This weekend, my Dad handed me some music DVD’s he’d recently bought.

He asked me if I could convert them to music CD’s so that he could also listen to them in the car on his commute.

I accepted the challenge: looking forward to trying out new tools and such.

First I thought I might have to use a gamut of tools: dvdDecrypter for ripping; a VOB demuxer and a converter for AC3 to wav.

But to my surprise I found a great tool for the PC that does all the work for me!

It’s called Xilisoft DVD Audio Ripper.

The fabulous people over Xilisoft have released quite a fewexcellent multimedia conversion tools and they have been gainingpopularity in the DVD scene over the last couple of months.

The software has a very clean interface and is so easy to use that even a n00b like my Dad can use it.

Nine Easy Steps

To make an audio CD from a music DVD you only need follow these easy steps:

  1. download your copy of DVD Audio Ripper from the Xilisoft website. [cost: $29]
    (note that the shareware version only rips the first 5 minutes!)
  2. Put the DVD in the PC and start up the programme
  3. Goto the File menu item and select the DVD from the file explorer. Theripper will scan the DVD and show the various title groups on theDVD.
  4. Ifyou want to have the CD split up into different tracks, you can select the tracks you want by selecting them individually from the list of chapters.You’ll probably select all the chapters from the title group with the longest playingtime).
    Otherwise tick the box next to the name of the title group andthe audio will be ripped as a whole (usefull for continuous music suchas DJ sets)
  5. Next, you need to select the audio channel you want to rip:you can select this from the Audio selectbox at the top of the screen. (Iwould advise you to find the English 2-channel stream for best results).
  6. Now for setting the output: at the bottom of the screen you’ll find a selectbox titled Format. Scroll through it and select the "WAV (*.wav)" format.
  7. The lastbut certainly not least important setting: you need to make sure that the tracks are saved entirely. Check to see if the Split selectbox is set to "Chapters".
  8. We’re ready to rip!
    Make a note of the folder set up in the Destination box at the bottom of the screen. You’ll need this to find the WAV files at the end of the rip.
    Just press the red button to start the ripping.
    (It will take aprox. 10 to 40 minutes, depending on the speed of your PC).
  9. Having ripped the DVD, the files have been copied into a new sub folder of the destination folder.
    The last and final step involves copying the WAV files to your CD burner of choice (Nero, Ferio, EasyCDCreator, etc) and making a music CD out of the WAV files.

Et voila!

You have your very own music CD from a DVD!

Enjoy your commute. ;P