For people new to the program and have tried to find the right settings, here's what I do for converting a DVD (or Bluray when I'm converting down to 720p - what you'll actually do is change the width to 1280) to a compressed file I want to play or stream from Windows: Start with the High Profile preset. Use x264 as video codec, with the mkv file extension (I think mkv is best because you can add chapters etc as long as it's compatible for you). I Use constant quality at RF 16 for HD rips (may be overkill, lower is better, many people recommend 22 or 20 for HD.

1. Handbrake Video Converter For Mac

I use RF20 for DVD rips). Use high profile, Film preset (unless it's animation, use the animation setting), I use the 'slower' setting for speed. Filters tab, change Detelecine and Decomb to default. On the picture tab, Anamorphic=Loose, Modulus=16, Cropping=automatic. For audio use passthru if it's an AC3 file, otherwise you're compressing a compressed file.

If it's DTS (which can be lossless or compressed) or another less efficient audio codec I like to compress with Nero AAC in Foobar2000 after choosing passthru and letting Handbrake encode the video (VBR q-5 for stereo and q-4 for multichannel should be transparent to the original audio for most people) and remux the audio afterwards with MKVMerge, because the AAC options in Handbrake for Windows aren't very good quality but they don't allow Nero's AAC encoder because of licensing issues. People on the internet can and do argue all day about the settings I've just given, but it should be a good starting place since all the options can be bewildering for novices. Also you should definitely try MakeMKV for ripping blurays to the drive. I am running 0.9.5 on Windows 7 Professional 64 bit Service Pack 1 with 12 gig of RAM and a GTX 460 1gig and 266.58 drivers and am having good luck so far with the application. I am using it to convert DVD rips of TV shows and movies that I own and create versions that will play on our 64 gig 3G iPad 2 and it is working very well overall. I have to manually enable De-Interlacing (set to Slower) but other than that I am using the default settings provided by the iPad preset. The De-Interlacing does soften the video somewhat, but other than that, the videos come out great.

The Animorphic properties are retained and I'm getting a full 480 pixels of vertical resolution in M4V files that play fine with VLC on the PC and read directly into iTunes and sync to the iPad 2 without problems. They look good on the iPad 2 and sound fine as well, each 44 min episode coming in at 450-650 meg depending on the variable compression involved with each. I'm very glad that this Open Source app is available, because while DVDFab HD Decrypter (the free function portion of the program) works for actually ripping the DVD's to the hard drive, the conversion options of the full program (8.0.8.5 trial) generated out-of-sync audio, playback artifacts, aspect ratio problems and large file sizes. With HandBrake you can avoid paying through the nose for crap such as the conversion code included in the DVDFab retail and just use the free ripping feature and then put that app away. Thanks to the programmers for their hard work on what seems a solid new release. There is work yet to be done, and the Queue setup for batch conversions really needs to be refined for ease of use, but on balance, this is one really good app and one that is easy to recommend.

For people new to the program and have tried to find the right settings, here's what I do for converting a DVD (or Bluray when I'm converting down to 720p - what you'll actually do is change the width to 1280) to a compressed file I want to play or stream from Windows: Start with the High Profile preset. Use x264 as video codec, with the mkv file extension (I think mkv is best because you can add chapters etc as long as it's compatible for you). I Use constant quality at RF 16 for HD rips (may be overkill, lower is better, many people recommend 22 or 20 for HD. I use RF20 for DVD rips). Use high profile, Film preset (unless it's animation, use the animation setting), I use the 'slower' setting for speed. Filters tab, change Detelecine and Decomb to default.

On the picture tab, Anamorphic=Loose, Modulus=16, Cropping=automatic. For audio use passthru if it's an AC3 file, otherwise you're compressing a compressed file. If it's DTS (which can be lossless or compressed) or another less efficient audio codec I like to compress with Nero AAC in Foobar2000 after choosing passthru and letting Handbrake encode the video (VBR q-5 for stereo and q-4 for multichannel should be transparent to the original audio for most people) and remux the audio afterwards with MKVMerge, because the AAC options in Handbrake for Windows aren't very good quality but they don't allow Nero's AAC encoder because of licensing issues. People on the internet can and do argue all day about the settings I've just given, but it should be a good starting place since all the options can be bewildering for novices. Also you should definitely try MakeMKV for ripping blurays to the drive. I am running 0.9.5 on Windows 7 Professional 64 bit Service Pack 1 with 12 gig of RAM and a GTX 460 1gig and 266.58 drivers and am having good luck so far with the application. I am using it to convert DVD rips of TV shows and movies that I own and create versions that will play on our 64 gig 3G iPad 2 and it is working very well overall.

I have to manually enable De-Interlacing (set to Slower) but other than that I am using the default settings provided by the iPad preset. The De-Interlacing does soften the video somewhat, but other than that, the videos come out great. The Animorphic properties are retained and I'm getting a full 480 pixels of vertical resolution in M4V files that play fine with VLC on the PC and read directly into iTunes and sync to the iPad 2 without problems. They look good on the iPad 2 and sound fine as well, each 44 min episode coming in at 450-650 meg depending on the variable compression involved with each. I'm very glad that this Open Source app is available, because while DVDFab HD Decrypter (the free function portion of the program) works for actually ripping the DVD's to the hard drive, the conversion options of the full program (8.0.8.5 trial) generated out-of-sync audio, playback artifacts, aspect ratio problems and large file sizes. With HandBrake you can avoid paying through the nose for crap such as the conversion code included in the DVDFab retail and just use the free ripping feature and then put that app away.

Handbrake Video Converter For Mac

Thanks to the programmers for their hard work on what seems a solid new release. There is work yet to be done, and the Queue setup for batch conversions really needs to be refined for ease of use, but on balance, this is one really good app and one that is easy to recommend.