Software & Hardware Reviews and Tutorials

Do you remember all those oldies but goodies? If you are also looking to convert your precious Vinyl LPs To CDs, Get Ready. Dust off your old 33′s, 45s & 78′s because Acoustica Spin It Again is out to make your Job easier.You can easily record any Vinyl LPs to CD or cassettes to CDs. You can record the whole LPs in a few very easy steps. Not only you can make the recording but also you can remove noise from your recording and bring them back to life. The whole process is so easier that If you have not done a recording in your whole life yet,you can use Spin It Again. Its wonderful step by step wizard makes things very much easier! You don’t need to use your own mind, Just read the live instructions on screen and go ahead.

We are very happy to review Acoustica Spin It Again. We have used this software to convert LPs to CDs and we are very happy to write Acoustica Spin It Again Review. This product is specially designed for recording LPs and Cassettes to CDs. It supports lots of features and a very neat step by step wizard to make the whole process easier. We will review every aspect of this LP To CD Converter in details.

Installation

The installation of the softwre was very easy. The size of installer file is 10 MB and after downloading it, you need to double click on it to begin the installation wizard. After following a very few basic steps, the installation is done without any hassle. Now you are ready to test drive the software and convert LPs To CDs. Here is a screenshot of Acoustica Spin It Again.

Ease Of Use

This is main aspect of this software. The user interface of the software is small and very neatly designed. Once you run the software, you would see a screen with three options on it.

1. Record a Vinyl LP
2. Record a Cassette Tape
3. Load a Sound File

You can click on whatever option you want to go with. We clicked on Record a Vinyl LP button. Once you click on the button, the software asks If you need help to hookup the things together. Unless you are fully aware of everything, you should click on “Yes” button. Once you click on “Yes” button, you’ll see a “Hook Up Wizard”. This wizard is specially focused on helping you so that you make the connections right. Making right connections is very important to get good quality recording so that you can convert LPs to CDs. Please follow this step by step wizard to make the connections. Here are a few very important things we would like to outline for our readers (These things are not a part of the software but you need to know them) :

A) You should always look for “Phono Out” jacks on your Record Player. Usually LPs produce a low volume and in certain cases It might not be enough for making good quality recordings, so you might need a preamp to boost the signal and then send that signal to your computer. Many Record Players have in-built preamps and in case yours doesn’t have it, you might need to use a Stereo Preamp.

Please note that using a preamp is not essential and you might not need it at all. It depends on several factors and you may always make the connections without using the Preamp in between to see the quality of recordings you get. If you think the quality is not up to the mark, you should use a preamp to boost the recording signal.

If you don’t have the cables or thepreamp and you wish to buy them, please look below for some very nice equipments and extremely low price. Feel free to read the customer reviews on the page (Once you click on the items, you can read the reviews) and decide yourself. These two hardware items are always need in recording from turntables.

B) The basic scenario of making connections is :

a) Connect Phono Out (Two RCA Jacks, one red and another white) on your Preamp to Line (One Steo Jack in of your computer. In mose cases, you’ll need a RCA To Stereo cable for connecting your Record Player and computer’s sound card. In case your LP has RCA jacks and your sound card also has RCA jacks, you’ll need a RCA to RCA cable. These cables are very cheap and easily available in nearby hardware stores.

b) If you are getting low volume recordings even after boosting the recording volume all the way up, you need to use a Preamp. In that case, first you’ll connect Record Player and Preamp with certain cables. Then you’ll connect your preamp and your computers sound card.

The basic thing is, you need to get a Line level input to make good recordings. If the level of recording is below Line level, the quality will not be up to mark. Please don’t get afraid that you won’t get the quality you are looking for. This is just a case and can be resolved with help of a preamp.

C) Please make sure that you don’t use Microphone jack instead of line in to make the recordings. The quality will not be satisfactory and you might get noise in the recording.

If you keep in mind the above points, there is no way you’ll get inferior quality recordings. This is the basic Setup. The software also includes a Hook UP Wizard to guide you through the process. Here is a screenshot from Hookup Wizard.

