Mac software: Metakine’s Fairmount is a better way to rip DVDs
When it’s time to duplicate and, more often than not, convert DVD content into the multiple formats we use daily—DVD media, iPod, iPhone, Apple TV—Mac users have been confronted with an oft confusing array of incomplete, overlapping solutions. This application unifies and simplifies the DVD ripping workflow.
Enter Metakine’s open-source Fairmount 1.0.4, an application that makes the DVD ripping process much, much more efficient and flexible. Like Handbrake, it relies on and leverages the codec power of VLC Media Player, though this application is all about putting a reproducible Video_TS folder in your hands in a matter of minutes instead of hours. According to the product spin:
Fairmount is a free tool which allows on-the-fly decryption of DVD content for convenient access. Fairmount does not perform the actual decryption, it simply forwards the data to VLC Media Player, which is used for the decryption. Hence, VLC Media Player must be installed for Fairmount to work.
See also:
— How to: AVI to MP4 [iPhone, iPod] on the Mac
— How to: Download and convert Flash video on the MacTip o’ the hat to Andy Inahtko via MacBreak
Best of all, making a backup of or repurposing DVD content is bloody simple: 1.) insert a disc 2.) fire up Fairmount and wait for it to create temporary disc image (usually just a few moments) and 3.) then drag the Video_TS folder to anywhere there’s space. Boom, you’re done and its the full DVD—menus, features and all.
Or, and this is just too sweet, drag the Video_TS folder into an application, such as Popcorn, Toast or Metakine’s own DVDRemaster ($49.95), where you can easily and efficiently copy or repurpose it.
Because Fairmount uses VLC Media Player, just like Handbrake, you’ll be able to convert the same discs. However, because Fairmount’s purpose is to deliver a clean Video_TS folder into your hands that can be converted and repurposed however you want, this workflow is more flexible, convenient and faster…
What’s your take?
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May 28th, 2009
My take is that it is useless. On old DVDs it’s fine, but once you put something that has some of the modern crazy protection schemes in, and try to copy it over… Hope you don’t mind having to spend more time force quitting, or power cycling, the app as your DVD drive grinds and grinds away.
SC
May 28th, 2009
I’ve used it extensively. Like everything else out there it works on some DVD’s and not others. I have used it on plenty of recent DVD’s and it has worked fine on 90 percent of them.
May 28th, 2009
And, how is this any better than MacTheRipper??
May 29th, 2009
“And, how is this any better than MacTheRipper?”
Fairmount obviates the intermediate step of first saving a Video_TS folder somewhere and then converting or repurposing the content. You can simply drag the folder from the image created by Fairmount (in just a few moments vs perhaps hours for handbrake, mtr) and use it directly in Toast, Popcorn or another remastering app.
June 14th, 2009
I had been using Handbrake because it was free, but I got frustrated because many of the newer DVDs couldn’t be ripped by it.
I downloaded “test” verisons of Metakine and a few other rippers. They were all able to rip the DVDs that couldn’t be ripped by Handbrake. However, in comparison, I found Metakine to be the most user friendly. I haven’t encountered any DVDs that I couldn’t rip with Metakine, but I’m sure that there are some out there.