2017 Top 5 Blu-ray Ripping Software Reviews

Date May 26, 2016 Author Catherine Category Review

There are many situations and needs that lead you to rip Blu-rays: to protect Blu-ray discs, backing up Blu-ray to external hard drive or cloud storage, copying Blu-ray to NAS server, playing Blu-ray on portable devices, decrypt Blu-ray to H.265 MKV, removing Region Code issues, etc. No matter which goal you want to get, you need a decent Blu-ray Ripper, sometimes aka Blu-ray Copier to help you.

The guide is divided into four parts in order to help you make a choice:

• Part One. What is Blu-ray and Blu-ray Disc Copy Protection?
• Part Two. Top Blu-ray Ripper Software: What To Look For?
• Part Three. Top 5 Blu-ray Decrypter and Rippers Comparison Chart
• Part Four. Our Verdict and Recommendations

Firstly, to learn how to rip Blu-ray and how Blu-ray Ripper works, you’d better know what is Blu-ray and why we need decrypt Blu-ray.

Part One. What is Blu-ray and Blu-ray Disc Copy Protection

What is Blu-ray?

Blu-ray or Blu-ray Disc (BD, BRD) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was designed to supersede the DVD format, in that it is capable of storing high-definition & ultra high-definition video resolution (2160p). Conventional (pre-BD-XL) Blu-ray Discs contain 25 GB per layer, with dual layer discs (50 GB) being the industry standard for feature-length video discs.

Blu-ray is fundamentally the same creature from a linux perspective. It contains muxed files using either the MPEG-4 Part 10 (H.264), VC1, or MPEG-2 codecs, and audio tracks in AC-3, E-AC3, DTSHD or TrueHD (MLP) audio formats. Blu-Ray uses M2TS, or MPEG-2 Transport Stream containers. The video format on disk type is well understood and have various levels of support in FFmpeg. Blu-Ray features are generally found in a collection of .m2ts files.

Originally BD-ROMs stored video up to 1920×1080 pixel resolution at up to 60 (59.94) fields per second. Currently with UHD BD-ROM videos can be stored at a maximum of 3840×2160 pixel resolution at up to 60 (59.94) frames per second, progressively scanned. While most current Blu-ray players and recorders can read and write 1920×1080 video at the full 59.94p and 50p progressive format, new players for the UHD specifications will be able to read at 3840×2160 video at either 59.94p and 50p formats.

Supported video formats

Introduction to Blu-ray Disc Copy Protection

Commercial pre-recorded Blu-ray discs are typically protected with some form of copy protection. These encryption mechanisms restrict people where to play the Blu-ray discs and prevent people from extract the movie from the physical disc. Below part aims to instruct people how these copy protection schemes work and what kind of legal rights consumers may have.

AACS Encryption

Advanced Access Content System (AACS) is the first level of copy protection applied to pre-recorded discs, developed by the AACS Licensing Administrator a consortium of companies including Disney, Intel, Microsoft, Panasonic, Warner Bros., IBM, Toshiba and Sony. It is based on Advanced Encryption Standard (AES), a robust 128-bit key encryption system developed by the US government.

AACS includes a system by which the keys assigned to a particular player can be “revoked” for future Blu-ray disc releases if it is determined that those keys have been compromised. When a newer Blu-ray disc is inserted into an older drive, the drive is required to check the version of the “Media Key Block” (MKB) on the disc and, if it is newer than the one the drive has internally, to copy over to permanent non-volatile memory the newer MKB. Thus playing newer discs propagates the revoked key lists out to all drives.

BD+ Protection

BD+ is a second level of copy protection that is optional for pre-recorded Blu-ray discs. After the stream files are encrypted using AACS encryption, they are further mangled randomly with instructions on how to repair the mangled files stored on the disc as special BD+ instructions. These instructions run in something called a “BD+ virtual machine”, special software that Blu-ray players are required to include. The virtual machine on the player runs the BD+ code on the disc and retrieves something called the “Fix-up Table” (FUT) to repair all the BD+ mangled regions on the disc.

BD+ was broken in 2008 by reverse-engineering the BD+ virtual machine. Each new BD+ Blu-ray disc release brings new twists in the virtual machine programs, each of which are again reverse-engineered by the hacker community. Just as with AACS, BD+ has become a cat-and-mouse game.

