Has Apple TV 2.0 changed your strategy for ripping DVDs you own?

kavika411 · Jan 19, 2008

Thank you for reading this. I have looked but have not found a thread on this particular question. If there is one, I appreciate someone pointing it out.

My question concerns the backing up of DVDs I own. I have been hesitant to back up my DVDs, using Handbrake or MacTheRipper or whatever, until the 5.1 surround issues were resolved; I did not want to rip my DVDs and then later Apple released a 5.1 (user friendly) Apple TV and then have to re-rip everything because I picked the wrong coding or whatever the first time around.

So, now that Apple has made/is making Apple TV 5.1-friendly, are you guys changing your approach to ripping DVDs you own, or are you doing it the same way you always have?

Thank you for your time and comments.

janitorC7 · Jan 19, 2008

kavika411 said:
Thank you for reading this. I have looked but have not found a thread on this particular question. If there is one, I appreciate someone pointing it out.

My question concerns the backing up of DVDs I own. I have been hesitant to back up my DVDs, using Handbrake or MacTheRipper or whatever, until the 5.1 surround issues were resolved; I did not want to rip my DVDs and then later Apple released a 5.1 (user friendly) Apple TV and then have to re-rip everything because I picked the wrong coding or whatever the first time around.

So, now that Apple has made/is making Apple TV 5.1-friendly, are you guys changing your approach to ripping DVDs you own, or are you doing it the same way you always have?

Thank you for your time and comments.

Yes, I started actually ripping my movies in anticipation of getting an ATV, although I actually have to get a Wide Screen first.

JC7

dwsolberg · Jan 19, 2008

Waiting

I have a lot of DVD movies that I could rip to the AppleTV, but they take up a lot of space, and I'm not sure it's worth the effort. The rental feature will probably be key for me, especially with the HD option. I expect that I'll probably end up using that a lot and foregoing the cheaper services like Redbox or Netflix because of the inconvenience.

kavika411 · Jan 19, 2008

Thank you for your responses. I don't think I asked my question very well. Let me ask this: for those of you who have been using Handbrake, are you still using Handbrake and are you still using the same encoding format? Or, for those of you who have been using MacTheRipper (at least initially) are you still doing so, or have you changed your method somehow.

I hope that makes sense. Thank you.

harcosparky · Jan 19, 2008

We've been looking into ripping our entire DVD collection for a while.

Over 300 DVD's ... just trying to figure the best format to rip them to and also deciding on which Hard Drives to use. Seems like 1 Terabyte at least, just to use as a ' file safe '.

Pull off the movies as we want to view them all the while the original disks will be safely stored away.

Since Apple TV 2.0 is 5.1 friendly we may be picking one up soon enough.

pilotError · Jan 19, 2008

I've been ripping the disks as Video TS and converting as I need them.

The kids disks all go to ATV so I can save myself having to buy the same disk over and over again. Kids like to scratch the crap out of them! LOL

All others are more or less save store. Conversion isn't a big deal, I usually let it run overnight and put it on my iPhone when the mood strikes me.

I do have an NAS drive though, a little more convenient. The mp4 format is a little more transportable, as it works on ATV, my PS3, and my iPhone for the most part.

I'm glad I did it this way, because when we finally figure out how to add the surround, I suspect it won't be very portable any more.

zedsdead · Jan 19, 2008

If the 5.1 can be played on the iPhone (which I doubt will be the case), then yes I defiantly will. However, I might re-encode anyway due to the new Anamorphic Settings that the rentals are using. The quality is on par with DVD. The Handbrake people are figuring it out now.

Cave Man · Jan 19, 2008

kavika411 said:
So, now that Apple has made/is making Apple TV 5.1-friendly, are you guys changing your approach to ripping DVDs you own, or are you doing it the same way you always have?

Don't do anything just yet.

What we know:

1. Apple is going to put a codec on the ATV that allows decoding of AC3 (DD 5.1) streams.

2. This functionality will be used by HD downloads from the ATV, but which will be unavailable to your Mac (by its surrogate, iTunes).

What we don't know:

1. Will this codec be available to movies/TV shows transcoded with one of Handbrake's AC3-encoding algorithms? Will these movies be sync/streamable to the ATV?

2. If not, will it be relatively easy to write the procedures for doing so in a future revision of HB?

Right now, the only way to get Quicktime on a Mac (but not on the ATV) to play back movies with DD 5.1 AC3 is to transcode them first in an AVI container with AC3 passthrough, open the AVI with Quicktime Pro and re-save as a self-contained movie, make sure Perian is installed on your Mac and that you've altered one plist file for the passthrough of the AC3 to your receiver by way of your Mac's optical port. These movies can be imported into iTunes and will play in 5.1 through iTunes, Quicktime and Front Row, but will not show up on the ATV.

