15-Minute Reviews :: Moyea DVD Ripper v1.1.2.14

Hello all and welcome to another 15-Minute Review! Today’s application is Moyea DVD Ripper version 1.1.2.14 by Moyea Software – An application to convert DVDs to various formats.

Software Description

As Giveaway of the Day states:

“Moyea DVD Ripper is powerful but easy DVD ripping software that can easily rip DVD to AVI, MPEG, DIVX, 3GP, 3G2, WMV, WMA, MOV, MP3, MPG and so on for playback on almost all kinds of popular portable devices, such as Apple TV, iPod, PSP, iPhone, Zune, Pocket PC, Mobile Phone etc. with high quality.

Moyea DVD Ripper can help you custom the video you want. You can crop the unwanted black borders, trim the DVD to the just phase and adjust the brightness, contrast and audio volume. Moyea DVD Ripper supports splitting DVD into different chapters, merging different chapters into one file and customizing the output frame size to have a better vision on your PC or mobile devices.

With PSP Video Manager as an additional tool, you can transfer multiple PSP videos to your PSP freely, without taking a thought of the naming conventions on PSP. You can also transfer files from PSP to your computer with PSP Video Manager for storage on your hard disk.”

Quick Pros

• Interface easy to go through – Easy to get running
• Effects, trim and crop functionality
• Large assortment of formats and settings for formats
• PSP Video Manager a nice add-on
• Converts retail as well as personally-built DVDs
• Mediocre speed but faster than some others

Quick Cons

• Clip button should maybe be called Effects or similar
• No direct DVD backup functionality
• Found trimming was a bit awkward

Expansion

The market of DVD ripping seems to be growing, as does the number of applications which appear to fit into this market. There has been a lot featured on Giveaway of the Day, and even more out there available on the market. Moyea DVD Ripper steps in at Giveaway of the Day and offers another solution for those looking for just the right ripper.

First off, the interface for Moyea DVD Ripper is pretty easy to get running. Using either the Load DVD or Load IFO button, you get the DVD you want added loaded in and then choose which chapters you wish to use as well as subtitle, audio channel and angle you want. If you choose specific chapters or titles, you can choose to merge all of these together, or let them generate as separate files; This may be handy for those who have a few smaller memory cards for their portable units and want to span the video. A bit confusing however was that effects, trim and crop were hidden in the ‘Clip’ button – Wasn’t too hard to find, since it was the last button, but it was initially confusing that it was called ‘Clip’ instead of something a little more descriptive, or even split into three buttons for each option on the multi-tabbed pop-up (There is enough room on the main window for 5 buttons across – They only used 3).

There are a lot of output options here; Many presets for a lot of different portable and non-portable setups. iPod, PSP, AVI and VOB files; There are plenty more. One nice aspect here from my testing is that there is a lot of options for each format; I found that the PSP for example has a lot more resolution options and actually supports the new higher-resolution videos that the PSP is now capable of playing back. While it would have been nice if there were a way to directly back up your DVDs with this title, it seems that with the DVD rippers, you get either only a converter to other formats, or only back up the DVDs, not both. With that said, this application can back up to VOB file, which does give you the ability to take it to a DVD; This may be useful if you want to move a DVD into a Mini-DVD for some reason.

As mentioned, there is the common effects, crop and trim functionality in this application. They all function about on par with other titles available, except trim. I found trimming a video was a little awkward to get going since the sweet spot (Area you can click on) of the playback position was so small that it was awkward to click on it, and then getting it positioned to watch a specific portion (For example looking for credits manually) was another chore. If you’re particular about ensuring you cut off the credits by repositioning the ending marker a few times to get it right, the playback marker (and playback) immediately jumps back to the start even if you weren’t near the end of playback yet. It wouldn’t have been too bad, but grabbing that little down triangle is awkward to grab.

While many of the recent titles I’ve reviewed and used personally don’t directly access retail DVDs to allow for your viewing pleasure on portables or backup, this title does offer this, allowing you to easily take your DVDs on the road with you on your portable. I tested both a DVD Video I assembled myself as well as a retail video and was successful with both. Now I am unsure on how this application would work with some of the newer copyright schemes out there now (Hinted at not working by the application description) but worked on an older DVD I tried. While the speed was mediocre for conversion, For a movie that runs 1 hour and 37 minutes, the time taken was 54 minutes and 43 seconds; Faster than the 1:1 speeds or worse for a few other titles, but still not as fast as one would hope.

Final Verdict

While not a speed demon, this application does do what it is intended fairly well. While there could have been a few improvements on the effects and trimming, most likely wouldn’t touch these settings anyways. If you’re looking for a way to convert your DVDs for your iPod, PSP or other portable units, this application might be good for you to get while it is free. As for paying $35 for this, it depends on if you would see a $35 value from this. While it works good, if you’re only going to convert a few DVDs, it may be too steep; However for those who may have a large DVD collection and would like to be able to take it on the road with you, this may be a great option for you.

Posted by BladedThoth on Monday, August 06, 2007