Is this possible yet?

Your going to have to play with those settings in Handbrake.

Download VLC, then open the VIDEO_TS files in there and see how the original quality is. Handbrake can't make it look any better than it is on that DVD.

 

I personally use MP4 h.264 base profile not main, and I use bit rate of 1500.

Quality is not any worse IMHO than anything else I've downloaded.

As an example, Fifth Element is 2:06 in length and is 1.46GB in size.

I'm pretty sure I was using 160KB AAC for the audio.

 

on the computer i like "drive in" http://www.flip4mac.com/drivein.htm to save movies to my HD, it saves menus and all but takes like 7 gigs for one movie with a phew features. it has dvd quality playback and plays in DVD player programs and i think works in front row under the DVD feature.

as for apple tv i do not know.

 

If you have Toast, you can use that to make .toast files with those files you have, mount those on the desktop... will front row play those as DVDs?

 

If you turn up the bitrate on Handbrake it'll look fine.

I actually consider 2000 acceptable (looks great on the iPod, on the TV I hook the iPod up to, and on the MacBook) but put 3000 or 4000 and it'll look practically like DVD. And do two-pass encoding.

2000 puts a two hour movie down to 1.25 GB or so and looks great.