Disc to Digital: 5 Reasons to Try This Hardware Accelerated DVD Ripper

While they have fallen in popularity over the past few years, DVDs were once king of the film scene, whether it was for blockbuster movies or home-made films to celebrate, memorialize or simply capture a moment to revisit with family and friends. Nowadays, with streaming and direct-to-PC film purchases, I’ll admit, even my DVD boxes have gotten quite dusty. That being said, I don’t want to lose all the memories in those family DVD’s, and certainly don’t want to repay for movies that I already have (though I no longer have a DVD player, come to think of it). But I also don’t want to spend potentially days of my life waiting for some slower-than-molasses DVD ripper to convert these movies into files that may or may not be even that great in terms of resolution and audio quality.

So when I was asked to test out the new WinX DVD Ripper Platinum with their level-3 hardware accelerator, I figured that worst case scenario, I’d get some family memories back, or best case scenario I’d have a full library of movies without having to pay for them yet again. As it so happened, while my collection did take a little bit of time, it was a fraction of what I was expecting it to, and WinX DVD Ripper Platinum had some extra features that did come in handy while performing conversions. Here, I’ll cover the top 5 features that stood out to me about this DVD ripper.

1. The Speed

Now, before we really get into exactly how fast WinX was on my system, there needs to be two things that need to be brought up: My own relevant PC specs, and what WinX means by their claim of a level-3 hardware accelerator. For the purposes of testing this program, I hopped onto my Asus Desktop with an Intel i7 CPU and an Nvidia GeForce 700 GPU with a 256 SSD hard drive, making it an already pretty fast machine, though it should be noted in normal conditions, one DVD that’s 90 minutes or so long can take almost 15 minutes.

Next up, what is the Level-3 Hardware Accelerator that WinX is touting? Well, in short, their level-3 hardware accelerator uses not only your CPU but also your GPU (if available) to enhance the speed of ripping while keeping quality high and also allowing you to use your computer for other things while not suffering from the “chunking” that’s so common otherwise. So, right now you might be wondering “Level-3 sounds really cool, but what happened to levels 1 and 2?” Well, level-1 hardware acceleration is a fairly common thing where there is some cooperation between GPU and CPU, but it is more focused on accelerating data transfers, but can cause a drop in image quality. Level-2 is a slightly more complex method, which in the case of rippers, often means parallel computing to buffer and extract raw data, often incorporating hyperthreading and can maintain a higher quality at a faster speed. While these are both good options, it is my experience that the level-3 hardware acceleration made a more efficient use of CPU and GPU components, and allowed for great quality and fast transfers. If you’re interested in learning more about the Accelerated DVD Ripping technology, then be sure to take a look at their information page here.

To test out this hardware, I had around 25 feature length DVD’s, and about 10 family DVDs which varied from around 5 minutes to an hour each. For the feature length DVD’s, I am happy to report that there was an average rip time of around 6 and a half minutes, with the fastest time being around 4 minutes and the slowest being 8. All of these DVDs maintained their quality in a fantastic manner (between 720p to 1080p) and the audio quality was as good as the original. One of the features I made sure was turned on was the De-interlacing engine with “Yadif Doublr Frames) that further ensured quality would be maintained even at break-neck rip speeds.
If you’re curious on watching how to do this for yourself with WinX Platinum’s hardware accelerator, I’d recommend watching this video tutorial.

2. File Conversion Options

With the advent of mobile video watching, preferred file types for video players, and all the like, having the option to convert a DVD into many different file types is an absolute need in a proper DVD Ripper. When it comes to the WinX Platinum Ripper, to be frank, there’s nearly too many options available, as they are typically the first to show up with file support for new format types. Sure, there’s Avi, Mp4, options for Android and Apple products, NAS Streaming, MOV and the more normal file types, but there are also several available which, to be honest, I hadn’t even heard of before. There are also several copy modes available, including transfer of DVD’s to ISO files which can make for very easy transfer. This can also be used to make backups of files in case of a disaster event. While transferring these files, you can also perform edits to most files including merging multiple videos together, add subtitles, edit audio, and crop images as is appropriate, making this ripper a decent editor as well.

3. Repair Features

Within my collection of DVD’s, there were admittedly two wild cards. One feature length DVD had been stained, scratched up and in summary, a complete mess. Another, a family DVD didn’t appear to have much wrong with it but the files inside appeared corrupted when ever I went to play it. Luckily, in both cases, WinX DVD Ripper Platinum was able to read, copy and save the files so that I could keep them on a more sturdy medium. In truth, I have no real idea how they managed to make this possible but I certainly won’t be complaining about it any time soon.

4. UI and Ease of Use

Of course, none of the above features really matter if they are hard to use or look like a mess in the first place. Luckily, neither of these are true for WinX, as the User Interface is simple, clean and effective, and the process of transferring, ripping and editing files is about as easy as any software of this type could be. Even people who aren’t tech inclined are likely to have an easy time of transferring their DVDs into multi-platform file types.

5. Affordability

Lastly, while many rippers can also feel like they are ripping you off, WinX DVD Ripper Platinum is, while not free, certainly affordable given all the features entailed. Now, simply reading a review of the product may not make you want to commit to a purchase outright, but that’s okay. If you want to try your own hand at some of WinX’s products, they do offer a free DVD ripper, which is linked to here. After trying it out though, you’ll see why you can trust WinX to get the job done, and with Platinum, how it can be done in a spectacular fashion.

Overall, the quality and performance of WinX DVD Ripper Platinum was wonderful, with Level-3 Hardware Acceleration, plenty of file options, and features that seem to think of any situation or need. If you’re interested in more information, I’d encourage you to take a look at their information page and give their products a try.