Best Quality DVD rips

[Tom Sawyer]

If you have access to a PC also AnyDVD from Slysoft is fantastic.

Couldn't agree more.. sure wish they would offer a mac version but doubt that will happen. Ripping DVD's for my XBMC is the only function I have not been able to at least equal (if not better) on my iMac. I rip to ISO's for stuff I want all the xtras on and 100% quality on the feature film and the DVD Shrink/AnyDVD is a great combo for that. Thus why I keep an XP install ready to run in Fusion. I use Handbrake for stuff I don't care about the extras or mind losing a little quality on. (mac native though... )

 

[Jim Campbell]

how long does it take you guys to rip a dvd? i was riping a tv show (1 hr long) on a 3 yr old pc with handbrake and it took 2 hrs!!! i dont want to use my MBP because i dont want to wear it out, any reason why it would be taking soo long?

On a 20" white 2.16GHz iMac Handbrake rips in +/- real time (as near as makes no odds) on H264, single pass, 1500 bit rate, 720px x Whatever (apsect ratio preserved) ...

I have to say that these are perfectly acceptable and to my untrained eye are not immediately distinguishable from the original DVDs on a 27" HD LCD.

2 hours = approx 1Gb at these settings.

Cheers

Jim

 

[mrgreen4242]

On a 20" white 2.16GHz iMac Handbrake rips in +/- real time (as near as makes no odds) on H264, single pass, 1500 bit rate, 720px x Whatever (apsect ratio preserved) ...

I have to say that these are perfectly acceptable and to my untrained eye are not immediately distinguishable from the original DVDs on a 27" HD LCD.

2 hours = approx 1Gb at these settings.

Cheers

Jim

This just goes to show that you really need to do several encodes and then watch them yourself to see what works for you... single pass h264 @ 1500kbps looks unacceptable to me. It has a lot to do with not only the person watching, but the device they are watching on... h264 @ 2000kbps 2-pass looks just "good" on my computer display, but great on my TV.

 

[daemontrader]

Umm, Handbrake does ripped encrypted movies.

it would be great if someone can answer my question stated above. What software does everybody use to decrypt bought DVDs so i can play them on my mp3 player and computer, since handbrake does not rip encrypted movies?
Thanks
Nick

 

[eddyg]

Umm, Handbrake does ripped encrypted movies.

It just doesn't rip all "copy protected" movies, it does however decrypt them.

The best success is usually met when you rip the movie using Mac The Ripper and then encode the resultant rip using HandBrake to get an MP4 file.

Cheers, Ed.

 

[SthrnCmfrtr]

Join the club. It seems that video converting is a very labor intensive process, and it takes mighty processors to accomplish it. I am using a MBP and some movies can take 5 hours. I am seeking better solutions:
1. Dedicated machine, like a Mini
2. Buying a Mac Pro and getting the agony over with.

-- Mikie

http://elgato.com/index.php?file=products_turbo264

I can't recommend it enough. In the most recent version of the software, you can tweak the settings and create presets, etc. Whether you use the MBP or get a new dedicated machine, I honestly think it's one of the best things you can buy. It does everything in real-time or slightly faster for me.

[/not affiliated with Elgato]

 

[pinksatin]

How great is Elgato??

Does having an Elgato Turbo.264 do anything for the quality or just the speed... And how much better for either???

btw...

I currently use Visualhub with legally ripped DVDs from MacTheRipper...

My Visualhub settings are usually H.264, "Go Nuts" Quality, 1280x720px, 3500 bitrate, and 24 framerate...

The result is a lot better than an iTunes bought movie... but is this the best possible without a real HD DVD?

 

[lostless]

My Visualhub settings are usually H.264, "Go Nuts" Quality, 1280x720px, 3500 bitrate, and 24 framerate...

Why rip at 720P? Kinda waste of space since dvds are only 480P.

 

[SthrnCmfrtr]

Does having an Elgato Turbo.264 do anything for the quality or just the speed... And how much better for either???

My Mac mini (1.67GHz CD) converts movies about four to five times as fast as it did using Handbrake, and the CPU usage for the process never gets above about 30% -- so I can, like, actually do this during the day instead of just overnight like I had to with Handbrake.

 

[Scarpad]

Does having an Elgato Turbo.264 do anything for the quality or just the speed... And how much better for either???

btw...

I currently use Visualhub with legally ripped DVDs from MacTheRipper...

My Visualhub settings are usually H.264, "Go Nuts" Quality, 1280x720px, 3500 bitrate, and 24 framerate...

The result is a lot better than an iTunes bought movie... but is this the best possible without a real HD DVD?

The Quality of Elgato's Encodes using the Apple TV Profile is just fine for me, and it's pretty spiffy for me on my PPC Mini

 

[pinksatin]

Why rip at 720P? Kinda waste of space since dvds are only 480P.