Region Codes

Region Codes are pieces of data that are embedded into Blu-Ray Discs to act as a restriction. This data, or region code, is read by the player and if it doesn’t recognize the region code as compatible or local, the disc will not play. Since region codes are specific to certain geographical locations, a disc can typically only be read and played by a Blu-Ray Player that was manufactured or intended for use in that same specific region. In total, there are 3 separate Blu-Ray region codes. These codes are classified alphabetically as Region A, Region B, and Region C. The following is guide map of Blu-ray region codes. This map shows the different Blu-ray codes and which areas they are utilized in.

1. Region A: This region covers all of North America, South America and South East Asia.
2. Region B: This encompasses Europe, Africa, Middle East, French territories and Greenland.
3. Region C: Region which covers the rest of the world including Russia, Asia, and China.

Part Two. Top Blu-ray Ripper Software: What To Look For?

The best Blu-ray rippers have a wide array of features and tools that allow you to rip, convert, edit and more. We have tested about 20 similar Blu-ray Rippers and narrow them down to the top five Blu-ray Rippers. It can help you decide which Blu-ray Ripper software is the best to meet your needs. Below are the criteria by which we rated and ranked these applications. There are 7 main criteria that we look for when we do our reviews and they include:

1. Decrypt Ability
2. Ripping Attributes
3. Quality
4. Conversion Choices
5. Speed
6. Easy-to-use
7. Company Support

1. Decrypt Ability

Many Blu-ray discs contain some form of copy encryption such as BD+, AACS Encryption, Region Codes, etc., the aim of these protections is to prevent unauthorized access to the Blu-ray Disc, but when we paid and got the Blu-ray Disc as own property, it is quite necessary to have a good backup for the Blu-ray discs, for although Blu-ray is a format superior to DVD, the discs are also fragile to scratches and other damages, and when the original Blu-ray disc gets damaged, we suffer more compared to the situation of a DVD damage, because Blu-ray discs are more expensive.

Thus, we need the help from a specialized decrypter, in other words, a powerful Blu-ray Ripper software should have the ability to crack Blu-ray encryption, then the tool will make a clean copy of the entire disc with all the copy protection removed. At that point the user can make a backup copy of the disc on recordable media, play the unprotected content without the original disc present, extract out content, modify the disc data, etc.

Note: The removal of copy-protection schemes from Blu-ray discs involves both legal issues and technical issues. On the legal side, efforts by the movie industry have made defeating copy protection a bit of a legal gray area. On the technical side, ripping programs are widely available, but efforts by the movie industry have made them into essentially subscription services. Each update to the copy protection schemes results in an update to the ripper programs. Plus, Many believe that removing Blu-ray disc encryption is reasonable and lawful because they feel the "fair use" provision of copyright law should override any provisions against removing encryption. In fact, to our knowledge no individual has ever been prosecuted for removing Blu-ray disc copy protection.

2. Ripping Attributes

The best Blu-ray Rippers should perform conversions quickly, and the converted files should be high quality and a manageable size. The application’s interfaces should be intuitive and allow you to start a rip in three steps or less. Furthermore, the best rippers should be able to extract audio clips from discs, output 4K video and more. This category assesses these features and tools and how well they work.

3. Quality

We made at least two new ripper of our test disc with each program we reviewed. When you are making a copy of a Blu Ray disc you want to be sure that you retain the same 1080p HD quality found on the original. Our top 5 picks all allow you the ability to choose the output setting when you rip the Blu-Ray video ensuring that you are in control of the video quality. You can also choose to rip the Audio stream thus retaining true HD sound tool.

4. Conversion Choices

The current crop of Blu-ray rippers has made it extremely easy to convert a Blu-ray for specific file types and devices. They do this by including the afore-mentioned library of output profiles. All you need to do is load your disc into the application, select the file format, device or service from the library, and start the rip. This category evaluates the breadth and versatility of the conversion choices offered by each application.

5. Speed

Speed is very important when it comes to ripping and backing up Blu Ray discs. Since you are dealing with HD video many PC’s have to use all of their system resources just to play the video. So the best software will be optimized to use Quad Core systems and more advanced video accelerators. Of course our top picks enable this feature.

