New Software To Be Reviewed Review

OJOSoft DVD Ripper is an excellent tool for ripping DVD movies, i.e. converting DVD movies to formats you like, and create a compressed or uncompressed backup. I've been doing this for a while now, to keep my movie collection compressed, and the copies also play easily on my DivX-Ultra-compatible DVD player.

The several convenient preset modes in this program allow you to convert DVDs into your format of choice, including DivX AVI for DVD players, iPhones, Blackberries, PSP, XBox and Zune. The FLV and Flash SWF formats will create videos suitable for YouTube or for direct streaming for your own website. There's an option to transfer to Adobe Premiere format too, although I didn't try it. If it works, that could satisfy all your video editing needs! The subtitles and audio can be embedded by simply enabling and choosing the correct subtitle and track. If need be, you can separate the audio from the DVD as a MP3 or WMA file. Splitting into chapters can make it easy to carry several pieces of the movie on portable media.

The interface can't be any simpler. You have to simply choose the location of the DVD (or a DVD folder on your hard drive), select the output folder, scroll through the preset modes and pick one, and simply press the convert button. There is an Edit button that allows you to customize your conversion preferences. This is very important when you're trying to compress as much as possible while keeping the quality. What I found lacking was an estimate of the disk space that the final output will take up after conversion. This is VERY important if you're planning to copy your AVI's later on other media!

The conversion time is not amazingly fast, as claimed, but I suppose it's limited by the read speed of my DVD-ROM. Converting 20% of a DVD to a DivX AVI -- that's the trial limitation -- took about 25 minutes of my time, but even then it's simpler to use than other software that I've seen before. The compression is standard as any other ripper. The quality of conversion is satisfactory, although I could spot splits in the frames, but they don't occur so often as to be noticeable. I've noticed this with other programs too.

The online help is nothing but a single page showing a 5-step instruction. I expected to see details on choosing conversion formats. But I suppose the casual user needs only this simple set of operations.

I would recommend this DVD Ripper for casual and amateur users.