Apple Movie Junkie

I use Handbrake for Mac, and on the rare occasion VisualHub.

Handbreak, MacTheRipper, MPEG Streamclip.

Handbrake, AppleTV preset w/ 5.1 & 2ch sound – or even more conveniently and at a VERY minimal quality stepdown, Universal preset w/ 5.1 & 2ch sound, constant quality of 59-61 gives you ~2000kbps rips w/ 5.1 sound that will play on itouch/iphone and AppleTV. Then just add some MetaData in itunes and put it in your library.

Helpful hint, to get multiple movie tracks to show as one “folder” in AppleTV, give them all the same “Show” name in Video info. If you want them to show as one icon in iTunes, give them the same “Album” name in info. Good way to get special features to all be under one heading.

For downloaded avi files, I use the now defunct iSquint for a quick conversion to mp4 using h.264. No real savings in file sizes but puts it all in the same format.

Handbrake for DVDs, VisualHub for retty much anything else (on the Mac, naturally).

@Brian, that’s awesome, thanks for the tip!

I think the universal answer is going to be MacTheRipper and/or Handbrake for ripping/encoding, and MetaX for tagging.

handbrake and visual hub

I guess I’m the only traitor here… A PC user.

I use FairUseWizard to rip my DVDs into AVI files (it’s free). Then I use iPodifier to convert AVIs into MP4s for my iPod and ATV (free as well) which I use for a lot more than the DVDs I ripped.

Hello all, I use SlySoft’s AnyDVD to unencrypt and SlySoft’s Clone Mobile DVD – to rip the DVD to MP4. They have a setting for Apple TV – this works like a charm. They also have settings for just about every mobile device you can think of – so you are not limited to ATV or iPods. Oh yeah, I do it on a PC and copy to a Thumb Drive and upload to iTunes on my iMac. I have been doing this for a long time, AnyDVD is by far the best

I used to use HandBrake but unfortunately version 0.9.3 doesn’t rip commercial DVDs anymore. I am now looking for alternatives.

I use Handbrake to do the final conversion (and MetaX to add info like cast, cover image, etc.)

I first try on the mac, rip the disk with RipIt (at ripitapp.com) and then convert with Handbrake. If that doesn’t work for some reason (RipIt sometimes leaves in some protection that confuses Handbrake), I go to the PC, where I use SlySoft’s AnyDVD to unencrypt and Handbrake on windows to convert. You don’t even have to do a separate ripping phase, you just point Handbrake at the DVD, and AnyDVD hides all the protection.

I use Handbrake. And the new version does rip commercial DVDs. You just have to know the ins and outs of it. I ripped The Dark Knight into Apple TV format and it came out very good (I had some issues doing it the default way, but I got around it).

I use Quicktime Pro (yes I paid for it…) on Mac OS X to convert AVI files to Apple TV using the default settings. It generally works pretty well except in few cases where the audio and video tracks get out of sync during the conversion.

Visualhub , Handbrake, MetaX….

MacTheRipper > Handbrake > MetaX

RipIt (rips more titles than Mac The Ripper I’ve found), Handbrake and MetaX

Thanks for all the suggestions so far everyone. One thing I am also looking for are ways to get home media on to the Apple TV, such as home movies off a camcorder. We got iMovie on the Mac side, is there an equivalent on the PC side? Anyone have a workflow regarding this?

Handbrake does a great job. . . .

… add me as another Mac Handbrake guy.

I use Handbrake with either AnyDYD or DVD43, depending on which PC I’m using. DVD43 is a free option to use for decrypting DVDs (as is Handbrake for the encoding). I also use Handbrake for converting my home media. You can use Windows Movie Maker on PCs or iMovie on Macs to edit the final products (once again, focusing on free software).

For all you PC users that have been endlessly looking for a good tagging utility, someone just wrote a Windows version of MetaX. I downloaded it last week and it works great. One thing that iTunes is deperately lacking is the ability to put ratings in for movies and tv shows. MetaX does that, plus a lot more. Having the movie ratings tagged is the best way to control content for any little ones in the house.

Just Google MetaX or DVD43 to find them.

One other little tip I haven’t seen around much – you can enable playlists for your Movies in the Settings->Audio & Video section. Just set Show Playlists to All. Then you can make nice little video playlists for things like “New Movies” or “My Top 10″.

Ripping: MacTheRipper
Encode: Handbrake on Apple TV setting,
Meta: MetaX

Handbrake with Apple preset and constant quality of 60% for DVDs.

iSquint for avi files.

Oh, and I’ve yet to find a simple solution for converting 720p mkv files into HD mp4 files.

I use VisualHub, but I find every now and again AVI files that I convert have audio lag issues. Handbrake is my fallback, but it crashes a fair amount so my fingers are crossed for a more stable release of Handbrake and/or the open source TranscoderRedux.

Handbrake

Can’t get TDK to work on mac though

DVDs:
I use MacTheRipper to rip my (paid for) DVD’s and then Handbrake to convert them using the default AppleTV settings. My Quad-Core G5 can convert 6 to 8 movies overnight. I have more than 150 of my DVDs now on the AppleTV.

DVR recorded shows:
I use AVC Video Cap to transfer un-protected content from my Comcast DVR via FireWire. I then use MPEG Streamclip to convert them for the AppleTV.

All my media lives on a mirrored RAID consisting of two 750GB NewerTech MiniStacks connected via FireWire to my MacMini, connected wirelessly to my AppleTV using it’s built-in AirPort card.

Although the process for gettings DVD’s, etc. into the AppleTV is far from “friendly”, I was amazed at how easy Apple makes it to set up/manage a RAID using Disk Utility. Piece of cake!

Which version of MacTheRipper is everyone using? Still 2.6.6? Does it work ok for current DVDs?

ripping dvd’s I use good ol’ dvd shrink, then transfered onto my server where I have the linux version of handbrake encode the movie then add them to my itunes so apple tv can access them…

for dvd’s it usually takes about 2 hours total from inserting the disc til I can play it on apple tv

for my other content I download to my server, have handbrake/linux encode, then add to itunes…

for some reason handbrake running in linux seems to be the most stable and fastest way to encode out of the three, OS X, Linux, Windows

does anybody know of software that will let you put on subtitles on or of and change languages?

Hello,i am jonna,nice to meet you!~~~.These days i met a problem about how to convert quicktime movie to dvd
and i just wanna watch it on my home dvd player. I'm kinda on a clock!
At the end, i found one passage,which is a good tutorial about how to burn quicktime video to DVD in Google. I am so happy now!