14 DAY TRIAL // Processing Blu-ray content into formats that can be rendered on a wider pool of devices should no longer be a daunting task, but one that depends mostly on the software used and the power of the machine.
Since there aren’t any free alternatives that have the necessary qualities to carry out the process, you have to choose between paid programs that can bypass the disc protection imposed by the manufacturer.
Aiseesoft’s Blu-ray Ripper seems to combine versatility with ease of use, at a reasonable price, if you are constantly extracting high definition content to watch on a mobile device.
The company provides three editions for the product, with prices ranging from $49 / 39.99 EUR for the Standard release to $89.00 / 65.29 EUR for the Ultimate version, which bundles in a Blu-ray player along with iPhone related tools for file transfers and data backup (SMS, MMS and contacts).
The Standard edition analyzed in this article features options for converting all popular video types as well as from 2D to 3D. Installation completes in no time as there are no unusual screens to deal with.
Looks are simple and the main application window provides instructions on the main features of the product. All options are out in the open, including a preview area that shows how the end result will look.
Aiseesoft Blu-ray Ripper spends little time analyzing the contents of the loaded disc. Any of the detected files can be converted to popular video formats such as MP4, MOV, AVI, MPG, VOB or MKV.
However, more important is the fact that there are numerous profiles available for readying the video for various devices and programs. Any of the presets can be customized in terms of the encoder used, resolution, frame rate, video and audio bitrate, and saved separately for later use.
Furthermore, the profile window includes the 3D settings, too.
The flexibility of the program permits converting only a specific part of the movie instead of the whole thing. The clipping functionality is quite easy to use, allowing the definition of the cut by simply dragging the “beginning” and “end” marks into the desired positions. Further adjustments can be done to refine the selection by manually inputting the time values.
Videos can be cropped to eliminate the black bars and there are also some effects at your disposal that permit tweaking the levels for brightness, contrast, saturation and hue. Both the original and the preview area are present in the editing window and the modifications are applied on the spot.
Watermarking the output result either with text or image is also possible and the options available permit setting the mark anywhere on the screen very accurately.
If you decide to extract only a part of the movie, there is one thing to keep in mind if you do not want to waste valuable time with tasks other than converting the desired snippets.
After defining the areas that have to be extracted, Aiseesoft Blu-ray Ripper adds them to the list of videos in the main window and selects them for processing. However, it does not remove the checkmark from the original video on the disk.
The result is pretty obvious: more files are processed (in the order of their selection in the main interface), some of them being unnecessary to the user. As such, for a snippet of three minutes, you could have to wait for the program to finish processing the main file and then move to the relevant one.
Also on the downside, sometimes the subtitle track would not be loaded into the output result. Nevertheless, this happened only occasionally and most of our conversions would have it.
Aiseesoft developed Blu-ray Ripper as an easy solution for extracting both Blu-ray and DVD content to a format of your choice. It is also capable of converting other types of video with no change as far as the procedure is concerned.
The list of supported video formats is quite impressive and includes both popular and less common formats.
The Good
There is the possibility to make 3D –related settings and the impressive list of profiles should accommodate the needs of every user.
