How to rip a DVD to XviD/H264 using FairUse Wizard 2 PDF Print E-mail

FairUse Wizard 2 is one of the most popular DVD rip programs because of its load of features and the simple wizard-like scheme it follows. However as most options are not really clear to the users we have been asked for a guides many times, so here it is! This guide will show you how to convert a DVD to XviD or the new H264 codec. Easily as you will see, one can add convert to any other codec as long as they are installed in his system.

You can download the Limited Edition (has an 700MB output file limit, missing iPod support and some more features) here. You can buy the full version at the official site of the program which is located here.
Note that as FairUse Wizard is an open source program you may find various other full version builds which are however not supported by the author and may contain malware.

Step1

Fairuse01


This is the first screen you will see when you open FairUse Wizard 2. So first of all you need to create a new project. Set the name of your project (1) and then select a folder in your hard to see that FairUse will rip the DVD into (2). As both the DVD and the output file will be put there there should be more than 6-7GB free in that hard disk. Then click Next (3) to go to the next step.

The Options button (next to Next) will take you to an options screen which is not really needed unless you want to enable expert options (use external codecs, change format from .avi to .mkv) so we will not cover it here. However there is an option to change the language in there so you may want to change it if you are not familiar with English/


Step2

Fairuse 2


Then you will be asked to select the drive that contains the DVD you want to convert (1). You can also select an ISO file already in your hard disk. When you're done click OK (2).

As FairUse Wizard 2 cannot copy protected discs you have to pass the protection almost all commercial DVDs have another way. The easiest way is to download and install AnyDVD. It sits in the tray and does all the work! (this works not only with FairUse but any program that does not support protected DVDs). The other way is to read our guide about how to extract a DVD to an ISO file using DVD Decrypter (follow it up to Step 3). Note that you will need double the hard disk space and some extra time, but this method is free.


Step3

Fairuse3

Here you can select which Chain (Title) you want to convert. Usually you want to convert the main movie which is the chain with the biggest Duration, so just select it and click Next.

Step4

Fairuse4

Now Fairuse Wizard rips the DVD and copies the index in your hard drive. This can take from 10 to 30 minutes depending on how big the movie is and how fast your DVD drive is. When its finished you will be forwarded to the next step.

Step5

Fairuse05

Here you can set most display and range settings. First of all you can select what range you the video you can to encode. Just move the slider under the preview to the points you want to start and end encoding and press the arrow both times (1). By default the whole movie is selected. Next you should set the area to be encoded so that you remove any black bars and maximize quality. To do that, click Auto set (2) and then made any adjustments necessary from the rest controls (3). You can see the video you have selected in the preview window (it's the big square) to make sure everything is fine.
Lets move on at the subtitle settings (4). First of all, if you want to include subtitles select Include subpictures and choose the language you want underneath. You can also set a Vertical safety zone to make sure that subtitles won't go too low which can cause them not to display well. You can preview the subtitles in the preview screen as well! Lets explain the rest of the options quickly as well. Show forced subtitles only will display only the subtitles that appear in a DVD even if you have them off, for example translation of signs in foreign language etc. Extract subtitles will save the subtitles in an external .srt file instead of embedding them in the video while Horizontal safety zone is pretty obvious that is the same thing with the vertical one but for the other dimension!
Just before we click next lets have a look at the Logo options (6). Here you can select a logo that you want to be included in the video easily, by enabling Show logo clicking Logo and select the image file. By the four buttons next to Show logo you can select the corner that it will appear.
When you are ready to move on click Next (7).

Step6

Step6a

Here all you have to do is click Auto Detect (1) and FU will select the best setting for you as shown at the screenshot below. Click Next (2) and go to the next step.
Step06b

Step7

Step7


Here we have the video settings. First of all you can select the video codec (1). XviD and H264 come with Fairuse, to enable the rest of them you need to install the codecs that are grayed out. For most users XviD is the best choice so we will select it here. Next you can select the preferred size of the output file and select whether to do 2 passes or not (2). I really suggest you enable it, as although it takes a lot of time, it also improves the quality greatly.
Next come the encoding settings (3). The options are: Encoding speed, where you set the bar below depending on if you want better quality or faster encoding, Encoding Speed ESS, which is the same thing but sets the right settings for optimum standalone XviD/DivX players support, iPod Video, which automatically sets the right settings for encoding the video for your iPod and finally, Codec settings that allows you to set codec options manually.
Following the video settings come the audio ones (4). Here you can add/remove audio streams to your output file (you can add up to 2 audio streams). In the left area you see the streams you have added and in the right area you can select the sound codec (Mp3 or AAC) and the bitrate. Unless you want 5.1 audio, Mp3 at 128kbps should be fine.
Following up you can set the resolution you want (5). The default size should be fine, if you plan to playback the video in your TV you may as well select Use TV display mode. In the Files settings (6) right next to it you can set the segments you want to split the file to (for example if you select 1300MB output file and 2 segments it will create 2 files of about 650MB each). Defer processing (7) will put the project in a queue and let you start a new one to process all of them in the end. When you are done click Next (8) to move on.

