Encoding, encoding, encoding

Hi all.

I was just wondering what your solutions are for ripping DVDs to your mac. I'm currently using Handbrake to rip my DVDs using ffmpegx. The only reason I use ffmpegx is because I can get an average of about 72fps for 'reasonable' quality.

Ideally, I want to use the divx codec because there are so many things you can use to customise how your resulting file will be, but I can't find any apps on the mac that will allow me to use the codec. Handbrake just lets you use either avi or ffmpegx.

On windows there were tonnes of encoding utilities and in most, you could simply chose which encoder you wanted to use from all the ones on your system. In mac, I cant find such a utility.

I understand that you can use divx converter, but there are a few problems with this. Firstly, you can't rip DVDs to VOB on your HDD and then convert them and also, there is no rough time estimate telling you how long its going to take.

If someone can help me out, I'd be grateful. Basically I want to know the best solution to getting the best picture settings to display on a 20" iMac across the room (3-4m) with file sizes around 1GB for an average 1:30-1:45 long film.

Thanks in advance.

 

Thanks for the tip- I'll check it out now