It is doable. The question is, will Apple make it doable (i.e., "friendly") on the ATV? Gotta wait until the new software comes out next week.

kavika411 · Jan 20, 2008

Thanks, Cave Man, for that succinct, understandable (even to me) overview and your suggestion to wait.

zedsdead · Jan 20, 2008

Cave Man said:
Don't do anything just yet.

What we know:

1. Apple is going to put a codec on the ATV that allows decoding of AC3 (DD 5.1) streams.

2. This functionality will be used by HD downloads from the ATV, but which will be unavailable to your Mac (by its surrogate, iTunes).

What we don't know:

1. Will this codec be available to movies/TV shows transcoded with one of Handbrake's AC3-encoding algorithms? Will these movies be sync/streamable to the ATV?

2. If not, will it be relatively easy to write the procedures for doing so in a future revision of HB?

Right now, the only way to get Quicktime on a Mac (but not on the ATV) to play back movies with DD 5.1 AC3 is to transcode them first in an AVI container with AC3 passthrough, open the AVI with Quicktime Pro and re-save as a self-contained movie, make sure Perian is installed on your Mac and that you've altered one plist file for the passthrough of the AC3 to your receiver by way of your Mac's optical port. These movies can be imported into iTunes and will play in 5.1 through iTunes, Quicktime and Front Row, but will not show up on the ATV.

It is doable. The question is, will Apple make it doable (i.e., "friendly") on the ATV? Gotta wait until the new software comes out next week.

From what I gathered on the Handbrake Forums - 5.1 AC3 will not be coming to Handbrake because whatever they use to develop it does not Mux the file correctly between .MOV and AC3 or something to that nature. The creators (as I think most people were) were hoping Apple would simply support AAC 5.1 and cross-convert to AC3 on the fly. This did not happen though, so only time will tell. I imagine someone is going to have to hack the Apple TV, then get the file so we can see exactly what Apple is doing.

As for ripping strategies, Handbrake 0.9.2 will allow a new Anamorphic setting for the iPods/iPhone that will make the files look on par with DVD. I likely will switch to that but stick with Dolby Digital II. I will not re-encode anything yet because I currently am ripping at 720xN with a bit rate of 2000 and the files look damn close to DVD with those settings.

Cave Man · Jan 20, 2008

zedsdead said:
From what I gathered on the Handbrake Forums - 5.1 AC3 will not be coming to Handbrake because whatever they use to develop it does not Mux the file correctly between .MOV and AC3 or something to that nature.

Yes, right now the only way to get AC3 5.1 into a Quicktime container is by first muxing it as an AVI, then do a "Save as" using QT Pro. This gives a MOV with the AC3 intact. With Perian and the plist mod, it gives 5.1 surround on a Mac, but will not sync or stream to the ATV.

The creators (as I think most people were) were hoping Apple would simply support AAC 5.1 and cross-convert to AC3 on the fly. This did not happen though, so only time will tell. I imagine someone is going to have to hack the Apple TV, then get the file so we can see exactly what Apple is doing.

This would seem the path of least resistance, but Apple's made clear that they'll be shipping the DLs with Dolby Digital 5.1. Apple can make this easy - or they can make it hard. We'll just have to see what the software update provides (but I'm not too hopeful, given Apple's recent behavior in the last year or two).

As for ripping strategies, Handbrake 0.9.2 will allow a new Anamorphic setting for the iPods/iPhone that will make the files look on par with DVD. I likely will switch to that but stick with Dolby Digital II.

Do you mean Dolby Pro Logic II?

I will not re-encode anything yet because I currently am ripping at 720xN with a bit rate of 2000 and the files look damn close to DVD with those settings.

Yeah, I've been transcoding a few (ones that are 5.1 intensive) as AVIs with AC3 passthrough, then resaving with QT Pro. But those only work on my Mac with my Onkyo receiver. Most of my movies are encoded in DPLII.

eddyg · Feb 14, 2008

Well I just watched a movie on my atv in Dolby digital encoded via handbrake from a DVD. So it's coming soon, just a few issues to iron out.

kavika411 · Feb 14, 2008

eddyg said:
So it's coming soon, just a few issues to iron out.

