If you own a lot of Blu-ray discs, you might be wondering how to rip them to other formats so you can play them without using a Blu-ray player. The Blu-ray format is heavily promoted for its high quality and sparkling resolution. It looks great on HD televisions, but sometimes you might want to watch your movies on portable devices, or maybe you’re still waiting to buy a Blu-ray player. Instead of spending money on a second copy of your movie in DVD format, you can buy Blu-ray ripper software and rip the movie straight to the hard drive on your computer. There you can convert it into a more usable format and then copy it to your smartphone, music player, or other device.
Problems with Ripping Blu-ray Discs
The biggest obstacle when ripping Blu-ray is its enhanced copyright protection, which makes it very difficult to get a clean copy that you can watch on your other devices. As far as the entertainment industry is concerned, this is a feature, not a bug! That’s why third-party software programs that you can use to copy Blu-ray aren’t cheap. Prices vary, and better programs cost more. Generally, a good program will cost you about the same as three DVDs – about $65. But you can see how this type of program will quickly pay for itself – it’s much cheaper than buying DVDs of titles you already own in Blu-ray just so you can watch your movies on other devices.
Step by Step for a Successful Blu-ray Rip
Ripping a Blu-ray movie is easy with the right software. Here are some screenshots of the steps. We’re using Shinesoft Blu-ray Ripper by Iovsoft, but any similar program will do the job.
- First, slide your disc into your computer’s DVD player slot. Your computer must have a built-in DVD player or be connected to an external one, but it’s not necessary for it to be Blu-ray compatible – the software takes care of that.
- Next, go to your “Start” menu and double click on the software icon to open the ripper program.
- Now go to the list of profiles in the “Profile” dropdown menu, where you can choose which file format you want for your converted video file. Iovsoft has a very nice setup for choosing your output format. It gives you a list of every possible device imaginable, from conventional DVD player to iPhone, and automatically chooses the correct file format for the device you want to use. Since output formats can have confusing acronyms like FLV, H.264, and AVI, being able to set your format based on type of device is a feature you should look for when purchasing Blu-ray ripper software. In this case, we’re going to rip to MPEG format so we can play the video on our computer, iPhone, or iPod.
- Click on “Add.” Iovsoft DVD Ripper automatically detects the type of disk in your computer’s disk drive and gets it ready to copy.
- Finally, click the “start” button.
You’re done! Your movie is now stored on your computer’s hard drive in MPEG format.