How To Rip DVD To MKV, MP4 Or M4V Using VidCoder

While there are many good video converters out there, many of them are very complex in features and functionality. If you only want to rip DVDs into either MP4 or MKV format, then consider using VidCoder, a simple to use free DVD ripper and video transcoder for Windows. Based on Handbrake’s encoding engine, this one gives you an intuitive interface with a limited set of options and makes things easy.

Here are the steps to rip and convert a DVD into MP4 or MKV format using VidCoder.

1. Download and install VidCoder (link given at end of post). The program requires you to download and install Microsoft .NET Framework 4.0 (only client profile needed), which it does automatically  if it’s not found on your PC.

2.  Launch VidCoder and select the inserted DVD as the source. You can also choose a DVD or VIDEO_TS folder in case you have already copied the DVD to your hard disk using a DVD backup software. Apart from DVDs, VidCoder also allows you to convert video files such as AVI or MKV into MP4.

3. VidCoder scans the DVD and then displays the video, audio and subtitle tracks. You can now deselect all the chapters, the audio tracks as well as subtitle streams you do not want to include in the converted video. 

4. In case you want to add your own subtitles, then click on ‘Edit’ besides the Subtitles label, and then click on ‘Import .srt file’ to add a subtitles stream. Click OK to return to the main window.

5. By default VidCoder chooses the output format as MP4 and uses the normal preset. You can change the preset to high profile (higher quality) from the ‘Preset’ drop down menu.

6. After choosing a preset, you can further customize it to achieve the desired conversion settings, by clicking on the Settings button besides ‘Encoding’. This will open the Preset settings dialog, which includes options to change the container format (MP4 or MKV), extension in case of MP4 to either .mp4 or .m4v, video and audio conversion settings, and so on.

Encoding Options:

In case of MP4 output, you can opt for a web optimized converted video with iPod 5G support. You can add chapter markers, crop the output video either automatically or using custom values, and adjust the anamorphic setting for both MP4 and MKV.

Selecting MP4 output gives you lesser options in video and audio codes. While MP4 lets you choose between H.264 or MPEG-4 video codec, the MKV format gives an additional VP3 (Theora) option. Similarly, audio codecs available for MP4 are AAC and AC Passthrough, while for MKV you get additional codecs including MP3 (lame), DTS passthrough and Vorbis.

7. Once you are all set with the encoding options, you may want to save the modified preset for a later project. Click on ‘Save As…’ at the top of the window and choose a preset name.

8. Click ‘Preview’ button in the top right to preview the output video before going ahead with the encoding. Choose the duration of the clip (5, 10, 15, 30 or 60 seconds) and hit Play. VidCoder will generate the preview video and play it in your default media player.

9. Satisfied with the preview? Close the preview window, return to the main screen and hit the ‘Encode’ button. If you want to convert videos in batch, add them one after the other by clicking on ‘Add to Queue’ before starting the batch conversion.

That’s it. You can now rip any number of DVDs to MP4 or M4V easily and watch them on your iPhone or iPad. While there are dedicated video converters for some mobile devices, including Jodix iPod video converter, PSP video converter, Videora, Miro Video Converter that converts for most of the portable devices, and so on, you may still want to try out VidCoder for it’s advanced encoding options and batch conversion features.

Download VidCoder

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