Rip a Copy Protected DVD to Your Hard Drive for Free with DVDFab HD Decrypter
DVDFab’s HD Decrypter is one of my most essential video conversion tools. Although, it can be rather confusing to understand just what HD Decrypter is when compared to DVDFab. So, I thought I’d take the time to walk through it and explain just what it is and what it does.
In simple terms, DVDFab HD Decrypter is the always free portion of the DVDFab application. However, If you look through the DVDFab program trying to find HD Decrypter, you’re going to be looking a long time! You won’t find it listed among the options in DVDFab.
I’ll break it down a bit more. When you use the DVD to DVD option in DVDFab to copy a DVD, it’s done in a couple steps.
- First, it removes the copy protection and copies the contents of the DVD to your hard drive,
- Then it burns the contents back to a writable DVD
HD Decrypter is essentially just that first step. Removing the copy protection and ripping the VIDEO_TS and AUDIO_TS folder to your hard drive. It not really a separate program. It’s the portion of the software that remains unlocked after the DVDFab trial expires. Don’t let that fool you, however. The HD Decrypter is a very powerful and useful tool.
Note: One difference between the full paid version of DVDFab and HD Decrypter is that HD Decrypter is not updated with the latest protection removal for about 30-60 days after it is release for the pay version.
Let’s jump in and see how it works.
Open DVDFab and then insert your DVD into your optical drive. You’ll be prompted to choose your region code. Click OK.
DVDFab will begin scanning your media. This process could take up to few minutes, so be patient. When the scan is finished you’ll be presented with the main interface.
With HD Decrypter you’ll have the option of ripping either the full disc, or just the main movie. All other options will be unavailable after the trial period.
The Full Disc will include the entire DVD, but will have a much larger file size. Main Movie will only convert the movie or TV series and probably save you a few Gigabytes in hard drive space. You can see the output size at the bottom of the main window.
If you are choosing to convert the Full Disc, Click Start to begin the process. You’ll be met with a pop up reminding you that you are using the “DVD to DVD” option, even if the trial is over and you are merely removing copy protection. Click the Do not show again option if you don’t want the constant reminder, and then click “OK.”
The processing time will vary depending on your hardware and file size. You can follow the conversion progress at the bottom, which includes the approximate remaining task time.
When the process is finished, you’ll be prompted to insert a writeable DVD into your optical drive. If the trial over, just clickCancel. Otherwise, you’ll be met with a message…..
Click Finish.
If you’d like to avoid having to clicking cancel after each rip, change the default output type to DVD Folder (Instead of DVD Writer) This can be found under DVD to DVD in the Common Settings. You can get to the Common Settings by clicking the green check button at the top right.
By default, your Video TS and Audio TS folders will be saved to \DVDFab\Temp\FullDisc directory in your Documents folder. For example, in Windows 7, it would be: C:\Users\%username%\Documents\DVDFab\Temp\FullDisc\[Name of Your DVD]
Resources:
Category: Media Conversion