You can read our FAQ for H.264 and decide yourself whether to use it instead of XviD or not. You can read the FAQ here.


Step8

Fairuse8

Now Fairuse Wizard will begin the encodings. Depending on the speed of your PC and how long the movie is, this can take up to 10 hours so you may find handy the option to Shutdown the computer when done.

Step9

Fairuse10


That it! Your video is ready!

If you need help there is no better place than the Official Fairuse Forums which are hosted in our site.

Comments (35)Add Comment
No Questions Here Please!
written by afonic, December 16, 2006
Please use the comment form only to add comments about the guide. Ask questions in the forums.
Thank you
written by Reza, March 03, 2007
Thank you for a very clear and great guide and thanks to FairUse for an excellent software.
Great Guide
written by ForceRun, March 12, 2007
How do you use the Batch Processing Feature to do like a season worth of TV shows?
...
written by dann, March 22, 2007
good guide!
buy open source!
written by Shubbar, March 24, 2007
Thanks for this guide. But how can it be open source and they sell it? And when i tried to install it, no GPL license was mentioned. No licence was mentioned at all!
...
written by mel106, April 03, 2007
That is absolutely brilliant; FairUse is fairly straightforward and easy to use but if you have instructions like that it makes a whole lot more sense! I wouldn't have known what half of the options were for!

Thanks so much for your excellent guide.

Mel
Sadly doesn't work under vista
written by vista_user, April 12, 2007
It stops and says that it can't create temp file.
Doh it does
written by vista_user, April 12, 2007
Run the shortcut as admin
Faster ripping
written by easytouse, April 22, 2007
This is a good guide. Thanks. However, i was wondering if there is a faster way (fewer clicks with lesser options) to rip DVDs straight to xVid/Divx with the best quality option preselected (even if the size of the output increases to 1.5-2gb)?
...
written by Jérôme, April 28, 2007
MERCI pour votre guide clair et précis.
Excellent Tutorial!
written by Josue, May 18, 2007
I wanna thank whoever took the time to make this tutorial, it is very complete and you covered step by step everything needed to navigate through the program. For a newbie like me who experienced with a bunch of other useless programs and was just about to give up I would HIGHLY recomment this program to everyone and would say before trying ANY other program you gotta try this one and the most amazing thing is that it is FREE.
Good, but needs more details
written by Ivan the Terrible, May 22, 2007
It would be nice of you explained all the advanced options in detail. Like all those bitrate calculation button and such. That way those who want good stuff would be able to select for best video out put.
catfish31
written by stu, June 01, 2007
This is a great guide for a top notch piece of software (i use dvd shrink fisrt to create iso images of the dvds) then fair use to get them down to 700mb, put a few films in the queue then process all jobs at night fantastic !
Nothing working for me
written by BigZ, June 03, 2007
When I try to do step 3, windows pulls up an error saying "FU.exe has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience."

Don't know what to do
...
written by spitron, June 22, 2007
Nice Tut, thanks for pointing to the app!
Thanks
written by Euro, July 11, 2007
Thank you for the tutorial. I'll try light version if it works for me, I will buy this tool. Thanks again. Regards.
video size help
written by zookeeper525, August 04, 2007
ok i have ripped about 20 movies now wit this and i have seen some movies screen sizes comes out very thin i like the wide screen but y on some its so thin if a setting i can use to zoom in or what ever i would love it thanks
nice and easy 9/10
written by www.phorum.ws dloadz, September 03, 2007
this is the first program I have had luck with right away, I use dvddecrypter and make an ISO file, then just load that! most other guides dont work or are too much hassle to do exactly what this does.... beautiful!
Tjohoo!
written by www.myfavorite.se, September 04, 2007
Heter det ett räddt marsvin, ett räddt rådjur? Neee..?! Bra program frstn, tycker om.
Problem with running the program
written by Kimms, September 12, 2007
I love the program....just wondering if anyone knows what does "muxing operation failed". I was able to use the program but now I get this error after going thru step 7? Is there a FAQ area? thanks
...
written by Kiddo, September 21, 2007
Too bad the program screws the sound by boosting the volume, making it all sound too load and distorted.
...
written by jinkoryu, October 28, 2007
can the output resolution be set to 720x480?
Even though my source video capture area I can set to 720x480, when the screen to set output resolution comes up I can only choose 720x385 or something like that...
...
written by ppfletch, November 04, 2007
What a relief!
Such a user friendly product for the novice - and free too!

