How to Use VLC to Rip DVDs on Windows/Mac [Detailed Steps]

Although VLC support playing DVD discs on your Windows/Mac, you can also use VLC to rip DVDs to play them on other video players easily. Furthermore, it supports exporting DVDs to almost all commonly-used video formats. Thus, keep reading this article and know about how to rip a DVD with VLC in the following parts, and you will also know the best replacement for VLC to rip DVD with high quality.

What You Need to Know Before Starting

VLC can rip DVDs. But it's not a dedicated DVD ripper. It's a media player with a hidden conversion feature built in. That distinction matters a lot.

Here's what the original article glosses over:

VLC works well for: Homemade DVDs, unencrypted discs, VIDEO_TS folders saved on your hard drive.
VLC struggles with: Most commercial DVDs (even with libdvdcss installed), Disney/Sony/Paramount titles with advanced protection, Cinavia-protected discs.

Common problems users actually report:

• Audio is completely missing from the ripped file.
• Audio/video out of sync. It gets worse the further into the movie.
• DVD ripping is stuck in a 2-minute loop that never finishes.
• The output file is 1KB or corrupted.
• Crashes during ripping of protected discs.
• Choppy playback in the ripped file due to frame rate mismatch.

Realistic speed: A 90-minute DVD takes 30-50 minutes to rip in VLC. It uses the CPU only. There is no GPU acceleration for encoding. On older hardware, it can take much longer.

These aren't rare edge cases. They come up constantly on the VideoLAN forums and elsewhere. Expect some trial and error if you're ripping commercial DVDs.

Detailed Steps on How to Use VLC Rip DVD Disc

What you need:

• VLC Media Player (download from videolan.org. Always use the official site to bypass viruses or malware.)
• A computer with a DVD drive (internal or external USB.)
• Enough storage space (~4-8GB for a movie in decent quality.)

Before learning how to rip DVD using VLC, here’s what you need to know about the famous media player. If you are going to rip DVDs with VLC, expect that its interface is not that straightforward, unlike other DVD Ripping software, since it is not really made to rip DVDs. It is used mainly for playing videos as one of the popular media players today.

However, VLC is also a good tool to rip DVDs for beginners. Aside from conversion, ripping, and playing functions, it can also change the title and chapter, adjust settings, add subtitles, etc. Another thing you should know about VLC is that you might have a problem hearing audio in your video file. Plus, it is out of sync and has a choppy result after the conversion, resulting in trouble ripping, so this guide is essential. Read on to learn how to VLC rip DVD easily and quickly.

Step 1Make sure the VLC Media Player is downloaded and installed on your computer before getting started. After getting the program, insert a DVD into your computer drive.

Launch VLC, click on the Media at the above menu, and select the Open Disc in the drop-down menu to open your disc into the program. Alternatively, you can also click on Convert/Save.

Step 2You will be navigated to a new window, click on the checkbox of No disc menus to avoid any errors in doing VLC rip DVD. Then, click the Browse button to locate your DVD.

Step 3If you want to rip a part of the DVD with VLC, select the titles and chapters you want to rip. In Audio and Subtitles, VLC enables you to choose your preferred language. Once done, you can click the Convert/Save button.

Step 4Next, in the Convert window, you can select the output format by clicking the Profile drop-down menu. If you want to adjust video settings, you can click on the Wrench icon beside the drop-down of Profile. Lastly, click on the Start button to start ripping DVDs with VLC.

Also, note that when you rip DVD using VLC, its ripping function may only sometimes work properly due to copy-protected DVDs. You can encounter crashes during the ripping process, especially if converting it to MP4 format. Moreover, after you click on Start, the process might be stuck in a loop and is too slow. It may look like it works perfectly, but once the ripping process is done, it has no audio or is out of sync. If you experience some of these drawbacks of doing VLC rip DVD, learn the ultimate solution in the next part.

The Best Alternative to VLC to Rip DVD with High Quality

Stop looking for the best replacement for VLC rip DVD since 4Easysoft DVD Ripper is there to provide. This program can be your ultimate choice as it supports more than 600 file formats, such as MP4, AVI, MP3, WAV, etc., unlike other DVD rippers that only support limited formats. Besides converting, it provides editing features, including adding subtitles, and audio tracks, applying effects, adding watermarks, cropping, and so forth. Also, it can help you extract audio tracks from homemade DVDs and convert them to your desired lossless files. Feel free to enjoy ripping DVDs with VLC’s best alternative.

Step 1Download 4Easysoft DVD Ripper and open the program once done. On the main interface, click the Load DVD button. You can choose Load DVD Disc. Remember to insert the disc into your computer drive to load DVD files.

Step 2After loading the files, you can click the Full Title List, and all titles will appear. Tick the checkbox of all your chosen titles you want to add. Confirm the selection by clicking the OK button.

Step 3Three options for the output file are provided: Rip to Video/Audio, Rip to DVD Folder, and Rip to DVD ISO File. Select the Rip to Video/Audio. Then, go to the Rip All to drop-down menu to choose the output format with a customized resolution, including MP4, MOV, MKV, etc. It’s great if you choose the MPG Lossless since it gives you the original quality of your DVD file.

Step 4When done customizing, click on the Rip All button at the bottom-right corner to rip DVDs without VLC and get your ripped DVD immediately.

Copy-Protected DVDs and libdvdcss

Most commercially purchased DVDs are encrypted with CSS (Content Scramble System). VLC includes libdvdcss in its Windows and Mac builds, which lets it bypass basic CSS encryption for ripping.

What libdvdcss can handle:

• CSS encryption (standard on most pre-2010 commercial DVDs).
• Basic region codes.

What libdvdcss cannot handle:

• Disney X-Project DRM (99 fake title protection).
• Sony ARccOS (bad sector protection).
• Cinavia audio watermarking.
• Most newer studio protection schemes from 2010 onward.

Do you need to manually install libdvdcss?

No. If you're on Windows or Mac and have installed VLC from videolan.org, libdvdcss is already bundled. You don't need to download or install anything extra.
The exception is Linux. Most Linux distributions don't include it by default due to legal reasons in some regions. You need to install it separately via your package manager.

FAQs about Using VLC to Rip DVD Disc

• Can I rip DVD using VLC with copy-protection?

  VLC can’t rip copy-protected DVDs alone; the program needs help to read the DVD's data, and this is the libdvdcss. You can also use the VLC and Handbrake together to rip DVDs with copy protection.

• How to rip DVD using VLC on Mac?

  The process is almost the same when ripping in Windows. When using VLC on Mac, the first thing you need to do is to launch VLC. Then, click the File menu when the interface shows up on the screen. Select the Open Disc option. Afterward, click the Disable DVD menus and click the checkbox of Stream output then go to Settings, where you can make some adjustments. Once finished, you can click the OK button and then Open.

• What is the common reason why VLC can’t rip DVDs?

  If you notice VLC does not rip your DVD, it is because of technical issues. Some are because of the VLC itself, meaning you don't have the latest version of VLC or you have copy-protected DVDs.

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