[daneb]

Does anyone know if there is going to be a Handbrake update anytime soon? It's such a great utility but I wish they updated it to work with the new x264 baseline low-complexity profile. At least someone should buy them out of it and update the program and sell it for $25. There's not really anything out there that had the same advanced features and ease of use that Handbrake has. I'm stuck using MPEG4 for now.

[daneb]

I got my answer finally! I just visited the Handbrake homepage and saw that it had been changed. There is an updated version known as MediaFork .80 beta that has been released. There will be an official Handbrake release (0.90) in a few weeks, according to the website. The latest version (though not officially Handbrake), provides support for the H.264 low-complexity profile needed to encode 640x480 video for the iPod. Until now, handbrake could only encode 320x240 H.264 (along with both sizes of MPEG--inferior in quality) baseline profile.
So if anyone is interested--there you go. Also, I believe Handbrake is considerably faster than the likes of iSquint and VisualHub when it comes to encoding H.264 video.

[Jon Seff]

The work that went into MediaFork is being rolled back into Handbrake, so the next release will have the familiar HandBrake name.
But remember that HandBrake only works with DVDs/VIDEO_TS folders, so comparing it to iSquint and VisualHub is a bit unfair.

[daneb]

It is going back to Handbrake, as I mentioned in my 2nd post.
Yes, it is a little unfair since they don't do the same things, but as far as DVDs go, Handbrake/Mediafork is much faster.

[mchamberlain]

I am not sure what I was doing wrong (if it was me, that is), but I tried to rip 2 DVDs last night, and both failed around the 70% mark. I tried to rip them to AVI format, 100% quality, audio quality was left on defaults.
I hope the update fixes this.

[MacCheetah3]

Hi
What were the DVD titles? Some are unrippable and some are unconvertable.

[daneb]

Quote:

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I am not sure what I was doing wrong (if it was me, that is), but I tried to rip 2 DVDs last night, and both failed around the 70% mark. I tried to rip them to AVI format, 100% quality, audio quality was left on defaults.
I hope the update fixes this.

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What is your target device for the file? I'm just wondering why you're ripping to AVI when H.264 is a more efficient and higher quality format.
I've had some rips fail at times, but I wasn't sure why. I know it's when I had a large queue of items, but not sure when exactly it failed. Try and eliminate the DVD drive variable and rip the DVDs to your HDD if you haven't already. Then if it fails again, rip to a different format (MPEG4 or H.264) and eliminate the AVI format variable.
I know that's just basic information, but it might help. /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

[daneb]

Quote:

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Hi
What were the DVD titles? Some are unrippable and some are unconvertable.

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You'll find out if they're unrippable when you rip them with Mac The Ripper or another ripping utility. If you get CRC (Cyclic redundancy check) error, then the DVD is unrippable. Some of the newer DVDs purposely have errors in the code somewhere to screw up the ripping process--in an apparent effort to fight piracy.
Anyway, that goes back to my previous post about eliminating the DVD variable by ripping it to the HDD first. If that is unsuccessful then it's not going to work in Handbrake/Mediafork.

[mchamberlain]

Both DVDs were +RW types which I created on my Samsung DVD/VCR combo unit. What I want to do is to create a DVD of my VHS tapes, then rip the DVDs to a format on my Mac which I can edit with video editing software.
I am a newbie at video editing, so not sure if this approach is even the best. I want to avoid buying expensive software for this, so hoping to do this with iDVD or iMovie, not sure.
After I copied the VHS tapes to DVD, I played through the DVDs, they seem fine.

[daneb]

Do you have a miniDV camera? That would be the best way to import the footage into iMovie. What you would need to do is hookup the VCR to the camcorder and have the firewire cable from the camcorder to the Mac. This way you can capture directly from VHS to the computer, thus bypassing the whole DVD part. That gives you two benefits: 1) You don't decrease the video quality by using an intermediate format, and 2) You have the video in a native editing format (DV NTSC). From here, if you want, you can then burn the whole unedited video to DVD. Or like you said you wanted, you can edit it and then burn it to DVD.
If you don't have a miniDV camera, you'll want to rip the DVD of your VHS movie into H.264 MP4 format. Macs don't like AVI files very much, so use H.264. Then you can try importing this file into iMovie. If iMovie doesn't like it, open the file in QuickTime first and then convert it to DV NTSC 48Khz (You'll need QT Pro to do this).
Let me know how it works out.

[mchamberlain]

I don't have a miniDV camera. I have a Samsung VCR/DVD combo, which allows you to record both ways, VCR to DVD or vice versa.
I tried ripping to AVI, but will try the H.264 format and let you know, thanks.

[daneb]

I would recommend ripping that DVD to the HDD first using Mactheripper or something similar. Then try encoding it.
Don't use AVI at all. iMovie isn't going to like it. Stick with H.264 or MPEG as a last resort. Either of those, I believe, will import just fine into iMovie.

[Jon23]

On a different topic Jon... I use Handbrake for all my DVD copying needs but haven't delved too deeply into it's full capabilities. I was wondering if there is a way to keep the chapter selection ability intact when copying a "hollywood" movie? If not, is there another program out there that will. Preferably a free one.
Thanks for any help you can give.

[daneb]

Quote:

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On a different topic Jon... I use Handbrake for all my DVD copying needs but haven't delved too deeply into it's full capabilities. I was wondering if there is a way to keep the chapter selection ability intact when copying a "hollywood" movie? If not, is there another program out there that will. Preferably a free one.
Thanks for any help you can give.

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What is your target device? If you're copying for the iPod, I believe Handbrake/Mediafork keeps the chapter divisions intact (I could be wrong). If your target device is a backup DVD of your movie, then don't use Handbrake because you will lose too much quality. Use something like Mactheripper and do a full DVD copy. Then you can shrink it to fit onto a DVD with DVD2OneX.