Best possible quality DVD ripping?

[Flenix]

Hey guys,

I have a fairly complex ask here. Basically, I have a load of DVDs (Films and box sets) that I want to rip and put on my media server, so I can put the hard copies in the attic and they'll stop cluttering up my house.

However, after trying many, MANY rippers, none of them give a good enough quality. So, I found this forum and asking: Does anyone know of a rip that will give DVD-quality, but without it being an ISO?
My requirements:

• I don't care about file size. I've not bought the storage hard drives yet, so thats irrelivant until I do (I can effectively get 16TB on the server with a bit of money spent )
• It CANNOT be an ISO file. Ideally, MP4 or AVI but I'm fine with other common formats too. I play the files on my xbox, computer, and three different PC's running XBMC, and those can't play ISO's.
• I don't care about bonus features, menus etc. I just want the main feature(s).
• It must be the best possible quality, as if I was watching the DVD.
• I don't care about the price as long as it isn't ridiculous. My media network has proved incredibly cheap so far, so I still have enough money to spend on things like this.

I know this is possible from when we watched a copy of Iron Man off a friends memory stick. It was absolutely brilliant quality, and when I asked where he got it he told me he torrented it. I found the torrent in question (I don't use them, but wanted to see if the post named the ripping software), and although it did claim to be a DVD rip it didn't say what software.

So, does anyone know of some software that'd be good for me?
Some extra bonus things would be good too, but not essential:

• Multi-platform. I have a windows, a macbook, a power mac and two linux machines. If I can get the same decent software on all 5, I can rip my collection 5x faster.
• If Linux-based, I want to be able to write a script to automatically rip and save a DVD I put in, and eject it again once done. This would foolproof the system for my family when we get new DVDs in the future.
• All-in-one software. I saw a few solutions that used two or three different programs in the process. Apparently the quality still wasn't that great, but I'd rather not go through multiple things per disk - I can see it getting very tedious!

Any help would be absolutely brilliant. I don't mind a bit of complex stuff, I know how to use google if I get stuck

 

[SNGX1275]

Handbrake is cross platform and will rip them for you with the help of VLC. It will compress to .mp4 or .m4v so with that compression you will lose some quality (I'm sure the dvd rip torrent was also compressed to h.264 as well, or xvid). Here is a link that will help you: http://lifehacker.com/5773000/how-to-rip-dvds-with-handbrake

To get the absolute best quality (really unnecessary with h.264) you'd need to get the straight mpeg2 stream. I forget how you do that since most people haven't done that with dvds since divx first came out, but I think you use something to decrypt and then a program like TMPGEnc or maybe VirtualDub. Google Gordian Knot dvd ripping if you want to do the long complex way. But I think you are far better off trying to get a quality to your liking with Handbrake.

 

[Rocky4810]

I recommend that you use DVD Shrink. That's what I used to create a movie channel for a business. I ripped a bunch of DVDs we had bought with the 100% compression. Without the menus and extras, most of the videos were about 3 or 4 GB, depending on the length of the movie.

I then put them all on an external hard drive and plugged it into the USB port on a WD TV Live streaming media player configured to loop the movies. It turned out well. I have a nice high quality movie channel that takes about 5 days before a movie repeats.

There's a nice guide on how to use DVD Shrink at http://techtonicguides.com/. Just click on Other > Backing up DVDs.

 

[stonarda]

I use digiarty software. Its free, and I have never looked back!! You can adjust the quality and settings...etc

 

[stonarda]

Here is the link >>> http://www.winxdvd.com/dvd-ripper/

 

[captaincranky]

So SNGX1275, I suppose if I respond to this necrobump you'll be all over me like white on rice, won't you? That's exactly why I'm not going to, in spite of the fact I have the best answer...

 

[cliffordcooley]

So SNGX1275, I suppose if I respond to this necrobump you'll be all over me like white on rice, won't you? That's exactly why I'm not going to, in spite of the fact I have the best answer...

Yo Cap what was your answer? Do you even remember 5 years later.

 

[captaincranky]

Yo Cap what was your answer? Do you even remember 5 years later.

@cliffordcooley Cliff, "the money's in the mail", so to speak.