When you say "it's coming soon," do you mean that you think Handbrake will release an updated version soon which will 'fit' with Apple TV 2.0 better? Thanks.

petvas · Feb 14, 2008

Visual Hub can do 5.1 in mov files that are compatible with Apple TV

Handbrake is doing what Apple is, they create an MP4 transport stream that has three tracks in it, one of them is the AC3 track. The latest build of Handbrake has enabled this functionality. I suggest to all of you that want to rip your DVDs with DD5.1, wait a couple of days till Handbrake 0.9.2 is out, or build your own build of Handbrake...
http://trac.handbrake.fr/timeline

cohibadad · Feb 14, 2008

Yeah. My strategy has changed. When my Mac Pro comes in the next few days I was about to rip my entire DVD library. I have some ripped and kept the TS folders. I plan to rip the rest and encode as usual in handbrake but I will keep all the TS folders to re-rip when the 5.1 is sorted out. Will take up a massive amount of HD space in the meantime.

danny_w · Feb 14, 2008

I have delayed ripping my DVDs for 2 reasons: 1) 5,1 surround sound is a must and 2) AppleTV does not support 4:3 tv aspect ratio. Now with AppleTV 2.0 reason #1 has been fixed, but they still need to fix reason #2 (I have updated to 2.0 and still no 4:3 support that I can see). I have actually considered getting an Xbox 360 to replace my AppleTV for that very reason, I just haven't actually seen one to see what the i/f is like for media streaming. I know that you can use Connect360 to connect iTunes music and videos, but I don't know how it works.

dynaflash · Feb 14, 2008

petvas said:
or build your own build of Handbrake...
http://trac.handbrake.fr/timeline

I *strongly* urge you not to build your own handbrake right now. Though we have it working, anything out of the svn is not supported and in some cases may not even work correctly. This is very new stuff and has its share of bugs. Please give us a chance to iron them out. If you do decide to go ahead anyway realize we do not support svn builds and in this case you mileage may definitely vary. trust me when I tell you we are definitely on it though. Trust that once it's deemed ready for prime time, you will know about it

petvas · Feb 14, 2008

dynaflash said:
I *strongly* urge you not to build your own handbrake right now. Though we have it working, anything out of the svn is not supported and in some cases may not even work correctly. This is very new stuff and has its share of bugs. Please give us a chance to iron them out. If you do decide to go ahead anyway realize we do not support svn builds and in this case you mileage may definitely vary. trust me when I tell you we are definitely on it though. Trust that once it's deemed ready for prime time, you will know about it

Well I have! I dont need any support whatsoever, if I have problems with this version then I will go back to the previous one.

dynaflash · Feb 14, 2008

Fair enough. I just wanted others to realize that they could waste a lot of time encoding with an unstable build. I know you have built your own petvas

petvas · Feb 14, 2008

I do not want to make others go out and build their own handbrake. If someone understands what he/she is doing, then it's fine. For most people of course, they are better advised to wait till Handbrake 0.9.2 is released.
It's good to know though that for most people, encoding all those DVDs with DD 5.1 for the Apple TV will soon be a reality...

dynaflash · Feb 14, 2008

I agree on all counts.

peterbaby · Feb 14, 2008

kavika411 said:
are you guys changing your approach to ripping DVDs you own

I have actually ripped my collection...and the new AppleTV is not going to change it, for the very simple reason that I don't like reconverting the video of my DVDs (even assuming, now, that the :apple:

TV can handle 5.1 sound).

Not only simply ripping (mactheripper) more than 100 DVDs was much faster than ripping+re-encoding, I have no quality loss. I have a mac mini connected to my LCD screen, and since Leopard, remember FrontRow can read ripped DVDs (every Video_TS). A simple alias to my external DVD-storage HD put in the "Videos" folder and everything is straight in frontrow.

No reencoding, straight access. Only drawback: there is no summary/preview picture in frontrow, it just shows the name of the folder containing the VIDEO_TS folder.

alFR · Feb 14, 2008

I'm not ripping anything until you can put AC3 into an mp4 container, which i believe from the above will be coming soon.

I just wanted to add how great I think it is that the Handbrake and visualhub teams are putting in so much work so quickly to get 5.1 on ATV working. You're doing a lot of people a big favour and we appreciate it!

HobeSoundDarryl · Feb 14, 2008

dynaflash, any chance that a new version of handbrake (or some handbrake tool) will be offered to take the audio stream from good (Handbrake) encodes already done in H264 with the 6-channel discrete (AAC) option and convert just the audio stream to Dolby Digital 5.1?

Is this even possible? And if so, would such a tool mean that good video encodes (using the AppleTV preset in the current version of Handbrake) would not have to be encoded again (just the audio track would need a conversion)?

I'm sure I'm not the only one that hoped Apple would make :apple:

TV 2.0 simply convert AAC 6 channel into Dolby Digital 5.1 on the fly. It would be fantastic if the above was possible, rather than having to start over again with both video and audio encoding.

dynaflash · Feb 14, 2008

tbh, you'll probably want to just start over. You *could* do it manually using a variety of tools and methods. But in the end you would frankly be better off just starting over if you want all of the newest stuff. As well there are other improvements besides whatever might be coming audio wise. Let me put it this way. I will be doing alot of re-encoding myself

Has Apple TV 2.0 changed your strategy for ripping DVDs you own?

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