Features Set

This software is a bomb when it comes to features. It supports lots of features and every feature is extremely useful for making the recording. First, It offers a step by step wizard with pictures to guide you throughout the process. The pictures make the things very clear and even a newbie can make the connectiosn easily.

Spin it Again also offers a “Level Wizard” which allows you to choose the recording source and set the recording volume. In most cases the software will choose the appropriate recording source by itself and you just need to set the recording volume. The software also allows you to monitor the sound while the recording is going on. This way you can know what is being recorded.

You would certainly find this Spin It Again Review very useful for you. Make sure you download the software from this page and give it a try. Now we’ll outline its other features.

1. It allows you to pause the recording after a certain period. You don’t need to sit on workstation to pause the recording once its done. You can simply select the duration when you want to pause the recording and the software will do it automatically for you.

2. It also shows you how much recording you can make on the hard disk. It shows free space on the hard disk and the maximum recording time.

3. You can select recording format including bit rates according to your requirement. You need to click on “Settings” button on Acoustica Spin In Again and here you can set the recording format to 8bit, 16bit or even 24bit recordings. Just for your information, there are very few software which supports 24bit recordings and Spin It Again is one of them. Here is a screenshot of the settings dialog.

4. Before starting recording LP Vinyls To CDs, Spin It Again allows you to adjust recording levels. You can choose the recording source and adjust the recording volume slider. Please make sure that you monitor the incoming signal from your turntable and adjust the recording volume level accordingly. If the recording volume will be too low, you’ll get low quality recordings and If you’ll set it way high, the recording will be distorted, so please make sure that you select a optimum level by dragging the volume slider. Here is a screenshoot explaining that :

5. After setting up recording levels, you need to start the recoding by click on “Record” button. You can also specify when the recoding should pause automatically. Please use this feature If you are not going to sit on workstation during recording. After recording, the software will open the file in editor where you can split the individual tracks. You can also remove pops, clicks and other noise from the recording. Here is a screenshot displaying what you can do with editor.

6. After recording the files from LP and separatin the tracks, you need to click on “Next” button to enter the song information. You can use the online lookup feature or enter the informaiton manually. Here is the dialog box which you’ll see for entering the song information.

7. After entering the song information, you need to click on “Next” button and this will show you a “Burn CD” dialog box. Here you can burn LPs to CDs. The LPs which you’ve just recorded is now ready to burn and you can choose from a variety of options. In case you don’t want to burn CD, you can save the files on your hard disk. Here is the LP To CD Burning Dialog Box. This software offers a wide variety of burning features.

8. After selecting Burn Audio CD button, you’ll see another dialog box to choose the CD burner. If you have multiple CD burners in your system, you can choose one accordingly and go ahead. The burning process is very smooth and works like charm. The Audio CD burned by Spin It Again is playable in your computer as well as other CD players.

That’s it. You have just converted your first LP to CD. Converting Vinyls, LPs, Cassettes to CDs is very easy. Just you need to understand the basic setup and make the right connections.

Help/Support

Acoustica of offering great support and really backing up their product with excellent support staff. In a very unlikely event, If you face any problem with the software you can always contact them and except a very swift reply.

Conclusion / Should I Buy The Software?

We hope you’ve read the Acoustica Spin It Again Review throughly and found it useful. Spin It again is certainly the best LP To CD Converter software out there. This software alone can do all the operations. There are some other companies which are selling the similar product and charging a lot by providing the features as “add ons”. This is not the case with Spin It Again. It comprises all the features required for converting LPs to CD.

If you are looking to convert your cassettes tapes or Viynls to CD, look no further. This software is very powerful and does everything. Its price is just $34.95 and we can certainly say this price is very low for the feature this software offers. You’ve got nothing to loose, give this wonderful LP To CD Converter a try and you won’t regret!

