Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
the MDRP developer, when I asked, said it was ok to run the app on two of my personal computers simultaneously without paying for a second license, if I wanted to double ripping throughput. They also mentioned that in theory I could run two copes of the app to rip two discs simultaneously on the same computer, but that wasn't supported; I haven't tried this.

There's really no reason I can think of that this wouldn't work, as long as MDRP can select which DVD drive to watch. I'd be curious to hear if anyone tries it... since USB DVD drives are so cheap.

Awesome that you're doing this. I'm sure you'll be very happy when it is all over since you'll have digital copies of your collection. Since you're making a backup copy anyway, be sure to store that backup copy offsite somewhere (then you'll be protected against theft/fire/flood).
 
I'd be curious to hear if anyone tries it... since USB DVD drives are so cheap.
I can just pop one into the internal drive (or plug in the external blu-ray drive I have) to test this, so I'll try it tonight and let you know.

Since you're making a backup copy anyway, be sure to store that backup copy offsite somewhere (then you'll be protected against theft/fire/flood).
I have a fire safe at home, and for my personal data keep one copy in there and a second at a different location. But in THIS case, my backup will be stored on another continent--I'll leave the backups at home when I move to Japan. You'd have to work pretty hard to get farther offsite than that.
 
Follow up on multiple simultaneous MDRP instances on the same computer: I tested, and it works, but not smoothly.

The "unsupported" part is that if you have two MDRP instances open when you insert the first DVD, they're going to fight over control of it and both try to rip it simultaneously, which obviously isn't useful. However, once an instance is actually underway ripping, it will ignore any further DVDs inserted, and any instances launched after the disc rip is underway will ignore that disc. Not sure if there will be any side-effects in terms of how it keeps track of what's been ripped (maybe MDRP just checks the destination folder, rather than a database?), but the rips were both ok when I skimmed through them in DVD player.

So, you can do this: Start one instance, stick in the first DVD, and start the rip. Now, start the second instance and insert the second disc. Both will be ripping a different disc now. If one of them finishes before the other is done, it will sit and wait for a new DVD, and if you stick in a DVD while the other MDRP instance is still working, the free one will grab it and you're good to go. So basically, once you've got it going, as long as both rips never finish at the same time, it will work. Since DVDs are of irregular length, it probably won't be that hard to keep both instances running smoothly so long as you're reasonably prompt about swapping discs when one finishes. Even if both coincidentally end up finished at the same time, you just need to quit one manually to get back on track.

Bottom line being that it's pretty doable if you really want to speed the ripping process.

I'm not going to bother, since a single disc at a time is working fast enough for my taste (and there's no mental effort involved in making sure I don't put the wrong disc back in the wrong case or get things out of alphabetical order). If I were to do it I'd probably use my mini for the second rip, just to eliminate the possibility of any glitches.
 
I did all my dvds and well over 1000 of them Mine went in this order


Mac the Ripper ----> Handbrake -----> MetaX -----> Itunes

I used the apple tv preset in handbrake made sure the aspect ratio was 16.9
 
I've been trying a gamut of Mac ripping software. I recently tried Mac DVDRipper Pro on Amelie. It failed both times. The first time it reported bad sectors. I cleaned the disk and it went through to the end but when I ran it, it stopped at the master disk menu. I wanted the full disk because of the need for English sub-titles. I then ran MacTheRipper266 and it works fine.

Now to see which encoding software will do. I have DVD2oneX2 and will try that first.
 
More importantly, though, it would involve hauling around $8K (current value according to Delicious Library) worth of DVDs that have at least some chance of getting lost, broken, or confiscated at the border. Which would suck rather horribly.

Comically valid point. Plus you might get questioned/arrested if they suspect you're a movie pirate taking the contraband across the border.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.