# DVD ripping without a DVD burner?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dvd-ripping-without-a-dvd-burner/199257>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [September 3, 2003, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dvd-ripping-without-a-dvd-burner/199257 "2003-09-03T02:44:17Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 3

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**Author:** ![neutron\_star](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/51bf81/32.png) [@neutron\_star](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/neutron_star)\
**Post date:** [September 8, 2003, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dvd-ripping-without-a-dvd-burner/199257/41 "2003-09-08T15:36:07Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by sailor \*  
> **neutron star** , suddenly a question occurs to me:Shouldnt it be that DVD2AVI (at that point of the conversion) I should get a choice of what subtitles (if any) and what language soundtrack I want?

For the subtitles, you’ll want to use a program called SubRip. [Here](http://www.doom9.org/index.html?/subtitle_guides.htm) is a subtitle guide. You can extract the audio with DVD2AVI, but I usually use the audio programs from the process listed earlier.

> [@](#):
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> Another thing I am not clear about is how the wide screen format works. I have been messing with that but I am confused. Is it that the MPG file has the same number of horizontal pixels and the player somehow knows to change the ratio?

[This](http://www.doom9.org/aspectratios.htm) guide explains DARs better than I can.

It’s worth noting that if you use DVD2SVCD, the program will do all three of the things you asked about - subtitles, letting you pick an audio stream, and figuring out the aspect ratio and putting the proper settings into your AVIsynth file for it.

> [@](#):
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> The truth is that up until now I have not done anything useful except, maybe learn a few concepts and ideas. The process is time consuming and something always seems to go wrong before it is completed.

One thing you might want to try is working with small video files. Things will get done faster that way and you’ll be able to try more new things in less time. For example, instead of ripping a whole DVD to work with, just rip one chapter. For encoding, you can cut it down even further with the “Trim()” function in AVIsynth.

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