Honestly... I haven't tried a resolution at 480p... I have been reading other tv threads on this forum that have suggested 720p and an article in macworld... They gave the impression that it would yield a much higher quality picture...

I'll try one at a lower resolution...

 

[Devil's Refugee]

Does Handbrake have settings to rip a file to PS3/ X360 format or can the normal TV format be played through either as well ?

I don't have an TV (yet) but have a PS3 and X360.

 

[MikieMikie]

http://elgato.com/index.php?file=products_turbo264

I can't recommend it enough. In the most recent version of the software, you can tweak the settings and create presets, etc. Whether you use the MBP or get a new dedicated machine, I honestly think it's one of the best things you can buy. It does everything in real-time or slightly faster for me.

[/not affiliated with Elgato]

Thanks for the recommendation.

I am most-concerned about video quality. I have a 57" HDTV DLP and artifacts, especially in clouds, sky, smoke, etc. are too-easily noticable.

I would love to see the quality of a conversion done with this hardware, where it could be compared to, say, a 2-pass Apple TV preset in Handbrake.

I am certain time comparisons would be absurd, but what about the video quality?

-- Mikie

 

[senseibiz]

I have a question. I have used handbrake to ripp my dvd.
I can hear the movies fine on my g5.
but, when I transfer it to my ipod. there is no sound.
anyone knows why this happens.
thanks,
Sensei

 

[AliensAreFuzzy]

My friend and I have spent a very long time experimenting with different settings in Handbrake to determine what we consider the best possible format (for our uses at least). We wanted a single video file that would both work on iPods, look good on larger screens (we've tried up to 50" plasma and 113" projector), and a fairly small file size. Using these parameters and a lot of small test videos, I have come up with presets that work extremely well.

Keep in mind, I work mainly with TV shows, but the widescreen settings should work fine for movies.

For widescreen live-action TV shows:
x264 (h.264 iPod) encoder
Average bitrate: 1500
2-pass encoding with Turbo first pass
Output size: 640 width
Deinterlace: Slow
Detelecine: Yes, if applicable (I have found it eliminates choppy playback on Scrubs and Friends)
Advanced Settings (all but the following set to default):
Motion Estimation Method: Uneven Multi-Hexagon

For 4:3 live-action TV shows:
Same as above, but frame size can be left at full 640x480

For animated TV shows:
Same as live-action, but Denoise can be set up to medium (This helps to eliminate some macroblocking)

These settings work extremely well for all of the uses I've tried. The resulting files are around 250MB for 1/2hr TV shows, 500MB for 1hr TV shows. Like I said before, I've watched them before on very large screens and they look pretty good, and I routinely watch them on my 20" monitor and they look just as good as DVDs played with DVD Player.

 

[csubear]

I'll disagree with that assessment, based on my personal experience. There's a definite improvement in quality with 2-pass encoding IF you at "lower" bitrates (by lower I mean under 2500-3000kbps).

You can achieve quality as good or better than the AppleTV preset (2500kbps) at 1700kbps with 2-pass. The new 'turbo first pass' option on Handbrake cuts the time for the extra pass that I think it's hard NOT to justify doing it.

Just for some numbers, a quick test I did with a 2.4ghz iMac had the first pass run at about 90fps and the second at about 30fps. You add about 33% to the encode time, in exchange for better quality and/or smaller size.

For the OP, you cna get 800mb movies, but they won't be DVD quality. You'll lose some resolution, and have a little bit of macroblocking, etc, but it'll be good. Try 2-pass h264 at 720 by xxx (whatever the correct aspect ratio for the movie is) with an 800mb target size first and if that doesn't look good to you, try it at 640 or so by xxx and see how that looks (a lot of times the scaler in your playback device or TV will do a good enough job with lower res files that the extra data per pixel turns out looking better).

For the record, I'm encoding my movie library at 853 by xxx at 1500-2000kbps depending on the movie, and they're roughly 1gb (for shorter, lower bitrate films) to 2gb (for longer and/or higher bitrates). That was about as small as I found acceptable, but I was testing them on a 853*480 98" projector screen, so your results may vary.

I do 2 pass h264 encoding @ 1500 and it is night and day compared to 1 pass . My file size ends up being ~1gb.

 

[h00ligan]

I'll disagree with that assessment, based on my personal experience. There's a definite improvement in quality with 2-pass encoding IF you at "lower" bitrates (by lower I mean under 2500-3000kbps).

You can achieve quality as good or better than the AppleTV preset (2500kbps) at 1700kbps with 2-pass. The new 'turbo first pass' option on Handbrake cuts the time for the extra pass that I think it's hard NOT to justify doing it.

