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Good morning readers! 
How many of you stay away from manipulating or ripping DVD movies because you think it’s probably just too difficult? Well today, I’m hoping to be able to show you how easy this can be accomplished, without having a Master’s degree in film editing.
There are a good number of conversion file formats which are supported by this Aimersoft software, and obviously I won’t be testing every one, but I will attempt to show you how this process can be achieved, relatively quickly.
Developer: Aimersoft Software, Inc.
Supported Languages: English
System Requirements: Windows NT4/2000/2003/XP and Windows Vista
Additional Requirements: Intel Pentium II 350MHz (or above) or any Athlon; 64 MB RAM or above.
Tested on: Windows XP Pro.
GUI (Graphical user interface:)
The first thing that struck me was the presentation of the software. With its various shades of blue; its easy, handy access action buttons; preview screen off to the right and relatively easy configurations, make this interface extremely attractive and polished.
Options:
Language:
- ????
- ????
- English
- PortBr;
These were meant to be the languages that were supported by the program, but they don’t make much sense to me! I did feel that the latter should have meant something to me, but it didn’t. But as you can see, an odd result indeed.
Perferences [sic.,]
The above spelling in the menu definitely needs to changed to its correct spelling.
Photo Directory:
This pop-up screen, shows the file path where your photos would be stored, and gives you the option to change the directory if desired.
Help File:
Thankfully this developer has included the entire help file within the program. So we won’t have to go launching a browser just to access it. Some people don’t mind launching browsers all the time, but I usually have several other programs open and running while I’m working.
While all my opened programs are necessary, having a browser open (for me,) is not.
There seems to be a disconnect in the Program Requirements, which states the system requirements to be:
- Windows NT4/2000/2003/XP and Windows Vista;
However, the help file, states the requirements to be:
- Microsoft Windows 2000/2003/XP (installation of all recent updates recommended)
I suggest that if you’re still on NT., that you do check with Aimersoft, as to whether they do indeed still support NT.
Another big disconnect also in the (help file,) states that the system requirements also include all kinds of peripherals, that aren’t stated on the web site.
My guess with these little disconnects, is that all the extras they say you need in the help file, have already been bundled into the software with this latest upgrade – but that the help file had not been updated.
It’s wonderful to see so many file formats offered, however, I’d like to see an additional help topic for those new users who don’t know which file format to apply to which software. For example, as you all know by now, my husband David, is a software programmer – yet even he couldn’t instantly figure out which format would work with his Windows Mobile 5 PDA.
I found that changing the name of the output (destination) file was odd. The program automatically applies ouput file names based on the title and chapter names on the disk. These are usually something like “Chapter_03-133.mp4.” Wanting to change a particular file to something more useful, I clicked on the name in the title/chapter list and found out (by accident,) that I was able to accomplish this. How to do this, is not actually mentioned in the help file at all, (that I could find.)
However, I have to say that the help file has been arranged well and a user wouldn’t have any trouble knowing exactly where to go to find the information they needed (if it’s there.) Most explanations have large screenshots (wonderful for teaching!) and each menu item is explained in an easy to understand manner – even for the layman.
When I opened a DVD – most but not all titles would be automatically selected. I couldn’t figure out why some were not selected when most were. Again, I couldn’t find the reason out via the help file.
Sometimes, when I was previewing a title, the audio didn’t match the video. I don’t mean they weren’t in sync, although there were occasional sync/skip problems with the audio. What I mean is that it got video from one track and combined it with audio from another track. This didn’t happen all the time, but when it did, it was incredibly frustrating. I could never figure out what I had done to cause this problem. Again, there were no troubleshooting tips in the help file.
Features:
Video editing with this software is made easier by the tool bar in the image:
Capabilities:
- Crop video image size;
- Trim the beginning and/or end from a video clip;
- The user can also apply a few effects, (emboss, negative and saturation changes) to the video as you convert it;
- Ability to control brightness, contrast and saturation.
- Your DVD is shown to you in the main window, as several consecutively numbered chapters, all contained within one file. You can also rip and copy your DVD by the chapters that you want.
- Video editing; allows you to trim the superfluous or special parts of movies – adjust brightness, contrast, audio, etc.
- Supports photo capturing within the currently playing DVD, and then save it as jpeg, bmp. However, I couldn’t find any way to combine clips into a single video; overlay audio on existing video; or add any transitions between clips. Then again, this software is advertised as a “ripper” – and not a video editor.
- It’s possible to capture just the audio from a movie by setting the output format to an audio-only format (e.g. MP3). This is a big feature for me, as I can now capture movie soundtracks that I love!
- You can take “snapshots” of video, capturing a single frame as a bitmap image.
- You can either open the DVD itself or the “IFO” files from the DVD. I don’t know why you’d prefer one to the other and unfortunately, the help file wasn’t a whole lot of help on this topic.
- Support for dual-core or multi-core processor.
- Free email technical support.
Negatives:
- At one point, the program crashed when I told it to cancel conversion on an MP3;|
- Confusion of menu names under Options;
- Needs to correct spelling for “Perferences” to Preferences in menu.
Points:
- Originality:
- Functionality:
- Intuitiveness:
- Fun Factor:
Price: US$45.00
However, if you hurry on over there now, you’ll be able to pick it up for US$10.00 less!
Summary:
As you can see, Aimersoft DVD Ripper, has so many features that make this a definite worthwhile purchase for the user. The negatives are truly negligible and don’t affect how the program works.
It does exactly what its name implies: it copies video from DVDs and converts it into formats appropriate for computers and computer-like devices (e.g. portable devices PSP, uTube, iPod, Zune, etc).
A very nice bonus is the ability to rip audio tracks from a DVD without the video.
My only issues are with the help file, and unless it includes more basic information, I’m afraid users who know nothing about the data structure of a DVD might have a difficult time knowing how to extract what he or she wants from the disk.
Recommendation:
In the long run, this is one of the easiest, yet great output DVD rippers that I’ve seen and thoroughly tested. I’m sure the small glitches will be addressed by Aimersoft for the next release.
You can also check out Aimersoft’s great DVD Ripper Tutorial as well – there’s no better way to get to know new software!
I do recommend buying it and I’ve even kept it myself as a welcome addition to my DVD toolbox.
I’d like to offer a sincere thank you to Aimersoft for requesting this review. Their comments are certainly welcome on this website, if they wanted to address any of the points I’ve made today.
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Till next time software seekers!
~ Swan
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“The day will come when machines and software will tell us whom to know; what to eat; what to wear; when to go to work and what profession to pursue; when to sleep; what entertainments to enjoy and with whom to have any kind of relationship. It can’t be avoided and you will succumb.”
~ Swan (2005)
