Is Blu-ray phased out? Definitely not. A Blu-ray disc looks crisper compared with a 1080P movie on a computer, and a collection of Blu-ray discs gives you a sense of fulfillment. Moreover, a Blu-ray disc is a suitable container for HD videos.
However, when you want to share the movie with your friends or play it in Plex, how can you copy it? You can consider ripping the Blu-ray disc. It’s an excellent method to convert the movie to suit many computer players and share it with others without lending the physical disc.
What Is Blu-ray Ripping and Why You Need it
Before you start to rip a Blu-ray, you can pick up more understanding of it so that you won’t feel confused when you do that.
What Blu-ray Ripping Is
Blu-ray ripping means copying the video in a Blu-ray disc to your computer. It is undertaken by Blu-ray ripping software. During Blu-ray ripping, the movie can be converted to other video formats based on your needs.
Why You Need Blu-ray Ripping
You may wonder whether you can directly copy and paste a Blu-ray video to your computer so that you don’t need to rip the Blu-ray disc at all. That’s feasible, but a Blu-ray disc contains many folders and video files, making locating the movie complex. Also, the video format may not be recognized by your players. Therefore, it makes sense to rip a Blu-ray, for it can quickly find the movie and convert it to other video formats.
How You Can Rip Blu-ray Discs
To rip a Blu-ray disc, you must own a Blu-ray driver and Blu-ray ripping software on your computer.
Blu-ray Driver
A Blu-ray driver can load Blu-ray discs, and you should connect the Blu-ray driver to your computer. You’d better choose a driver with a USB plug, or you need to buy an adapter to match the USB port on your computer.
Blu-ray Ripping Software
When a Blu-ray driver is checked, you only need to install software to rip Blu-ray on your PC. We’ve briefly discussed Blu-ray ripper above, but more details are worth your attention.
There is exclusive Blu-ray ripping software that can offer subtle settings, such as video and audio parameters, subtitle adjustments, etc. Some Blu-ray rippers cover many related features like video editing, multiple video formats, etc. A standard Blu-ray only stores 1080P video, while 4K is already prevalent now, so some Blu-ray rippers can also upscale the movie after you rip the Blu-ray disc.
However, if you own a UHD Blu-ray disc, you don’t need to upscale the video, but you can convert and compress the video because a 4K movie takes up so much storage, which is not easy to save on your computer or share with others.
Practical Case: Tipard Blu-ray Converter
Let’s take Tipard Blu-ray Converter as an example of ripping a Blu-ray disc on Windows/Mac. You can learn to convert the video format and adjust detailed settings.
Step 1: Load Blu-ray
First, you need to insert your Blu-ray disc into a Blu-ray driver that is connected to your computer. Wait for your computer to recognize the Blu-ray disc.
Then, it’s time to start Blu-ray ripping. Go to the Tipard Blu-ray Converter program. Click the Load Blu-ray button on the top left side. You should be able to choose your Blu-ray source.
Step 2: Adjust Video and Audio Settings
Now, you can select the desired video format for your Blu-ray video. This program focuses on video conversion, so it offers many video formats. It allows you to convert Blu-ray to digital easily. Just pick any video format according to your need. When you click the Device button, you can choose a format that matches a specific device.
Generally, Blu-ray ripping software offers detailed video and audio adjustments. You can click the Output Format Settings button in this program to open a panel. It should allow you to change the video’s encoder, resolution, and frame rate. The channel setting for the audio is quite vital before you rip the Blu-ray disc. After all, you don’t want to watch a movie with a single audio channel.
Step 3: Rip Blu-ray
When you complete all video and audio settings, you choose the path to save the video after Blu-ray ripping. Then, there should be a Rip button on a program, and you should click it to start ripping the Blu-ray disc.
It takes a long time to rip a Blu-ray disc because a 1080P or 4K movie is no smaller than 15GB. You must not disconnect the Blu-ray driver or close the Blu-ray ripping software until it’s completed.
Vital Notes When You Rip Blu-ray
It’s not encouraged to rip commercial Blu-ray discs for commercial use, which infringes the copyright. Commercial Blu-ray includes legitimate game and movie Blu-ray discs, etc. Although many DVD rippers can break the protection and rip the Blu-ray, they never advocate ripping commercial discs.
Of course, however, there’s a compromise: you can rip Blu-ray with copyright protection for non-commercial use so that a legal penalty won’t happen. For example, you can rip Blu-ray for studying, tutorials, or simply watching.
Conclusion
This article explains why Blu-ray ripping is needed and introduces how to rip a Blu-ray. You can easily share the content with a player or your friends after you rip a Blu-ray disc. A Blu-ray driver and Blu-ray ripper are necessary. What’s also important is patience because it takes a long time to rip your Blu-ray disc.