Best DVD Conversion program/setting

[mynewromantica]

I am working on putting together a new home theater, and I want to put all my DVD's on my network storage so my Apple TV can get to them. But I want it to be the absolute best picture and sound I can squeeze out of it. So I was wondering what program and what settings I should use for the best I can get.
I will also be getting a Blu-Ray drive for my computer so if anyone can recommend a good Blu-Ray ripper that would be great too.

Thanks

 

[geoffreak]

Handbrake for DVDs on AppleTV setting.

There is a VERY long thread bout Bluray to ATV, please search before posting.

 

[TonD]

I use Apple TV Convert on Windoze. It's a tool I made myself by taking the latest SVN version of HandBrake and "improve" (this is subjective, 'tweak' for my usage and add some functionality like a built-in tagger) upon a winning concept.

I'm not sure if the HandBrake team would allow me to publish this though, I have to admit that I still have to read the GPL license, please don't sue me in the meantime



But if I hadn't made this I would be using plain vanilla HandBrake for sure, you really can't go wrong with it!

 

[Cave Man]

Are spammers hitting us in pairs now?

 

[geoffreak]

I'm not sure if the HandBrake team would allow me to publish this though, I have to admit that I still have to read the GPL license, please don't sue me in the meantime

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/GPL/2.0/

 

[TonD]

Thanks, so I am, should I want to ;-)

@Cave Man: spamming or answering a question? What's your problem man... I'm just proud of the work I did on adding stuff to an already great program. If you don't like that, it's fine with me, but what's your problem with people promoting HandBrake? I'd be glad to hear from you which tool you prefer above it and why...

Thanks.

 

[Cave Man]

@Cave Man: spamming or answering a question? What's your problem man... I'm just proud of the work I did on adding stuff to an already great program.

You're right, and I apologize. I should have more carefully read your post. It's a common tactic for one "newbie" to post such a question as the OP did, only to have another "newbie" post an answer to a Windows-based app that costs $100 and does exactly everything that HB does.

 

[dynaflash]

... and what pray tell did you do with the advanced options tab ?

 

[TonD]

... and what pray tell did you do with the advanced options tab ?

It's shown when you want, and hidden when you don't ;-) Just like the Query Editor in the original HB releases.

But the three biggest differences are the built-in tagger, the option to get a mail notification after each queue-item is done and a feature I dubbed "Auto-Throttling". It was actually requested by someone on the HB forums and I -unlike the HB devs- liked this idea a lot. What it does is run in "Idle" prio when the user is active at his machine (this way I can encode slowly while playing BF2 for instance) and jumps to "Above Normal" when the user is not behind his machine.

But ok, enough about this tool, I didn't come here to promote it or anything, just wanted to explain a bit more what I did to "improve" (in my humble opinion) the original app. As an important note: it uses the latest SVN handbrakeCLI.exe so the actual encodes are the same as with HandBrake, just the tool is much more convenient for my particular purpose (converting for Apple TV, obviously).

BTW 121443 lines of code is impressive man, thanks for your hard work on HB

Now I will shut up about this unless specifically asked

@Cave Man: No problem, maybe my reply came across a bit harsh btw, I can assure you it wasn't meant as such. Oh and apologies accepted, of course