By Jeffry Thurana, MakeUseOf – September 23, 2010 at 12:31PM
When it comes to the video converting business, the name that pops up in most people’s mind is Handbrake. And why shouldn’t it? Handbrake gets the job done and it’s free. But that’s the problem with having something convenient: you settle for that and stop looking for alternatives.
There are other good video converters out there too. Some manage to get their name known, while some are still flying below the radar. Two of them are DVD Ripper and Video Converter from MacX. The combination of these two will be able to fulfill the ripping and converting needs of every movie lover who uses a Mac.
Rip & Backup
The first member of the dynamic duo is a DVD ripping app. As the name suggests, this one will help you rip and back up your DVD movie collection. But it is no ordinary DVD ripper, because it allows you not only to rip but also to convert the result into the format that you want. So you can go directly from a DVD disc to an iPhone compatible file without any additional effort.
The first step in using the app is to click the “DVD Disc” button at the top left of the window. A small window will appear, letting you choose what disc you want to rip from the drop down menu.
The app will analyze your disc and display all the available segments. The app will also automatically choose the recommended segment to rip (usually this would be the longest part).
From my experiment I can safely say that this app handles copy protected DVDs better than Handbrake. While both apps can handle ordinary DVDs just fine, Handbrake freezes with most of the copy protected ones.
Aside from the available segments, there are other settings that you can tweak from the interface such as audio settings, subtitles, start and end time, and also the location where the conversion result should be saved.
The next step is to choose the video output settings. There are some pre-configured settings available for users to choose from: MP4, iTunes, MOV, Music, MPEG, and FLV. Even though you have to upgrade to the Pro version to have more ready to use settings, the available ones on the free version are enough to cater to our daily needs. Moreover, the available settings are also adjustable should you find the need to change.
But please note that changing the settings are not advisable if you don’t know what you are doing. After everything is set, click the “Start” button.
A small progress window will appear, giving you overall information about the ripping process. There are also options to shut down the computer and open the output folder after the process is complete. All that’s left for you to do is wait for the conversion to finish.
Another bonus feature of the app is the ability to view and take screenshot(s) from the movie. Just move the slider to the position that you want and click the camera button to the right of the slider.
Convert Video Files
The second member of the team is the Video Converter. This one specifically handles file to file conversion and will be especially useful for those who want to bring their movies to mobile devices. The working principle is basically the same with the DVD Ripper; but instead of choosing a DVD to rip, this one will ask you to find video files to convert.
From my simple experiment, I found that the conversion process took more or less the same time as Handbrake. There are some cases where Handbrake is slightly faster than the Video Converter.
Another difference between the Video Converter and the DVD Ripper are the number of pre-configured settings. There are options in the Video Converter that are not present in the DVD Ripper, such as: iPhone, iPod, iPad, Blackberry and Android.
The Good, The Bad & The Verdict
To sum up, I will try to quickly compare the DVD Ripper – Video Converter combo with Handbrake.
First, the good. As I’ve mentioned above, DVD Ripper handles copy-protected DVDs better than Handbrake while Video Converter has more pre-configured settings than Handbrake.
Second, the bad. I personally think that the developer could just combine the two apps into one, so users could do everything using just one app – just like Handbrake. As for the conversion speed, we could say that Handbrake is faster – even though the difference is not too significant.
And for the verdict, I think it’s up to the end users to choose which app they prefer to use. But whatever the choice is, it’s always good to have options.
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