Ripping a DVD to your computer is really quite easy as long as you have the right tools, unfortunately its illegal in a lot of places. If you really don’t give two shits what the record industry thinks and want to make full quality copies of your DVD’s for ‘backup purposes’ then read on…

For this tutorial you will require two tools. DVD Decrypter allows you to break the copy protection on the DVD and copy its contents to your computer then Auto Gordian Knot will extract the correct program chain and encode it into a usable format. Obviously the first step is to download and install these two programs.

1. Pop your DVD in the drive and start up DVD Decrypter. You should see a window like this…
2. The first thing you need to do is set the copy mode to IFO…
3. Then make sure that you have selected a destination for the DVD’s contents to be copied to. You will need this later…
4. Now it gets a little tricky – you need to select the correct program chain from the tree view under the Input tab. Usually DVD Decrypter will open the correct section so all you need to do it click the one with the same duration as the film you are ripping. If you are ripping individual episodes from a box set then you will have to perform steps 1,3 and 4 for each episode.  Some DVD’s contain the same content in different languages so don’t be put off if your rip ends up in French, you can always backtrack to this step and try again. When you are ready click the play button to begin copying.
   
5. You should see something like the window below whilst DVD Decrypter copies the contents of the DVD to your hard drive. It’ll take about 10-25 minutes to complete depending on the length of the program chain you selected and the speed of your computer.
   
6. If you want to do more than one DVD then rip them now by following steps 1 to 6 again before you continue. The next program we will be using will take a couple of hours to complete so it is often more efficient to set it up in batch mode and leave it running over night – you’ll find out how to do this later. When you load Auto GK you should see this window…
   
7. Next click the open button, navigate to the DVD Decryptor rip directory you specified in step 3 and select the first VOB file then click OK. An output location will be automatically generated – if you want to change it just click the little folder icon next to the Output File text box.
   
8. Now select the first audio track and, optionally, whichever subtitles you want (if there are any).
   
9. Next you need to select the output size for your rip.  I always select the “Target quality (in percentage)” option and set it to 100%. This produces a huge file but its the same quality as the original. If you want to use a predefined size then select either 700mb or 1400mb for a film and 350mb for a 30 minute TV episode.
   
10. Click the advanced settings button then set everything up exactly as it is in the image below…
    
11. (optional) You may want to preview the final output at this stage to make sure that you have selected the correct language. If its all foreign then try selecting a different audio track and preview again. If its still foreign after trying each audio track then go back to the beginning and try a different program chain. Please note that it may take 10-15 minutes before the preview appears after clicking the preview button.
    
12. Click the Add Job button. If you have more rips to add then simply repeat steps 7, 8 and 12 for each one then click the Start button.
    
13. Wait a couple of hours for the encoding to complete then enjoy your restriction free DVD rip!