6. Easy-to-use

We found that all the programs we reviewed are relatively easy to use. All the products on our lineup are based around the same concept. Many of the programs also have very similar interfaces. We evaluated how easy it is to access and use the common features of each product.

7. Company Support

No matter how easy an application is to use, occasionally some customers need support. Manufacturers that provide excellent customer service make the best Blu-ray rippers. This service comes in the form of tutorials, FAQs and knowledgebase on their websites. If you can’t get an answer in those ways, manufacturers should offer email or social support, like Facebook, Twitter, Google plus, etc. Plus, there are constant changes to copy protection schemes and the software must constantly be updated.

Part Three. Top 5 Blu-ray Decrypter and Rippers Comparison Chart

Pavtube ByteCopy – It can re-encode any commercial Blu-ray to lossless MKV and multi-track MP4/MOV to keep multiple subtitle/audio track. It has some built-in video editing function that allows you to extract/add subtitle, add watermark, extract audio, trim, crop, split, merge Blu-ray, adjust Blu-ray movie aspect ratio, etc.

Pavtube BDMagic – With Pavtube BDMagic, now you can convert 2D Blu-ray, 3D Blu-ray and standard DVD to SD, High-Definition formats or even create 3D videos with excellent video/audio quality in fast conversion speed. This BD/DVD to video workaround could output various video and audio formats, like H.265/HEVC, MKV, MP4, MOV, DivX, AVI, MP3, FLAC, etc

MakeMKV – The most popular Blu-ray Decrypter in the market at the free cost. It converts the video clips from proprietary (and usually encrypted) disc into a set of MKV files, preserving most information but not changing it in any way. The MKV format can store multiple video/audio tracks with all meta-information and preserve chapters.

Leawo Blu-ray Ripper – Leawo Blu-ray Ripper is a professional Blu-ray ripping and converting program to decrypt, rip and convert Blu-ray movies to videos and extract audio off Blu-ray movies. By converting, Blu-ray movies could be played on various popular media players, like Apple media devices, Android smartphones and tablets, Windows media players, various smartphones, etc.

Xilisoft Blu-Ray Ripper – With Xilisoft Blu-ray to Video Converter, now you can convert standard Blu-ray videos (M2TS format) and 3D Blu-ray videos (SSIF) to High-Definition formats or even 3D (H.264/MPEG-4 AVC, Apple TV h.264 720P, HD WMV, MPEG-2/MPEG-4 TS HD Video) with excellent and unmatchable converting-converting speed while preserving HD quality.

Features and Functions of the Top 5 Blu-ray Ripper 2016

Disabling DRM

Supported Input and Output Files

More Features

Part Four. Our Verdict and Recommendations

All of the Blu-ray Ripping applications we reviewed here can accomplish Blu-ray ripping task well. They can help you backup Blu-ray to External Hard Drive, USB Stick, Mini external hard drive so that you can take Blu-ray movies anywhere. They also can migrate Blu-ray to Synology NAS, QNAP NAS, FreeNAS, Seagate Wireless NAS, WD My Cloud NAS to stream Blu-ray movies on Samsung, LG, Panasonic, Sony, Vizio TV wirelessly with Apple TV 4, Android TV on Plex, Kodi, Roku. If you want to play Blu-ray on iPhone 7, iPhone SE, Galaxy S7/Edge, Sony Xperia XA, Google Nexus 6P, LG G5, Surface Pro 5, Surface Book 2 and any other device without Blu-ray drive, these Blu-ray Ripper can convert Blu-ray to MP4, MOV, WMV, 3GP for your portable devices. What’s more, it can create 3D SBS video for Gear VR, HTC Vive, Oculus Rift DK 2, Oculus Rift CV1, Google Cardboard, Project Morpheus, ANTVR, PlayStation VR and other VR Headsets, 3D TVs, 3D Projectors.

Here, we want to praise Pavtube ByteCopy (review) more cause it contains all the funtions of another 4 Blu-ray Ripper: backup Blu-ray to hard drive, rip Blu-ray to HD MP4/AVI/MOV/WMV, decrypt Blu-ray to lossless MKV/Multi-track MP4/MOV, trim/crop/split/merge Blu-ray, etc. what’s more, it can preserver original video quality when convert Blu-tay to digital files.

Thanks to:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blu-ray
http://www.miraizon.com/support/info_copyprotection.html