Before writing this review, we also posted Wondershare DVD Ripper For Mac Review and iSkysoft DVD Ripper For Mac Review. In case, you also want to read their reviews, please click on able links respectively.

We are very happy to write a Xilisoft DVD Ripper For Mac Review. This product is simply excellent, build with some features which are not available in any other Mac DVD Ripper Software. Yes! There are some very useful features in this dvd ripper for mac which are not supported by Wondershare and iSkysoft both. We’ll discuss about those unique features in this review later on. We have used this software for seven days and we can tell you that this is nowhere less from any other mac dvd rippers. In face, It is one of the best dvd rippers for mac available in the market as of today. We’ll shed some light on that a bit later on.

Installation Process

Installation process is very easy and when you download the installer file you get a .dmg file. Please note that you need to download separate versions for Intel and Power PC processors. After downloading, you need to click on installer file and go through Installation instructions. Installing this mac dvd ripper software is very easy and you don’t need to download any addons, plug-ins etc.

Ease of Use

The main user interface of this mac dvd ripper software is totally from the other products we have reviewed so far. The main user interface and features of iSkysoft and Wondershare are very similar. There is a great resemblance in these two mac dvd rippers but Xilisoft is totally different. Its user interface is designed from scratch and It does look very clean and user friendly. The main buttons are easily visible and you can easily understand its features. There is also a tooltip associated with each button. If you hover the mouse over that button, you’ll see a small box telling the buttons funtionality. Don’t worry If you have not used a dvd ripper before, you can easily operate this software.

Features Set

It supports all features which are supported by other mac dvd rippers. Xilisoft DVD Ripper for Mac supports all features which we have seen in other software with similar capabilites however there are some features which are not supported by other software but Xilisoft supports them. It makes this the best dvd ripper for mac If we talk about features.

Some Features which are supported Only by Xilisoft DVD Ripper For Mac

A) Convert Files To Different Formats in One Step

If you are using other dvd ripper for mac, then you must convert all files to one format. But If you are using Xilisoft DVD Ripper For Mac, you can convert each file to a format of your choice. Yes, you can specify target format for every file separately. I’ll elaborate this feature more.

Say, you have 10 files on your DVD. Now If you are using other mac dvd rippers, then you can convert all of these 10 files to only one format at a time. With Xilisoft, you can convert these 10 files to 10 different formats in single step. This software allows you to select a different format for each file. This feature is not supported by other dvd rippers for mac. Here is a screenshot showing how you can convert files to different formats in one step.

B) Put Watermark on Converted Video

While ripping the movie from the DVD, you can put your own watermark on the fly. You can specify the watermark before you start ripping the DVD. Putting a watermark while ripping dvd is not supported by other similar products. Here is a screenshot displaying how you can add the watermark.

C) Save User Defined Profies

Unlike other software, you can also define user profiles in this software. For example, you convert your DVD to AVI files but you choose a bit rate of your own. Say, you choose 1000 kbps bit rate. Now If you are using other dvd rippers, then you’ll need to change this bit rate everytime. But If you are using Xilisoft DVD Ripper For Mac, you can save this setting as a customized format of your own and next time, you just need to select that. It is way better than manually changing bit rates everytime.

There are some other great features as well and you can test them in the trial version. You can download the trial version from this page by clicking on the right buttons. There are several other features supported as well including..

Trim Video – If you want to rip a particular segment off a video, this option is for you. You can select the start position and end position to rip the particular segment according to your desire.

Crop Video - Want to remove black sides from the video? There is no problem doing that. Before ripping the video, please use crop feature of the software and mark the area of black headers which you want to cut out. The software will automatically cut that portion out and rip the video without any black sides.

Adjust Brightness, Contrast, Saturation - If your video is dark and you want to enhance its quality while ripping it, you can do this with great ease. Before ripping the dvd, please adjut the brightness and other factors as per your requirement. The software will apply those adjustments on the file while ripping. This is a great feature and very useful for enhancing the quality.

