I usually use RipIt and Handbrake on its normal 
TV settings when converting my DVD collection (actually I also have a modified template for 4:3 output also). However, most of my collection is Black & White file noir movies, which tend to be very dark to begin with. Unfortunately the encoding process sometimes makes these movies even darker to the point of being unviewable, esp. if the dvd is a bad copy. Since there tend to be many bad copies of these old films, this can be a real problem. I haven't experimented very much with the settings, since encoding tends to take so very long per pass, but does anybody here have experience and know of tweaks that I can make to the process that will keep these movies from becoming so very dark after encoding? I assume the major problem is loss of detail during compression; in this case I really don't care about saving space, so that is not an issue for me.
TV settings when converting my DVD collection (actually I also have a modified template for 4:3 output also). However, most of my collection is Black & White file noir movies, which tend to be very dark to begin with. Unfortunately the encoding process sometimes makes these movies even darker to the point of being unviewable, esp. if the dvd is a bad copy. Since there tend to be many bad copies of these old films, this can be a real problem. I haven't experimented very much with the settings, since encoding tends to take so very long per pass, but does anybody here have experience and know of tweaks that I can make to the process that will keep these movies from becoming so very dark after encoding? I assume the major problem is loss of detail during compression; in this case I really don't care about saving space, so that is not an issue for me.