How is the quality of Handbrake for ATV?

[imanartist]

Basically what I'm asking is if I were to "burn/rip" say, National Treasure 2.
Using the ATV preset would the quality of the movie be DVD quality?
How long would you say it takes?
There isn't copy protection is there?
Thanks!

BTW: Im using a macbook (plastic) if that makes a difference

 

[GoCubsGo]

Well first, I own NT2 but I don't know if there is anything that would prevent you from ripping it. The first movie I've run into problems with was Leatherheads. This is the first DVD apparently to use some new tech that hand break hasn't accounted for in their ripping software. I was not even able to use MTR.

Now, ripping for ATV is going to reduce quality a bit, but for me it's "acceptable". Then again, I am not a "videophile". I'd say that the biggest problem I've run into ripping my movies for ATV (I've only done a few that I lent out and figured i'd never see again) was the picture was darker and in some cases not easy to see.

 

[Chris Rogers]

I'd say that the biggest problem I've run into ripping my movies for ATV (I've only done a few that I lent out and figured i'd never see again) was the picture was darker and in some cases not easy to see.

Uh oh, care to go into detail? I'm picking up an ATV for the holidays.

 

[mpshay]

I think the quality is pretty darn close to that of the original DVD. There is certainly copy protection that needs to be circumvented. I leave it up to you determine if that is something you are willing to do (certainly easy enough to do even if the DMCA says you are breaking the law, at least in the US)

I only use handbrake after I have already ripped it the hard drive so I'm not certain which movies are able to be ripped by Handbrake and which ones fail.

As far time is concerned, the rip is pretty quick, but the encode is pretty processor dependent so it really depends on what machine you are using.

 

[FSUSem1noles]

Basically what I'm asking is if I were to "burn/rip" say, National Treasure 2.
Using the ATV preset would the quality of the movie be DVD quality?
How long would you say it takes?
There isn't copy protection is there?
Thanks!

BTW: Im using a macbook (plastic) if that makes a difference

The quality is pretty darn close, I don't use handbrake to rip, I use handbrake to encode, I use the 'Normal' preset on handbrake and change the bitrate to 2300.. our tv in the bedroom is a 32" samsung lcd and it looks pretty darnclose to dvd quality, same can be said watching on our 42' living room tv.. If we were to ever upgrade tv's I may try upping the bitrate to inbetween 2500-3000..

 

[laidbackliam]

it looks great. if i'm not able to make a direct copy of a dvd, i generally make a handbrake rip of it in the atv setting. huge files (3.x gigs for a 2 hour movie, 450mb for a 20 minute tv show), but great quality.

there is a difference, but it's very small and you'll only see it if you look for it.

 

[mattraehl]

A DVD MPEG2 can be converted to another format like H.264 MP4 in Handbrake without losing quality, but the resulting filesize will be huge and probably unplayable on ATV. Practically speaking, Handbrake can transcode DVD video to H.264 at a level of quality that will be very difficult to distinguish from the original, and played on an ATV, if it is done right. Transcoding from DVDs is tricky business, and if you really want good quality, and want to do it right, you need to spend some time reading Handbrake's user guide, help pages, and forums to educate yourself about how the process works, and what the different tradeoffs are. (size, speed, quality, etc). In terms of getting around the encryption on DVDs, you can try FairMount, which will take the DVD, and mount & present it to other applications as if it is unencrypted.

To start with, though, (and I meand no offense here) you should probably just insert the NT2 DVD, and use the Handbrake ATV preset, and see for yourself how long it takes and what the quality is, instead of asking others to do it for you.