Please do. I didn't even know there is software to do that.

Well, there isn't a single specific piece of software that does it. You need to combine different pieces of software to get the job done. And since they all involve DeCSS to some extent, you have to poke around a bit to find them.

So, the sound is not encrypted like video?

No, it's encrypted right along with everything else. The first step of the process requires that you have many gigabytes of free hard disk space to decrypt/rip the entire DVD onto the hard disk. Ick. This alone requires two different pieces of software (a front-end to control the command-line decrypter). Then you have to use a completely different piece of software as a front-end to yet another piece of software to extract the individual elements from the decrypted .VOB files.

What about different encodings (AFAIK most new DVDs use Dolby AC-3, a 320kbps 5+1 channel scheme, but there is also older Dolby surround, Prologic, dts etc)

Those are different audio tracks encoded within the .VOB files that make up the movie. One of the tracks is normal stereo with encoded 4-channel Dolby surround, so that's usually the one you want to snag. You have to poke around a bit in the software find which audio track you want to rip. Of course, some of those tracks contain bursts of director's commentary, etc., so you have to listen carefully before committing.

Most of the software is concerned with ripping the DVD into some other compressed motion-video format, either for pirating onto video-CDs for resale or for distributing on the internet for Divx-encoded downloads. So if you wanna grab just the audio tracks, you have to find the options in the software that save only the .WAV files.

Then there's the problem that the audio .WAV files are 48khz sampled (DVD's standard) instead of 44khz. If you play them on a regular sound card at the default rate, everything sounds like it's in slow-motion. So you need to pull them into Cool Edit and re-save them before encoding.

Phew! That's a lot of work, and a lot of disk space.

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Tony Fabris