Friday , April 19 2024
Do you want to backup that DVD?

Software Review: WinX DVD Ripper Platinum from Digiarty Software

WinX DVD Ripper is a free software product that helps the end user to extract the content of a DVD to computer hard drive as well as converting it to popular video formats. It supports the conversion of many types of DVDs into most of the more popular video formats such as AVI, WMV, MOV, MPEG1/2, MP4 and FLV.

When you spend good money on a DVD, it seems to make sense that you want to make a backup copy, especially for a title that may get a lot of play. These would include the kid's titles that can get worn out after hundreds of hours — especially if they eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches while removing the DVD — as well as the blockbusters that get played over and over.

This is where WinX DVD Ripper Platinum comes in. While it is fairly easy to make copies of many older DVDs, the newer ones, especially the blockbusters, have come out with more sophisticated schemes to stop you from making backups, or porting your videos to alternate devices such as your iPod. For those DVDs you need the power of WinX DVD Ripper Platinum.

WinX DVD Ripper Platinum gives you the ability to make archives as well as alternate forms of your movies quickly and easily. If you are making a straight backup of your DVD, it can take as little as five minutes. You just pop your DVD in and select the output and you are done. If it is one of the new schemes, you may have to play with it a bit. There are some additional instructions on the WinX DVD site to help you along, but the overall speed is the same.

If, on the other hand, you are converting to a different format such as iPod, it may take more time to finish. It appears that it takes about the same time as the movie itself. That isn’t too big of a deal but it would be nice if it were faster.

The interface is very user friendly and easy to get around in. For most of the formats you get a lot of options built in where you can change things within the audio and video settings allowing you to alter quality, sample rates, video resolution, aspect ratio, and more.

Within the "Copy" tab, where you make a straight copy of the DVD, there are no options. Just a 1:1 copy. While I know that this done is for speed purposes, I would still like to have the ability to force the resulting output to a 4.4 GB DVD for archive purposes.

Along with that there are a number of other improvements to the interface that could make it a bit easier to get around such as when you are in the title browse window, you can't scroll down using the mouse wheel. You have to drag the slider bar. When you slide the bar on the video screen, it highlights the start time box, but if you enter a start time, it doesn't change the slider bar on the video screen which makes it hard to find an exact shot.

Other than that, all-in-all, WinX DVD Ripper Platinum provides a good interface to a quality product that will provide you with backup and alternate copies of your movies. If you need to make a copy of one of your DVDs, especially one of the newer ones, then I suggest that you check into WinX DVD Ripper Platinum.

About T. Michael Testi

Photographer, writer, software engineer, educator, and maker of fine images.

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One comment

  1. Total rip-off software company. Gave away this program as a freebie with lifetime license, but it stops working four weeks later, insists you pay to update. E-mail response to enquiry was garbage, and did not address their violation of the terms of the giveaway. In addition, its believed this program installs spyware, perhaps part of how they scam you for more money. I would avoid Digiarty products, even on a paying basis. Very scammy company!