Latest bestest way to rip for ATV

[MacBoobsPro]

I will probably get my pants pulled down and my bum slapped here (which wouldn't be a bad thing - I'm looking at you ladies ) but since Handbrake seems to have taken a step backwards with its latest update and VisualHub being discontinued what is the best way to rip DVDs for my ATV now?

I've been searching and I keep getting different ways of doing it using different techniques and apps etc. Then I look a little deeper and some seem outdated, others no longer recommended etc. My question is then...

Today being the 23rd December 2008, how do YOU rip your DVDs for your ATV?
List the apps in order of use and any particular steps you take. i.e. 1. insert disc. 2. Run fairmount/MTR etc.

Hopefully this thread will become useful to newbies wanting to experiment with different techniques and to see what suits them. I for one am looking for a new way to do things. My way 'was'...

1. Insert disc
2. Open Handbrake
3. ATV preset
4. Done



However the new encryption in DVDs plus Handbrakes new reliance on VLC seems to produce more duds than good rips (for me at least).

So fire away, list your latest techniques (that work). As newer techniques/apps appear this thread can be updated.
Please don't discuss pirating and the ethics behind ripping. I'm talking about DVDs you own (even though thats still a grey area).

 

[oli2140]

[deleted]

 

[MacBoobsPro]

Snap, this 'was' my way as well, but with the new Handbrake I keep getting unexpected errors, if this continues I may go back to DVD Decryptor

You do need the latest version of VLC to run alongside the New Handbrake as Handbrake accesses some of its files.

Either way 9 times out of ten I still get a dud rip. It will play fine in QT, iTunes but not on my ATV (even though it can see it). File not recognised.

 

[oli2140]

[deleted]

 

[MacBoobsPro]

UPDATE: Handbrake still breaks when converting my mkv files!

What do you mean 'breaks'? It stops working?

 

[MacBoobsPro]

Who uses fairmount and why do you need to run a rip from Fairmount through Dvd2OneX (DTOX)?

It seems an unnecessary step?

Why not just go straight to HB or VH?

 

[pdutta2000]

I'm actually sad to say that I've stopped ripping my DVDs at the moment because I can't get a clean rip anymore. My workflow used to be:

On PC:
1. Rip DVD with DVD Shrink
2. Handbrake with ATV preset
3. Done

I never really did it a ton anyways...I have around 600 DVDs and in the 4 months I've been trying to rip movies...I've probably only gotten 40 of them to actually work. I get a ton of Audio Sync issues. I'm thinking my issue is more related to a slower PC than Handbrake. It's a Pentium D 3Ghz with 3GB of RAM. It's obviously no where near as fast as the PCs out today. I'm hoping an upgrade to an Intel Core i7 will solve this problem.

 

[NightStorm]

Without any information, I can only guess that some of you are either not using the AppleTV preset, or you haven't updated your presets before encoding (via the menubar at the top of the screen).

The latest version of Handbrake offers countless improvements in encoding speed and quality... that said, the presets have been adjusted to give preference to quality rather than speed.

I honestly will never understand why people hate using the VLC library so much... without it, the HB team would not have added a few new members (who requested libdvdcss be removed) that are responsible for a number of big improvements. Here's the kicker... VLC uses the same libdvdcss that the older Handbrake did. If it doesn't work in the new version, it's very likely it wouldn't have worked properly in the old version. Newer protections require the use of third party rippers. I've had zero problems since switching to Fairmount+DTOX (and now AnyDVD HD via VMWare).

As for MKV encodes failing, the likely fix is to disable the second audio track from the audio preferences tab. This has already been identified by the dev team, but I'm not sure if it is fixed in SVN code yet (as I don't bother with MKVs).

 

[MacBoobsPro]

Without any information, I can only guess that some of you are either not using the AppleTV preset, or you haven't updated your presets before encoding (via the menubar at the top of the screen).

The latest version of Handbrake offers countless improvements in encoding speed and quality... that said, the presets have been adjusted to give preference to quality rather than speed.

I honestly will never understand why people hate using the VLC library so much... without it, the HB team would not have added a few new members (who requested libdvdcss be removed) that are responsible for a number of big improvements. Here's the kicker... VLC uses the same libdvdcss that the older Handbrake did. If it doesn't work in the new version, it's very likely it wouldn't have worked properly in the old version. Newer protections require the use of third party rippers. I've had zero problems since switching to Fairmount+DTOX (and now AnyDVD HD via VMWare).

As for MKV encodes failing, the likely fix is to disable the second audio track from the audio preferences tab. This has already been identified by the dev team, but I'm not sure if it is fixed in SVN code yet (as I don't bother with MKVs).

