Recommend good h.264 software.

[Malus Deus]

I'm going to be starting a daunting task of backing up all my DVD movies and was wondering if someone could recommend what software to use. I would like to copy them in the same format and quality as movies in the itunes store if possible.

 

[Oberhammer]

I'm going to be starting a daunting task of backing up all my DVD movies and was wondering if someone could recommend what software to use. I would like to copy them in the same format and quality as movies in the itunes store if possible.

IMO there is nothing better than CloneDVD and AnyDVD used together.

http://www.slysoft.com/en/

Don't believe me? You can try them for free!

 

[Malus Deus]

Thanks! I'll check it out.

 

[Dave Braine]

Handbrake is the usual for this sort of thing:
http://handbrake.fr/

 

[simsaladimbamba]

How to backup/copy/rip video DVDs to your HDD and transcode them to another format in Mac OS X.

How-To: Automating DVD & Blu-Ray (Backup, Encoding & Tagging) for Mac OS X 10.6​

 

[Malus Deus]

Thanks guys. Handbrake seem to be my best option.

 

[careypo]

I'm going to be starting a daunting task of backing up all my DVD movies and was wondering if someone could recommend what software to use. I would like to copy them in the same format and quality as movies in the itunes store if possible.

If your DVD videos are interlaced, don't use H.264 or Handbrake. Handbrake and these other rippers will ruin your video. If you are going to back up your DVDs, make a disk image with the Disk Utility and burn a duplicate copy of the DVD. This will not work on copy protected DVDs however.

 

[simsaladimbamba]

If your DVD videos are interlaced, don't use H.264 or Handbrake. Handbrake and these other rippers will ruin your video.

You must have had a really traumatic experience with Handbrake, or why do you talk it down in every possible thread?
I have used Handbrake and MacTheRipper from 2005 till 2009 and never had any interlacing problems with interlaced footage.
You just don't seem to do this properly I guess.

If you are going to back up your DVDs, make a disk image with the Disk Utility and burn a duplicate copy of the DVD. This will not work on copy protected DVDs however.

That is where the actual ripping software comes into play. Ripping is not transcoding, it is only the removal of the CSS (content scrambling system) and the 1:1 copy of the video DVD's content from the DVD to the HDD.