Supported Formats

It supports the highest number of formats. We have been surprised to see all those formats in a single software. It supports a whole lot of 118 different formats (almost three times higher than other dvd ripper for mac). There are many format variants for iPod, iPhone and other devices. You can adjust these formats according to your desire only If you know what you are doing. If you are not aware of all aspects of changing formats properties, please just don’t change them.

Conversion Speed and Ripping Quality

The quality of ripped video is beautiful. No flickers, no strange colors, no out of sync voice anymore. It rips the DVD beautifuly and the quality is superb. There is no complain in regards to quality. If you are ripping the dvd for your iPod, you’ll be amazed to see the quality on your iPod. There are many different formats to choose from and you can choose the one which fits your needs. It supports lots of portable devices including iPod, iPhone, BlackBerry, Creative Zen, XBox, PSP, iRiver and over hundred other formats. It is really not possible to describe all of them here.

DVD Ripping speed of Xilisoft DVD Ripper For Mac is very could but It could have been a little bit better. The ripping speed is not slow at all, but there is scope of improvement in that and a company like Xilisoft will certainly enhance their product line in future. If you are looking for a Mac DVD Ripper, this software is certainly worth buying! You don’t ever need to try it out. It works like charm!

Welcome to iSkysoft DVD Ripper For Mac Review. If you are looking for some detailed information on iSkysoft DVD Ripper For Mac, you are on the right page. Read on iSkysoft DVD Ripper For Mac Review to find out how our experts panel rate this software.

iSkysoft DVD Ripper For Mac is a very powerful and well designed software.  It supports converting both encrypted and unencrypted dvds on mac.  We have tested this software for several on our Mac and found to be the most powerful dvd ripper for Mac OS X

We have reviwed all the aspects of this best dvd ripper for mac and we would like to cover all the details one by one. We are certain you’ll find this review very helpful to make your decision about purchasing the product.

Installation Process

It is very easy to install iSkysoft DVD Ripper for Mac. You don’t need to download any other plug-ins or addons to get the software installed. You need to simply click on the installer file and follow the instructions thereon to get the software up and running. The installation is hassle free and doesn’t involve any sort of difficulties.

Ease of Use

The main user interface of this mac dvd ripper is very professionaly designed. The video preview panel is at the left side of the screen and the most prominent buttons are on the top of main user interface. Every butto tells itself what it does. You don’t need to find how to load the DVD. There is a button called “Load DVD” on the main screen which clearly says this is how to load the dvd.

You need to click on “Load DVD” button, and navigate to the DVD folder of the movie you want to add from your hard disc or DVD-ROM, open DVD folder, select VIDE_TS folder and click OK. The Video_TS folder is where the movie resides on the DVD. You can also open IFO files on mac with this  mac dvd ripper software.

Features Set

iSkysoft DVD Ripper For Mac supports all features we have seen in varous dvd rippers. You can rip dvd on mac with any additional help guides or support request. This Mac dvd ripper supports ripping of whole DVD or the individual chapters. When you load the DVD, It should you all the chapters and If you wish to rip them all, you can do that very easily. In case you want to rip only a few chapters, that is also possible with great ease. There is a checkbox in front of every chapter. You just need to check the ones which you want to rip and make sure that other checkboxes are unchecked. That’s it. You can also merge chapters into one file on Mac.

You can also preview the chapters before starting ripping. Just select the chapter with mouse and click on Play button in the left panel where you’ll see a preview window. The video will start playing and you can see what you are going to rip.  It supports many other features as well which we’ll discuss in details.