Just for some numbers, a quick test I did with a 2.4ghz iMac had the first pass run at about 90fps and the second at about 30fps. You add about 33% to the encode time, in exchange for better quality and/or smaller size.

For the OP, you cna get 800mb movies, but they won't be DVD quality. You'll lose some resolution, and have a little bit of macroblocking, etc, but it'll be good. Try 2-pass h264 at 720 by xxx (whatever the correct aspect ratio for the movie is) with an 800mb target size first and if that doesn't look good to you, try it at 640 or so by xxx and see how that looks (a lot of times the scaler in your playback device or TV will do a good enough job with lower res files that the extra data per pixel turns out looking better).

For the record, I'm encoding my movie library at 853 by xxx at 1500-2000kbps depending on the movie, and they're roughly 1gb (for shorter, lower bitrate films) to 2gb (for longer and/or higher bitrates). That was about as small as I found acceptable, but I was testing them on a 853*480 98" projector screen, so your results may vary.

why would you rip at 853 if dvd resolution is 720

http://elgato.com/index.php?file=products_turbo264

I can't recommend it enough. In the most recent version of the software, you can tweak the settings and create presets, etc. Whether you use the MBP or get a new dedicated machine, I honestly think it's one of the best things you can buy. It does everything in real-time or slightly faster for me.

[/not affiliated with Elgato]

at this point i have to disagree - the time savings for high bitrate/res are not that big(on an intel mac) and the lower bitrate/res stuff looks horrible (well at least the ipod high setting does he normal ipod setting is fine for using on an ipod) even though it is fast as hell, compared to a 2 pass visualhub or handbrake. I'll give it more time and see what i can dig up, but so far.. meh - at best.

Does having an Elgato Turbo.264 do anything for the quality or just the speed... And how much better for either???

If all you care about is ripping to watch on your ipod - it's great, i am getting 140 fps right now at 320. The speed difference declines very very quickly as you go to better settings. I get about 45 fps for ipod high, but it looks rubbish - and i get about 33 fps for apple tv which looks ok, but not as good as handbrake which gets about 24fps on my macbook.

I actually just encoded teh same episode in visualhub and it was FASTER with the best possible h264 setting......optimized for 5g ipod.. so ya - not so sure it's worth it.

 

[infolc]

Does Handbrake have settings to rip a file to PS3/ X360 format or can the normal TV format be played through either as well ?

I don't have an TV (yet) but have a PS3 and X360.

Use the @TV setting in Handbrake, that's what I do. Actually I bought an external 2"5 HDD for my Xbox 360 (to store movies) and I will never regret. I slightly modified Handbrake's @TV settings to add a first turbo pass. It speed 1st pass up and gives better quality. After ripping/encoding about 30 DVDs, I'd say file size averages 2GB per movie. Yep, it's kinda huge but if you care about quality, it's actually pretty small. I watch movies on large 2~3m wide screen (720p projector) and I cant always distinguish DVD from H.264 with those settings.

 

[Lancelot9201]

MacTheRipper & Handbrake, What A Great Combo..!!

It's called MacTheRipper.

Yes, start with MacThe Ripper to remove the content from the DVD, you can rip the complete DVD or just the movie, then use Handbrake using the apple tv preset, click on 2 pass & the turbo first pass & change the bitrate to 1500 to convert it to an h.264 mp4 file.

I just ripped "300" & an older copy of "Blade Runner" using these setting & they both look great on my "LG" 42" lcd, as does the other 50 or so movies I've used this exact process on..

Now, if I could just find a way to rip & convert just the "Extra" section of some DVD's.. Everything I've tried won't work consistently & takes more effort than converting the bigger main movie files.

 

[Lancelot9201]

Rip & Burn Times..

Yes, start with MacThe Ripper to remove the content from the DVD, you can rip the complete DVD or just the movie, then use Handbrake using the apple tv preset, click on 2 pass & the turbo first pass & change the bitrate to 1500 to convert it to an h.264 mp4 file.

I just ripped "300" & an older copy of "Blade Runner" using these setting & they both look great on my "LG" 42" lcd, as does the other 50 or so movies I've used this exact process on..

Now, if I could just find a way to rip & convert just the "Extra" section of some DVD's.. Everything I've tried won't work consistently & takes more effort than converting the bigger main movie files.

Forgot to add that on my Core2Duo - Santa Rosa MBP I can expect MacTheRipper to take between 35 & 50 mins. to pull the content off a DVD & Handbrake to avg. about 1.5 hrs. to finish its work.. No other pc or mac I own can perform these operations this quickly. I have an earlier Core2Duo 1.83 ghz. which takes almost 3 hrs. & a 3.0ghz P-4 / XP machine that takes an agonizing 5 or 6 hrs.. My MacBook Pro has almost paid for itself just in the time saves me converting my DVD's & Music Video Collection.