

How to rip a DVD or Blu-ray movie

How to Transcode a Blu-Ray Disc with Handbrake

The process for transcoding a blu-ray movie is only a bit different than ripping a regular DVD. Follow the process from above to do the actual ripping of the disc. Then open up HandBrake.

Related: Best Blu-Ray movies

Step 1- You now have a perfect copy of the Blu-ray on your drive at the original frame size and data rate. But unless you have a couple terabytes just hanging around to play with, you’re going to have to compress it into a smaller, easier-to-handle file. That’s where Handbrake comes in. Open it up and navigate to the file you just ripped.

Step 2- The software will fill in some other information on the “Encoding Settings” dialog box. Here, you can play with different settings to decide which type of output file you want. A good starting option is to go with the “Console” option under video profiles. Leave the default setting for the audio profile (usually 2.0 AAC) unless you can take advantage of different settings. Choose the radio box at the bottom to decide whether you want the final file outputted as an MP4, MKV or AVCHD file, then tell it where to save and click Done.


Step 4- This step will eat up a lot of time as your computer performs the calculations to cram all that data into a much smaller package. Go pop some popcorn and come back to it. Or take a nap. Depending on how old your PC is and which settings you’ve selected, maybe go on vacation.

When it’s done, be sure to open the output file to confirm that it works. If it does, good work, you’ve just ripped a Blu-ray movie! Keep it off the torrent sites and enjoy your new digital copy.

Did something go awry?

Despite having a few years to work out the kinks, many of the tools used to rip Blu-Ray discs can still be buggy on occasion. If you have any problems, we highly recommend hitting VideoHelp.com, which has more comprehensive guides, different tools to try, explanations of advanced settings, and an extremely skilled user base on its forums that can help dig you out of a hole.

Our How to Rip a DVD or Blu-Ray guide has been updated since its original publication to reflect new software releases, hardware changes and more. Multiple members of the Digital Trends staff contributed to this guide.

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