Trim Video on Mac – In case you want to rip a certain portion of a chapter, that is also possible with this mac dvd ripping. You need to tick the check box of the chapter ot titles which you want to trim and click on “Trim” button to open the window. In this window you can specify the “Start” and “Stop” time and click on OK. Here is a screenshot for you displaying how the trimming features works :

Trim DVD Videos or Individual Chapters on Mac

Crop Movie Clips on Mac – If the dvd you are ripping on Mac has black sides or you want to rip only a certain portion of the screen then you can use Crop feature of the software. You need to select the particular chapter from the DVD panel and click on “Crop” feature. Select the crop area with mouse and also select the aspect settings. That’s it. Now when the DVD will be ripped, only the portion which you selected will be ripped. Here is how the crop feature works :

Crop Video while ripping DVD on Mac

Merge Two or More Chapters – This feature allows you to merge two or more individual chapaters together while ripping the DVD. You need to select the check boxes of chapters which you want to combile together. Now before you start ripping the dvd on mac, you need to check a check box which says “Merge Into One File”. Now the selected chapters will be merged in one file rather than individual files. Here is a screenshot demostrating how it works :

Merge Individual Chapters into one file on Mac

iSkysoft DVD Ripper For Mac has two different versions, Intel Mac and Power PC mac. You can download a version according to the Mac you are using. There are lots of important features in this software which you can test yourself If you tryout this best dvd ripper software for mac.

Supported Formats

It supports lots of different formats, including audio, video and portable devices.  You can rip your DVD to AVI, WMV, MPEG and lots of other similar formats. You can also rip only audio from the DVD and save it in any audio format including MP3, OGG and lots of other formats. You can rip dvd to iPod, iPhone, Zune, PSP, Apple TV, XBox on Mac with great ease. You only need to select you desired format from the drop down list and that’s it. You also don’t need to adjust any video settings. However If you are looking for a particular video size for your own requirement, you can always click the “Settings” button and adjust the settings accordingly. However, this feature is recommened only for those users who understand what they are doing. Here is a screenshot display the supported formats :

iSkysoft DVD Ripper For Mac Supported Formats

Adjust the video size and bit rate according to your requirement

Conversion Speed and Ripping Quality

The ripping quality of iSkysoft DVD Ripper For Mac is outstanding. You would never feel a difference between watching the Ripped Movie or the original DVD. We have ripped the DVD into several different formats and there is no complain about the ripping quality. This is the best dvd ripping quality we have ever seen!

Regarding the dvd ripping speed on mac, the dvd ripping is simply superb and It is certainly the fastest dvd ripper software for Mac. Unlike other mac dvd rippers which are also rich on features but the dvd ripping speed is not that good, iSkysoft beats them all. The dvd ripping speed is considerably fast and this is the most powerful aspect of the mac dvd ripper.

Help and Support

The guys at iSkysoft are very prompt in responding to their customers including the trial users and you can always contact them for hope. You’ll receive a response within 24 hours and usually way fast than this. Their support team is very dedicated and eager to solve the problems you are facing.

Overall Impression and Conclusion

This software has everything you would like to see in a Mac DVD Ripper. If you are tired of trying out different dvd rippers for mac which really doesn’t work, give a try to this software. This is the fastest dvd ripper for mac supporting loads of formats and features. Ripping a DVD on Mac has never been easier before and this software is surely worth buying. Tryout its free version to see it in action and get ready to amazed. Download its free trial version now!

Wondershare DVD Creator For Mac is a great software!!

If you are looking to rip a dvd on Mac, you certainly need a fast and feature rich Mac DVD Ripper. There are many DVD Rippers For Mac and we have reviwed some best dvd rippers from the better ones.

Our team of Mac experts have evaluated Wondershare DVD For For Mac  for several days and found it to be one of best dvd rippers for Mac.  It offers lots of sophisticated features which works perfectly. We’ve reviwed every aspect of this Mac DVD Ripper and we’ll conver all points one by one.

Easy Installation

Installing Wondershare Mac DVD Ripper is very easy and the installation wizard is created in a very easy manner. All you need to do is download the application and use the installer wizard to install the software. All you need to do is, just click on a few buttons and that’s it. The installation is hassle free and doesn’t require any type of other software to complete the installation.

