[Macworld]

Post your comments for HandBrake update works with more video files here

[justwes]

So by going with more multithreading capabilities and handing the DVD decryption to VLC, is performance increased?

[ddanckaert]

I have what I believe is a better arrangement. Attach an external FireWire (or USB) drive formatted HFS (Journaled). Create a Windows XP Pro BootCamp partition on your system drive of 25GB. Buy and install MacDrive and AnyDVD to the BootCamp partition. Map the external HFS drive for your WinXP system.
Now, in WinXP, using AnyDVD, rip movies to the external hard disk. Then, boot into the Mac partition an run Handbrake against the (thoroughly decrypted with all protection schemes removed) DVD folders. You can create a queue to encode several movies at once into H.264 format.
Thus, you use the best of breed Decryptor (AnyDVD) and the best encoder (Handbrake). I recommend the Handbrake option to save the movies with an m4v extension if you're adding them to iTunes.

[Jon Seff]

That's a "better arrangement?" Seriously? Buy Windows and several other pieces of software to do what HandBrake does for free, easily, on the Mac?

[Jeter2Fan93]

Handbrake+VLC=better than the Windows option above, anyday.

[huzzam]

@ddanckaert, et al: You really needn't do all that. Check out MacTheRipper, which also rips a DVD, minus all protection, to your hard drive. Give it a try, really. You may never have to dual-boot again.
Don't be alarmed that it's a PowerPC binary; DVD decryption is a very NON-processor-intensive task (note that all $79 DVD players do it real time), and it runs just fine on Intel machines. The speed of your DVD drive is likely to be the limiting factor. I rip entire dual layer DVDs in ~40 minutes on my MacBook 2gHz C2D.
Also, a plug for VirtualBox: if you DO need to run Win software, why not use the free virtualization software from virtualbox.org? It's stable, easy, and free. (In fact, I really don't understand why MacWorld only covers the commercial virtualization; VB is definitely in the same league.)

[jdb8167]

huzzam said:

@ddanckaert, et al: You really needn't do all that. Check out MacTheRipper, which also rips a DVD, minus all protection, to your hard drive. Give it a try, really. You may never have to dual-boot again.

Don't be alarmed that it's a PowerPC binary; DVD decryption is a very NON-processor-intensive task (note that all $79 DVD players do it real time), and it runs just fine on Intel machines.

By the same token, why not just keep a copy of VLC in your applications folder and let Handbreak do the rest? Decrypting a DVD is a digital process. Once it is done, there is no difference between the results from one DVD utility or another. They all do the exact same job. Since you are likely to be using Handbreak for compression, why not just do the most convenient thing and let Handbreak do its work.

The new Handbreak has an Apple/Universal preset that does a remarkable job on compressing DVDs to AppleTV/iPod MPEG4 format. Try it.

[Schneb]

Jon Seff said:

That's a "better arrangement?" Seriously? Buy Windows and several other pieces of software to do what HandBrake does for free, easily, on the Mac?

I don't know, Jon, there are some titles that Handbrake will not access, then I use Mac the Ripper. However, the latest Wall-E movie is giving me all sorts of errors, so this may be my third option. Always good to have another possibility at hand, inefficient as it may appear at first glance. I really do not want to pay for Wall-E twice, once for my DVD player, and yet again for my iPod.Most of us have Windows XP already on Boot Camp, so its not like we are going to go out and buy it just for this purpose. Although, having read the AnyDVD site, I highly doubt I will pay that price. There must be a cheaper solution somewhere for the PC.

[Speed_Racer]

There are times when I boot into Parallels and use DVDDecryptor and MeGui because Handbrake just won't handle many badly authored disks. Only MeGui can correctly analyze and deinterlace those videos.
But the last time I looked at the Windows version of Handbrake, it was a disaster, with a very complex GUI.

[jxself]

justwes said:

So by going with more multithreading capabilities and handing the DVD decryption to VLC, is performance increased?

Making the deinterlacing process multithreaded would make it faster when running on multicore and multiprocessor hardware.

However, speed was not the reason for handing the DVD decryption over to VLC. Rather, I'm sure that the primary motivator was the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA). The DMCA makes circumventing the encryption on DVDs illegal and sadly courts have upheld this in various cases.

This change shifts the issue off Handbrake and to VLC since it is still able to circumvent but at least it gets the people working on Handbrake out of potential legal problems with the anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA.

[ddanckaert]

Obviously there's more than one way to skin this cat.
My proposed arrangement (which I have used quite successfully) is based on past experience with Handbrake, Mac-the-Ripper, DVD Decryptor, DVDFab, DVD Shrink, and a variety of other tools. I actually bought the supported versions of all these titles (the ones that are not freeware) and ran tests using all of them. I also tried some end-to-end rip>>encode products.
Of all these products, only AnyDVD has been successful in all of the ripping projects I've pursued. Remember, it's not just DeCSS--there are a wide variety of protection schemes being put on DVDs and more by the day. One of the things I like about AnyDVD is that it's constantly being updated as new DVDs (and new protection schemes) are released.
Regarding encoding, I like the results from HandBrake over all other products I've used.
The ripping part is pretty straightforward. I rip a DVD to a 5-7GB folder structure on my hard drive in about 15 minutes. With AnyDVD, I get the full DVD ripped with all the protection schemes neatly removed. Then I boot into my Mac partition and queue up a bunch of Handbrake encodes.
I haven't used this VLC product, but unless it's being continuously updated like AnyDVD, I doubt it's going to be able to overcome new protection schemes.

[jldinsdale]

The Mactheripper Handbrake is the best for batch processing. In a normal workday you can use Mactheripper to rip through 6 - 8 DVDs during the day, then let Handbrake churn all night batch processing all the files. A standard iMac can rip through 4-6 movies overnight, while the latest Mac Pros can rip through 15 overnight.
Using VLC + Handbrake means you can only rip and convert one DVD at a time.

[jldinsdale]

Interestingly enough, adding a plus symbol in these threads turns italics on or off depending on spacing.
There is aplus sign between the aand the plus
There is a + plus sign between two spaces.

[hillstones]

Most new DVD's released today have new copy protection in place (Disney being the main one) in which even Mac the Ripper 3 can't defeat. I should be able to rip the movie to my iPod or iPhone without having to pay for the same movie twice.
Can AnyDVD circumvent the "intentional bad-block" trick that seems be used more often to prevent DVD's from being ripped to the hard drive?