Why do you use DTOX? If Fairmount decrypts the TS folder can't Handbrake or VisualHub transcode it?

 

[NightStorm]

Why do you use DTOX? If Fairmount decrypts the TS folder can't Handbrake or VisualHub transcode it?

I never rip direct from the disc; instead I'll rip a few to the hard drive and use the queue to process multiple encodes while I'm at work or asleep.

 

[MacBoobsPro]

I never rip direct from the disc; instead I'll rip a few to the hard drive and use the queue to process multiple encodes while I'm at work or asleep.

Handbrake can handle queues too so I am still at a loss as to figure out why DTOX is needed. What does it do?

 

[NightStorm]

Handbrake can handle queues too so I am still at a loss as to figure out why DTOX is needed. What does it do?

How do you queue multiple DVDs when you have 1 DVD drive? Fairmount takes care of the protection on-the-fly, DTOX copies it to the hard drive (among other things).

(FYI, Fairmount requires VLC for decryption to work).

 

[MacBoobsPro]

How do you queue multiple DVDs when you have 1 DVD drive? Fairmount takes care of the protection on-the-fly, DTOX copies it to the hard drive (among other things).

(FYI, Fairmount requires VLC for decryption to work).

I thought Fairmount copied the video TS folder to the HD while stripping out the copy protection?

So my next question is what does Fairmount do?

You see what I mean about it all getting confusing (for me at least) .

 

[NightStorm]

I thought Fairmount copied the video TS folder to the HD while stripping out the copy protection?

So my next question is what does Fairmount do?

You see what I mean about it all getting confusing (for me at least) .

Fairmount decrypts the disc on the fly using the libdvdcss from VLC (like what Handbrake does). This allows DTOX to copy it to the hard drive. Rinse and repeat until I have a couple ready to queue in Handbrake.

All this said, I now use AnyDVD HD in VMWare to decrypt DVD/HD-DVD/Bluray for encoding.

 

[MacBoobsPro]

I see. It seems this DVD ripping business is getting a bit more of PITA with all the extra steps involved now.

I might give Handbrake another go. What do you think would cause a Handbrake 0.9.3 rip to play ok in iTunes and QT but not allow an AppleTV play it even though it shows up on the AppleTV? Usually if the ATV can't play it it doesnt show up.

 

[NightStorm]

I see. It seems this DVD ripping business is getting a bit more of PITA with all the extra steps involved now.

I might give Handbrake another go. What do you think would cause a Handbrake 0.9.3 rip to play ok in iTunes and QT but not allow an AppleTV play it even though it shows up on the AppleTV? Usually if the ATV can't play it it doesnt show up.

Honestly, I'm not sure. I'd really need to see the Activity Log to be able to tell.

 

[dynaflash]

I see. It seems this DVD ripping business is getting a bit more of PITA with all the extra steps involved now.

I might give Handbrake another go. What do you think would cause a Handbrake 0.9.3 rip to play ok in iTunes and QT but not allow an AppleTV play it even though it shows up on the AppleTV? Usually if the ATV can't play it it doesnt show up.

Um, and you updated your built in presets as was asked before? I have encoded *many* dvd's with 0.9.3 and have yet had one fail to play on the atv.

Fairmount: Removes the css encryption from the disc (ala vlc's internal dylib) and allows you to simply drag the VIDEO_TS folder to your hdd if you wish, you really wouldn't even need dtox except for ....

Dtox: besides copying the fairmount stuff, allows you to do many other things like main feature only, etc. Most importantly though in terms of using it with HB, Dtox is excellent at remastering intentional bad mastering (read: advanced encryption) which is in many if not most titles released in the past couple of years. Hence leaving you typically with a very clean copy. HB does not do as well with some of these titles as it is not a dedicated ripper. Nice side benefit to dtox, it can join multiple disk titles into one fileset (like Pearl Harbor, LOTR extended edition, etc.) so that you can feed the one fileset to HB and get one nice long movie, all chapters intact.

As far as the big hassle of HB needing vlc to rip right from disk goes .. c'mon is it really that tough to download vlc.app and toss it in your /Applications folder ?? Its free and frankly is a very good media player. I mean its not like HB requires that you even launch vlc. The app just has to be there so HB can load up its copy of libdvdcss to read a physical disk. Hell, the version in vlc is much more up to date than the one that came in HB 0.9.2 anyway.

 

[haze]

I have never used fairmount. What about mac the ripper or ripit?

1. MTR/RipIt (rip several movies before loading into HB)
2. Handbrake (modified aTV preset, change to CFR 65%, queue several rips at once)
3. MetaX (add tags, sends to iTunes)

Never had a problem.