Bluray ripping software, but for dummies?

Use a real player for starters.

Instead of removing the bars during ripping, you're better off just using zoom functions in the player.

Edit: Just checked and you can remove black bars in MPC-HC, which is one of the most popular media players around here. It's under "Pan&Scan".
Edited by lockdown571 - 1/17/13 at 7:47pm

Nope. Not both any way. Do as suggested and either put up with them (they do belong there) or distort the picture and zoom them out at playback. Quick question: do you really only have black bars on the bottom?

Why are you trying to avoid encoding?

I use makemkv and handbrake and am very satisfied with the flexibility. You can select what you want from the disk in makemkv. HD audio, subtitles, extras etc... If you just want the movie and HD audio just select that. It creates a nice mkv file you can use in XBMC. It is relatively large and handbrake helps with that. It will slim down the files size of the mkv and crop out wasted data of the black bars. It also lets you encode in lower resolution and different formats if you want. For full 1080p with lossless HD audio I average 8-10gb per movie, which is much smaller than what is stuffed on the blu-ray.

You really should just accept the black bars, as that's part of how the movie was filmed. If you must get rid of them, that means you're going to have to either distort the picture or cut the sides off. If you really hate them that much, then I would recommend using the zoom functions in your video player like I described.

Sure its helpful. Not very many of us are using vlc for a reason. Its just not as good of a player (although I do agree it plays about everything you throw at it).

I agree with what others have said about accepting the black bars. Its the way the movie was meant for you to be viewed.

You asked for our opinion and here at avs this is how most watch film. Do a search for many many other discussions regarding those pesky black bars.

Using the "mkv remux" profile in DVDFab Bluray Ripper does not re-encode the material.

Neither does ripping with MakeMKV, but neither one will remove black bars...

The OP has 7TB to fill and wants a VoD library that's why. Plus if you want to play a Blu-ray with software and a drive you may as well just get a Blu-ray player.

And why are we even talking about illiminating the black bars in 2013? That agument was settled in 1997..

This^

if you remove the bars, then it wouldn't be a Bit for bit rip of the movie, without any encoding.

Good point..

Can't have both. Choose the bit for bit rip!

While I totally agree that the "black bars" should be there so that the OAR is maintained but I see no reason why they should be encoded on the disc. Let the video player add the black bars during playback, why waste bits on black bars (granted two solid black bars don't take up many bits) but still it seems strange plus if you ever play it back in a window (instead of full screen) it's nice not to see those black bars. I seem to recall some DVDs came that way but I maybe wrong, memory isn't want it used to be.

If you're playing it in a window, why not just adjust the player software to eliminate the bars? Here's an example using VLC:

I don't normally use VLC (I use MPC-HC) but I am sure it has similar options. It just never occurred to me.

Thanks for the tip.