Thanks you very much.
http://www.dvd-creators.net/dv...r-mac.html
written by mathew, January 17, 2008
Goode guide, A similar guide for mac users to rip dvd.
..., Low-rated comment [Show]
Chuckie G - Your very wrong
written by Anon, February 10, 2008
its plainly obvious you have no knowledge of what your talking about. DVD Shrink reduces the size of a DVD encoding from DVD9 to DVD5 (so you can fit a dual layer DVD onto a single layer DVD). FairUse Wizard encodes from DVD to AVI.. which is a totally different format.
excellent program
written by techluvver, March 17, 2008
Great program and mostly easy to figure out by doing short 1 minute test iso for different quality settings. Although one thing I cannot figure out is - if I record a widescreen program from tv it seems to recognize it as a 4X3 and the aspect ratio is all out of whack.
Apart from that the de-interlacing feature is great for some older dvds. I found using a bitrate of 1100 produces great results and average movie is about 800-1000 megabytes.
Great program for quality encoding
written by Geek, July 12, 2008
I have used it to do mini comparison with AutoGK and TMPG 4 express although it may take a while to convert a dvd to divx (only compared divx) but the quality is great. Any one knows how can i use a Divx pro codec instead of the community codec thats included already in fairuse? I would like to see newer versions of fairuse utilising more of the quad cores.
Subtitle Help
written by adamneve, July 29, 2008
Excellent excellent program for the Novice like me. Thank you so much!!!
I'd like to convert some nice Asian DVDs and upload it with subtitles. Can anyone tell me if I can convert with 2 subtitles at once? Eg English and Chinese so I can upload both subtitles for others to choose.

Great stuff!
Giving it a go
written by tronny, April 17, 2009
I did a search for encoding using x264 and im converting Ace Ventura pet detective atm. I set it to unrestricted slow. Going to take just shy of an hour (i do have a good pc).
I currently use DVD decryptor and AutoGK to rip my movies to xvid, if this works for x264 im now on that smilies/cheesy.gif
Oh, and i downloaded the full version via a torrent, so defiantly no 700mb limit. Lets face it, wouldn’t we all rather have good quality and less free space then shit quality with lots of free storage.

55x2 mins later : came out 1.36 gigs and looks the same as the dvd smilies/cheesy.gif
Fantastic. guide was good but the program wasn’t hard to follow either.
Thanks for google linking me to this program

First-Time User
written by TikTikBoom, April 30, 2009
smilies/smiley.gif Worked great first time I tried it -- just the demo version. Nice, clear, bright yellow easy-to-read subtitles endorsed directly into the AVI file. Now I can watch my movies using my portable media player on the (LOUD) train commute to work, where I can't hear the dialog mostly because of the background train noise. I was worried I'd have to go back to reading or watching my skipping-and-freezing-up DVD player during my commute. This thing works great!
thanks a lot.....
written by psyrobbie, June 21, 2009
i was looking on the internet for easily ripping a dvd and i came across this tutorial....everything was so easy to understand......FairUse Wizard is such an amazing software......this was the first time i ever ripped a dvd......and just a few clicks away.....it came out almost the same as the original dvd quality......i ripped a two hour movie worth 6gb and converted to 800mb with retaining almost the same quality video......took me almost 5 hrs to complete......i dont need to look for anything anywhere now......thanks a lot....
Nice.
written by mikeyy, September 29, 2009
Nice guide, nice and easy to use program.
OPEN SOURCE DOES NOT MEAN FREE NIGGA
written by F@CKINGN00BSGETPWNT, October 10, 2009
noobs
crop error
written by Kitaro, January 28, 2010
I have a DVD with a wide animation. At crop settings i select 16:9 and i see a rectangle inside the movie frame cutting left and right bars from the main frame. This is ok. When i want to select the Output video size, resolutions from there don't match with my crop settings, and the final movie is too wide, and playing on my LCD it showed with black bars up and down so is not 16:9. Why the movie is not encoded at resolution from crop settings?

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