Best and easiest program (Free preferably) to convert movie DVDs to mkv...

Good day,
What is the best and easiest program (Free preferably) to convert movie DVDs that I own (Even copy protected ones) into high quality mkv files (or other video files) onto my PC for private use.

Tried handbrake, it does not support copy protected discs

Thanks in advance!

 

I use Handbrake. It has some great options, or no options at all if you prefer, and if you have a CUDA capable graphics card, it will use it to speed things up. It's also excellent for converting BD movies to mkv as well. Get an older copy of AnyDVD before it was taken over by RedFox, and then let it run in the background. What I've been doing is running AnyDVD which removed copy protection in the background, ripping reauthoring with DVDShrink, and then using Handbrake to reencode. On some older DVDs DVDShrink will bypass copy protection. Just using the above I just did the entire series of Game of Thrones from Blu-Ray to mv4.

Download AnyDVD from here. Get the newest version they have, and it should work on all DVDs and on a large share of Blu-Rays

http://www.oldversion.com/windows/anydvd/

 

When you say dvd's i assume you mean not blu ray

dvdshrink to rip older dvd & (use trim front & end credits, to allow better quality when movie is compressed)

dvdfab Version 8 (free to rip always everything else in it requires money) later versions allow free rip also

vidcoder to convert to mkv after dvdfab (it's handbrake that allows more fine tuning)

 

"dvdshrink to rip older dvd & (use trim front & end credits, to allow better quality when movie is compressed)"

I said that in my previous post.

"vidcoder to convert to mkv after dvdfab (it's handbrake that allows more fine tuning)"

Vidcoder is Handbrake with a simplified graphical user interface stacked on top, so that too was essentially in my previous post. If you know how to use Handbrake, then going to Vidcoder is pointless.

I haven't played with DVDFab for some time because it's become bloatware, but it might be worth a try.



To be fair I just downloaded DVDFab Passkey, and then inserted a Blu-Ray disc. Then using Vidcoder I attempted to rip it and encode it directly from Vidcoder to hard disk, and so far it seems to be working.

You can get DVDPasskey from here. Just choose the free version. I will let you know how it works out.

 

I've just finished a BD disc with DVDFab passkey, and it worked in much the same manner as AnyDVD, in that it runs in the background. The interface looks like a copy of AnDVD so I have no doubt that DVDFab borrowed directly from RedFox, or SlyFox before the pretend SlyFox to SlyRedFox management swap. Passkey is a trial version that is limited to copying 3 discs, and then you have to fork over. So if you're going to be working only with DVD format, you can run through the menu of older rippers.

For DVD I would go with the older rippers to see if they work. DVDfab passkey appears to be able to do all the rest. Disregarding my obvious poor taste in entertain, so far I've used Passkey to backup season 1 of Warehouse 10 with no problem and I'm now working on Season 2 with no issues.

Here are a couple of screenshots from AnyDVD and Passkey