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Instant Handbrake is a great application for ripping DVDs straight to an iPod or PSP. Maybe I don’t want to lug around a bunch of DVDs on a roadtrip. Or maybe I want to take a DVD and play it on my video iPod. Handbrake will take a DVD and make the title track an iPod compatible MPEG4 or H.264 Quicktime movie. It can even make PSP compatible movies. Handbrake can even read Video_TS and Audio_TS folders on a hard drive and output a video format.

I can download Instant Handbrake from here. Open the DMG file, drag the Application to my Applications folder to install.

A Brief Introduction to DVD Ripping

Ripping a DVD essentially means I am translating the language of a DVD to a language video players on my Mac can understand. DVDs have a basic structure. The video is stored in a folder called Video_TS. The audio is stored in a folder called Audio_TS. In the Video_TS folder, a DVD’s main content is divided into Title Tracks. Tracks can be the main feature or even extra content. Usually, Track 1 is the main feature of the DVD. If the DVD is of a TV show, look for the DVD Features with similar durations, about the length of the TV show.

How to Rip a DVD using Handbrake

Insert a DVD. DVD Player may automatically start. Quit DVD player, or whatever other application have set to automatically play DVDs.

Open Instant Handbrake.

Select DVD Drive from the first menu and make sure the DVD I wish to rip is selected.

Hit Continue. Instant Handbrake will now scan the DVD.

In the next menu, make sure the main feature is selected. Usually it is Track 1 or the track with the longest duration. If I am ripping a DVD of a TV show, select the Tracks that have the same tv length duration.

Save converted files to: automatically saves the output video to the Movies folder. I can change the location here.

Select the file format. Read below for instructions based on if the video will be viewed on an iPod, PSP, or computer monitor.

For Video iPods, I recommend File format: iPod 5G H.264 with the Picture format: Fullscreen. This will make a .MOV file with the aspect ratio 320 x 240 with a smaller filesize than MPEG4.

For a file that will looks nice on both iPod and computer screen, select iPod 5G MPEG4 and Picture format: Fullscreen. This file will be larger in filesize than H.264.

For PSP, select File format: PSP (MPEG4) and Picture format: Fullscreen.

Select the language in Preferred audio.

Select any subtitles if necessary in Preferred Subtitles.

Hit Convert.

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Written by Steve Blue
steveblue@iuseapple.com