Ease of Use

The main user interface of this mac dvd ripper is very easy. Just by looking at its UI, you can understand the features of the buttons. If you are ripping dvd on mac for the first time, you don’t need to worry. Some Mac DVD Rippers particularly ask you to select the files which you want to Rip. There are usually three types of files on the DVD, .BUP, .IFO and .VOB. Not everyone knows that .VOB files are the video files and other two types are informational files for DVD.

In Wondershare DVD Ripper for Mac, you just need to click on “Load DVD” button and the software will load the DVD by itself. It will show you the individual chapters of the DVD. You can rip all the chapters or just your desired ones. It totally depends on you.

Wondershare DVD Ripper For Mac

Features Set

We have not seen such good features in many dvd rippers for Mac. This software is very rich on features and all of those features work perfectly. First, you can load the DVD by clicking on “Load DVD” button. That’s all you need to do to see the chpaters of DVD.

It also allows you to rip either a single chapter of the DVD or the whole DVD. In case you want to rip a particular chapter of the DVD, there is no need to rip the entire dvd. You can rip an individual chapter as well and save lots of time. That’s not all, If you want to merge two or more chapters in one file, that is also possible.  You can merge chapters into one file while ripping the DVD. You can also load IFO files in this dvd ripper for mac by clicking on “Load IFO” files button.

You can also trim the video while ripping the dvd.  Apart from trimming the video, you can also drop the video to remove black side from the video. You can select the size of video you want to rip and this way you can get ride of black sides and make your video look very sharper and bigger than before.

By using this Mac DVD Ripper Software, you can also apply several effects on the video. You can adjut the brighness, contrast, hue and saturation. If  your video is dark and you need to adjust some settings to make it more viewable, then this feature is way to go. Everything is done on the fly and you need to do this before you start ripping the DVD on Mac. You can also preview the video while the conversion is going on!

It has two different versions for Intel Mac and Power PC mac. You can download a version according to your requirement. There are lots of other features as well which you can explore even in trial version. If you are seriously looking to rip dvd on mac, you can give a certainly try to thismad dvd ripper!

Supported Formats

In one line, It supports a pile of formats. By using this software you can convert your DVD to any of these formats. You don’t need to buy different dvd converters for your iPod, iPhone and other similar devices. You can rip the DVD to almost any video formats and lots of portable devices are also supported.  For your convenience, we have complied full details of the formats It supports. By using This Mac DVD Ripper, You can convert Your DVD To Any of these formats. You can convert DVD To iPod, iPhone, Zune, PSP, AVI, WMV and lots more formats! Try it now, you won’t regret. Here is a screenshot of supported formats :-

Wondershare DVD Ripper Supported Format

Conversion Speed and Ripping Quality

The ripping quality of Wondershare DVD Ripper for Mac is simply excellent. The quality after ripping is identical to DVD and you won’t notice any difference. We ripped a movie into iPhone format using Wondershare DVD Ripper on Mac and transferred it to iPhone using iTunes. You can not believe how beautiful the quality was. Movie and sound both were in sync. It has been a very pleasing experience. Watch DVDs is exciting and this software will never spoil your fun with low quality! DVD Ripping Quality is simply amazing!

Regarding the dvd ripping speed on mac, the dvd ripping is fast but It could have been better. To be honest, the dvd ripping speed on mac is not slow in any aspect but It should be on the future product enhancement list on Wondershare DVD Ripper For Mac.

Help and Support

The guys at wondershare are very eager to help If a problem arises. In a very unlikely event, If you face any problem while using the software you can always contact them and will receive a reply promptly. Even If you have never used a dvd ripper for mac before, you can rely on their support team.

Awards

This DVD Ripper for Mac has received the following awards from various websites. We are displaying only a few awards here while this mac dvd ripper software has got lots of more awards too!

Overall Impression

The Mac DVD Ripper Software is simply wonderful. It is full of features, converts files into lots of format and there are loads of way to enhance your video. If you are looking for a dvd ripper for Mac, this software is a sure buy. We would strongly recommened trying out this software on your Mac and make a full use of its features. It trial version is unrestriected as well. This allows you to test full features of the software before you buy it!