not again! software to rip home dvd

[bchamorro]

what should I use? Is mac the ripper still the best option?

[sammich]

what should I use? Is mac the ripper still the best option?

The search option next to the thread title box is always a good place to start.

[bchamorro]

got it.

mac the ripper for raw backup.
handbrake for encoding

[Toniola]

I, for one, am in favor of dvd imaging apps that are on the "up and up". Drive In from Telestream has turned out to be great for this purpose. If you own the DVD, you can image it to a hard drive and create a complete catalog of your movies. I *do* hear lots about Handbrake, though. Is this a free app? Any support with it? Maybe I better take a look.

[Exman]

Handbrake converts your DVDs into mp4, mkv, avi formats, mostly via h.264 compression codec. You would struggle to see the difference between a 1.5GB H.264 movie vs. the original source DVD of 4.5GB.

In this case, programs like Handbrake is good for saving HDD disc space with very little or no compromise to picture and sound quality.

[Toniola]

That might be good for viewing on your Mac, but what if I want to broadcast it to my 42" HDTV, thru my Powerbook's video out?

[Exman]

That might be good for viewing on your Mac, but what if I want to broadcast it to my 42" HDTV, thru my Powerbook's video out?

You'll have to give it a trial run on your HDTV. Personally, I am satisfied with the video quality. I have over 400 DVDs, I've archived (ripped) them all to the HDD using the AVC (H.264) codec (MP4 and MKV), and play them on my HTPC.

Handbrake is a good program for this purpose, however, for best picture quality, you really have to use avisynth frameserver together with something like megui.

Avisynth acts as a pre-processing frameserver, you can do all sorts of wonderful adjustments such as deinterlace, color correction/enhancements, sharpening enhancements etc to the video source before it gets encoded into an mp4/mkv. At this stage, avisynth is only on Windows, so bootcamp is needed.