Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Handbreak vs. MTR 2.6

K

kage207

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jul 23, 2008
971
56
Okay, I just tried using handbrake for a movie and I got the worst quality possible out of the the damn thing. So I just installed MTR 2.6 and the thing is, it's 4.xGB to rip it as a vob file. And then I'm going to have to turn it into a mp4 file after that's done.

Is there something I might have down wrong with Handbrake? Because preferably rather use that since of the file sizes are smaller.
 
Of course there is, and MacTheRipper is merely copying the CD to your disc.

It's insane to compare the two, Handbrake is not a ripper, MacTheRipper is not an encoder. Yet, people insist on both being rippers and comparing them.
 
Experiment with the settings. Go with the apple tv default setting, then slide the "constant" quality from the default 59% (i think) to something at 75% or more. I get good results with 75% but the higher, then the better the image. Its going to be a large file though, but at least you are not ripping and reencoding. Just one incode in this instance.
 
jsupetran said:
I get good results with 75% but the higher, then the better the image. Its going to be a large file though, but at least you are not ripping and reencoding. Just one incode in this instance.
Click to expand...

75% is far to high you`ll endup with a file that is far to big and shows no extra picture quality. I do all my DVDs at around 62-64% this gives me a file thats around 1.7Gb in size for a 2 hour movie and I carn`t tell the difference from the original DVD.

I not sure what you mean by "not ripping and reencoding. Just one incode in this instance" whenever you use handbrake you are reencoding the file regardless of what constant quality setting you use. And I not sure what you mean by "Just one incode".
 
jsupetran said:
Experiment with the settings. Go with the apple tv default setting, then slide the "constant" quality from the default 59% (i think) to something at 75% or more. I get good results with 75% but the higher, then the better the image. Its going to be a large file though, but at least you are not ripping and reencoding. Just one incode in this instance.
Click to expand...

75% is insanely, insanely, high. Commonly accepted wisdom with video encoding *experts* (not even just the HB people, the savants who write x264), is not to go above 63% at the very most.
 
refulgentis said:
Of course there is, and MacTheRipper is merely copying the CD to your disc.

It's insane to compare the two, Handbrake is not a ripper, MacTheRipper is not an encoder. Yet, people insist on both being rippers and comparing them.
Click to expand...

I have MTR 2.6 on my ibook, and am receiving a new imac with 320gb. I plan on copying a lot of my dvd's to the imac to have as backup and to watch on the ipod video and on the imac when ever i feel like it. I have read though in other forums that I need to use handbrake in order to do that. What's the difference between using mtr and hb? My cousin watches movie files on his imac but they open in quicktime, not dvd player. When I use mtr I use "extract main feature only". It saves a gig or two, and the movies come out to 6-7 gb in size, which seems too big since i have seen people talking about their movies being 2-4gb. I'm a bit fuzzy on the mtr vs hb. Recommendations please? Thanks.
 
I`m not a mac user so have never used mac the ripper but it sounds like mtr is just like anyDVD on the PC, in that it is solely for removing the encyption from DVDs and copying tham to your harddrive. This will give you the raw files from the DVD and thats why the size is 6-8Gb. The files that come from the DVD are encoded in the mpeg2 format.

Handbrake then takes those files and reencodes them using a much better compression scheme, mainly mpeg4/h.264, resulting in much smaller files with the same picture quality.
 
roidy said:
I`m not a mac user so have never used mac the ripper but it sounds like mtr is just like anyDVD on the PC, in that it is solely for removing the encyption from DVDs and copying tham to your harddrive. This will give you the raw files from the DVD and thats why the size is 6-8Gb. The files that come from the DVD are encoded in the mpeg2 format.

Handbrake then takes those files and reencodes them using a much better compression scheme, mainly mpeg4/h.264, resulting in much smaller files with the same picture quality.
Click to expand...

So then in theory, the process is the following:
1. insert dvd so mtr and rip to hd
2. run hb in order to compress and have file viewable on ipod video etc?
3. delete mtr file from step 1 to avoid duplicate movies.
thanks

is that the jist of what i should do?
 
Basiclly yes, I do the following:-

Rip the DVD to my harddrive using anyDVD or in your case MTR
Use HB to reencode the movie to what ever device you want in my case appleTV
Delete the original DVD files from my harddrive
Add the new reencoded file to iTunes so its avalible on my appleTV

Repeat for all 400 of my DVDs:rolleyes:
 
Great, thanks roidy for your help/clarifications. I think I have the uses for both straight now. Appreciate it.
 
And I would also recommend getting version 3 of MTR. 2.6.6 is outdated and won't work on many newer DVDs with more advanced protection schemes.
 
Of course if you`ve got a large number of DVDs to do then your better off automating as much of the process as you can. Theres a sticky thread at the top of the forum showing you how. It uses Fairmount but I don`t see why it couldn`t be adapted to use MTR.
 
I've been using a similar MTR and HB process for ripping DVDs of TV shows but am having trouble because the VOBs never seem to "line up" exactly with the episodes. Any ideas?

In response to the OP, I've found that, in terms of quality, this two-step process is the way to go.
 
Vob files on a DVD are limited to around 1Gb in size so each DVD is made up of several vobs, meaning a single episode may start on one vob and end on another. When you add a source in Handbrake are using the Video File or DVD/VIDEO_TS folder option?

You should be ripping your DVDs as a complete VIDEO_TS folder and not the individual vob files, then in Handbrake add source DVD/VIDEO_TS point it to your VIDEO_TS folder. Then under the title drop down box each episode should be a seperate title (well most of the time).
 
roidy said:
Vob files on a DVD are limited to around 1Gb in size so each DVD is made up of several vobs, meaning a single episode may start on one vob and end on another. When you add a source in Handbrake are using the Video File or DVD/VIDEO_TS folder option?

You should be ripping your DVDs as a complete VIDEO_TS folder and not the individual vob files, then in Handbrake add source DVD/VIDEO_TS point it to your VIDEO_TS folder. Then under the title drop down box each episode should be a seperate title (well most of the time).
Click to expand...

Awesome, that makes sense. I had been selecting the vobs individually, unaware of the filesize limit. Thanks, I'll give this new method a try this evening.
 
rWally said:
And I would also recommend getting version 3 of MTR. 2.6.6 is outdated and won't work on many newer DVDs with more advanced protection schemes.
Click to expand...

2nded. Speaking as a long-time user, version 3, it's the ticket.

Consider the sata Plextor PX-850SA. Fa-haaast.
 
I use Handbrake for 95% of my ripping of DVD's

I only use MTR if Handbrake can't break the encryption on the DVD to start with (usually means it's a dvd from those bastards at Sony)
 
After MTR??

Maybe somebody in this thread can help me. After ripping a dvd with MTR, what do you use to compress the TS files to fit it on a standard 4.7 dvd-r? Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks.
 
clumsveed said:
Maybe somebody in this thread can help me. After ripping a dvd with MTR, what do you use to compress the TS files to fit it on a standard 4.7 dvd-r? Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks.
Click to expand...

I use Toast, I remove all of the extra features, subtitles, and additional languages, then it'll auto-compress to fit onto a normal DVD.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back