaming services like Netflix or Hulu. Instead of purchasing a physical video game, people prefer to just download it. Although it’s sort of sad to see the world headed in this direction, it makes sense. It’s much more convenient to store your media on a computer or in the cloud than it is to store your media on a disk. But what does this shift mean for those of us who already own a ton of physical media? Are you out of luck? Will you have to repurchase your whole movie collection just so that you can get it onto your computer? Luckily, there is software out there that is meant to specifically help people in this sort of situation. They let you carry your physical collection over into the digital world.
A DVD ripper software doesn’t actually rip up your DVDs. It takes your DVD, scans it, and “rips” a video file from it. It’s generally a simple process, but finding the right software for this isn’t always easy. You ideally want something that’s both fast and effective, ripping a video that is just as high quality as it would be if it were playing directly off the disk. In this article, I’m going to be talking about a specific DVD ripping software called Wonderfox DVD Ripper Pro. I plan on going through all of the specific details and features of this software. I’m also going to take you through a brief tutorial that shows you how it’s meant to be used. Finally, I’ll make sure to let you know whether or not Wonderfox DVD Ripper Pro is actually worth your time. That’s enough talk. Let’s get right into this review.
Software Details
Price:Â $29.95
Discount / Coupon Code: Click here to save $10
Features:
- Removes any DRM protection, along with region code protection
- Supports pretty much every type of encrypted DVD, regardless of age
- Removes advertisements and trailers from video file automatically
- Detects correct title of ripped video
- Capable of outputting video file as an MP4, AVI, MKV, MOV, WMV, and a lot more
When you’re thinking about a DVD ripping software, there are a few things that you probably really care about. First of all, you’re going to be wondering about conversion speed. Whether you’re looking to convert a massive library of DVDs or just a couple, you’re probably going to want to have this job done fairly quickly. No one likes when these kinds of processes end up taking a long time. With Wonderfox DVD Ripper Pro, you can expect a 150 minute DVD to be fully ripped and converted to an MP4 format within 20 minutes. If you’re trying to save the video as an MPG file, it should take a fraction of that time. That’s pretty fast considering how complex this operation is, and it’s worth noting that most movies are shorter than 150 minutes long to begin with.
You may also be wondering about how the quality of your DVD is preserved during the ripping process. Whenever you convert things across different formats, it’s understandable if the quality slips just a little bit. After all, you’re sort of changing the data at a very fundamental level. However, that isn’t really a concern with this software. It’s able to compress videos to a much smaller size without really losing any quality. This is especially impressive considering the speed of this converter, which I mentioned before. Not to mention, this software removes things like region codes. You may not know this, but movies are locked behind different regions, which means that you can’t play certain movies on certain DVD players depending on the region code of both. This software removes that. The decryption isn’t really necessary in a DVD ripping software, but it’s certainly a plus.
How do you use Wonderfox DVD Ripper Pro?
If you’re not very good with computers or technology in general, then I can understand why you might be a little hesitant to purchase this product. It’s no good to buy something only to realize that you don’t know how to use it. However, you might be happy to hear that this software is actually quite easy to use. Even the least tech literate person should be able to make use of it. The first thing that you need to do is have an DVD on hand, obviously. You need to load this DVD into your computer through its optical drive. If you don’t have an optical drive, then you should be able to purchase a USB enabled optical drive that works just as well. No matter how you do it, you need to make it to where your computer could play the DVD. Then you need to make sure that you have your copy of Wonderfox DVD Ripper Pro fully downloaded and ready to go.
Once the software is open, click the Load DVD button from the top of the screen and select the DVD that is in your computer. From here, Wonderfox DVD Ripper Pro should be able to almost instantly detect the title of your movie or television show. This may seem like a really small thing, but it’s definitely a helpful feature if you’re trying to convert a large library of DVDs. It does a little bit of work for you. Once that’s done, it’s up to choose your desired output format. This software has a huge amount of options in terms of output formats, so I think that just about everyone should be able to find what they’re looking for here. If you’re overwhelmed by the options here, just know the .mp4 is kind of the standard format for digital videos. It’s a good safe choice. Once that’s select, just click the ‘Run’ button on the bottom right corner of the screen and let the program work its magic! The converted file will be placed in the output folder specified at the bottom of the window.
For specific guides we recommend checking out the following detailed breakdowns:
How To Rip DVD’s to Devices & Platforms
How To Convert To Different Formats
How To Edit Subtitles
Is Wonderfox DVD Ripper Pro worth it?
So, the big question is whether or not this software is actually worth your money. It’s not really free, so it’s something that you may be on the fence about acquiring. First, I just want you to consider the benefits of digital media over physical media. To begin with, it obviously takes up less space. It’s all just stored within your computer. If digital storage space is an issue, then you can look into a cloud storage service that will let you store your movies and television shows entirely for free in a cloud-based setting. There’s also convenience. With a digital media library, you don’t have to worry about scratched disks or missing cases or anything like that. Everything is in its place, and it’s all set up in such a way that’s generally a lot more convenient than a physical collection. So if that’s what you’re conflicted about, I don’t think you have any real reason to be.
Once you’re set on the idea of a digital media library, consider what you would have to do without a ripping software like this one. You would have to go through a service like iTunes or Amazon to individually purchase a digital version of every physical movie or television show that you already own. And once everything is purchased, it’s still locked behind a DRM. (Meaning, you have to use iTunes or Amazon to access them.) If you have a very large physical collection, this will add up very quickly to a bill that costs a lot more than $29.95. That said you can save $10 on your purchase by clicking the link in the price section above. Wonderfox DVD Ripper Pro provides an affordable and reasonable alternative to that, and I think that it’s well worth your money for that reason alone. It’s easy to use, effective, and in the grand scheme of things, a good bargain.
