Ripping my vast DVD collection. Questions!

[Macs4u]

Hi,

I have an iMac and the new ATV2 and have a vast DVD collection i obviously want to put onto the imac to make use of the ATV2.

Im currently using handbrake but i dont know which setting is the best high profile or apple tv 2?

Also it seems to degrade quality. Is there a simple free way to rip my dvds to the hard drive and have absolutely no quality loss? and then handbrake it to mp4 to put in itunes?

Matt

 

[P Mentior]

Use The Apple TV 2 Preset.

You can use RipIt to rip a dvd image to your harddrive and have zero quality loss and the menus would still be intact but your apple tv wouldn't work with them. Encoding them for iTunes will lose some quality but with the right settings it shouldn't be too much.

 

[kiranmk2]

There will be a quality drop when converting using Handbrake, but if you get it right (and the presets are a very good place to start) your eyes won't be able to see it. With my DVDs all the ones that I thought looked iffy after conversion (dot crawling, aliasing, pixelation etc) were exactly the same on playing back the original DVD. An HD screen (such as computer monitor) and up-close viewing will bring out all the flaws from the source.

 

[BladesOfSteel]

I agree with using the atv2 presets.

When I first started my conversion, I was all over the map trying to get the best quality while keeping control of the file size. In the end, the apple tv (the original) was the best for me.

Now the atv2 has even improved on that.

 

[EvilC5]

I use the atv2 preset and the little loss in quality is worth the space I have back that my 400ish dvd's took up. Winning..../sheen. Lol

 

[From A Buick 8]

Ripped and encoded over 600 DVD's. Rip with MTR or Ripit and then encode With HB. The result will be almost identical to the original DVD.

I used the high profile with the RF set to 19 for about 400 of them and then the last 200 or so using the ATV2 preset. To be honest I really can not tell the difference between the two settings.

 

[slothrob]

I use the aTV2 setting, and the quality is very good. The one degradation that I found obvious was blockiness and motion in large areas of single color background, like a wall behind a character.

I ended up turning up the digital noise filter, turning off edge enhancement, and turning down sharpness on my TV for one preset that I use for watching those videos. That reduced that problem significantly, so that I'd classify it as "easily ignorable".

That is one thing I'd like improved on the aTV2 setting, though.