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I'm looking for a free or GPL program to rip DVDs to avi. I have AutoGK, but that only makes a compressed DVD. I want full quality, filesize be damned!

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    Then why convert to avi? Most players today can play a dvd image.
    – Nifle
    Dec 20, 2009 at 21:22
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    If you want to skip extras, other languages, menues and such you can use dvd-shrink to remove that stuff and get a iso with just the movie.
    – Nifle
    Dec 20, 2009 at 21:24
  • I need avi format for AviSynth
    – user13743
    Dec 23, 2009 at 3:05

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There are a couple of things worth understanding here:

First, AutoGK is fairly customizable, you can rip the DVD to a 2GB AVI file that will have very near the quality of the source DVD.

Second, AVI is a fairly bad format for trying to do lossless things in. It is problematic to embed the subtitles and alternate audio streams.

Third, most of the time the output video will be 704 pixels (instead of 720) after ripping and converting - and there is a good reason. A lot of DVD content ends up having half black lines on the top and bottom, which becomes a problem for encoders, display and just general efficiency of the rip. As a result, many encoders will strip 8 pixels off the top and bottom (thus 720-16=704). Remember, this is actually a good thing!

Fourth, you would be well served by looking at using MP4 or MKV as containers instead of AVI. Maybe that doesn't fit into your overall master plan, but Windows 7 can play MP4 files in Windows Media Player now. These two formats have ways of handling the problems from the second issue described above.

Last, why not just store the .VOB and associated files decrypted if lossless is key and you don't care about file size?

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    +1 just for the last sentence. If he really doesn't care about size, just keeping an image of the DVD will save a lot of time.
    – Badaro
    Dec 21, 2009 at 0:48
  • I need avi for AviSynth.
    – user13743
    Dec 23, 2009 at 3:06
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    Then use AutoGK and crank the settings to the max. You realistically won't do any better.
    – Goyuix
    Dec 23, 2009 at 15:38
  • I don’t know about other encoders, but AutoGK doesn’t blindly strip lines from the top or bottom, it has a built-in auto-crop function that detects (as part of the first of the two passes) and strips any black bars, giving a clean edge to the actual video, not just an arbitrary amount.
    – Synetech
    Mar 2, 2011 at 1:31
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bitRipper can rip your DVDs straight to AVI in just a few clicks:

  • Select the drive letter and output location

    alt text

  • Click start ripping

    alt text

bitRipper is freeware.

If you are looking for a lossless codec that you can use with video ripping applications, check out huffyuv.

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  • I found bitRipper to crash when clicking Settings. I have a Vista Home edition.
    – Paul Nathan
    Jan 23, 2010 at 23:53
  • Also doesn't help if your content is already on the HDD... pretty daft if you ask me!
    – RomanSt
    May 17, 2010 at 17:06
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I would use DVD Shrink.

It doesn't create an AVI, but it let's you strip the DVD to something lighter by leaving out parts you don't want to have and/or by compressing only certain parts (like unused audio tracks).

alt text

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Try Handbrake

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  • doesn't output as avi but a great program nonetheless
    – user1931
    Dec 20, 2009 at 21:38
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I wonder :

As Virtualdub-MPEG2 supports VOB, whether you can simply do:

  • Open the VOB
  • Choose Video / Direct stream copy
  • File / Save as AVI

I can't actually try it, but it might work.

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  • Not hugely convenient, given the need to join the VOBs, but might be acceptable.
    – RomanSt
    May 17, 2010 at 17:04
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SUPER © (Simplified Universal Player Encoder & Renderer) can do that:

Input Video format: 3gp, 3g2, amv, asf, avi, dat, dvr-ms, fli, flc, flv, m2ts, mpg, mkv, mov, m4v, mp4, nsv, ogm, qt, rm(vb), str, swf, ts, trp, ty, ty+, tmf, viv, vob, wmv

"Direct Stream Copy" mode to render exact quality when the Video/Audio codecs are to be copied from the source file to the output file.

Just keep the original settings for the output (no change) if you don't want compression.

alt text

SUPER © is freeware.

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  • "direct stream copy" only works like this when your output format container supports the stream codec in use. can you put MPEG2 video in an AVI? (or, well, anything, other than MPEG2 program stream/transport stream container formats?)
    – quack quixote
    Dec 21, 2009 at 0:00
  • Yeah but some DVDs have the main content split across 3-4 VOBs...
    – RomanSt
    May 17, 2010 at 17:05
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+1 to keep an image of the dvd or the vob if you want lossless

Just decrypting it with RipIt4me or DVDFab HD Decrypter

And if you finally want to encode it: MeGUI

enter image description here

Not the easiest one but easy enough and powerful.

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vobcopy -l

Will create a single large VOB file from your DVD, in the working directory, with a filename based on the DVD label. If you have libdvdcss, it will even work on encrypted DVDs.

To specify an output filename:

vobcopy -l -o output.vob
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