I am in the process of copying my DVD collection to my Drobo, and after much experimentation, I found a process that seems to produce very high quality MP4 files that play on all of the following devices:
- Boxee Box by D-Link - Media Player
- Motorola Xoom - Android Tablet
- Motorola Droid - Android Phone
- Apple iPhone 4s - iOS 5 Phone
- Apple MacBook - Max OS Computer
DVD Extraction and Encoding with MacTheRipper and HandBrake:
- Download and install MacTheRipper
- Insert a DVD into your Mac.
- Unless you have disabled it, iDVD will start automatically. Quit iDVD.
NOTE:You can disable iDVD startup on insert under System Preferences:
- Open MacTheRipper and it should detect the DVD and display some basic information about the DVD.
- If you see 'DISC RCE: -CLEAR-' in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen, you can leave the 'RCE Region OFF'.
- If you see "‘DISC RCE: -DETECTED-", then set "RCE Region" to the region from which the DVD was purchased.
- Besides "RCE Region" you should be able to leave defaults for all other settings.
- Choose "Save To" fro the "File" menu and choose the target directory for extraction.
- Click "GO" to begin extraction.
- You will get a notification once extraction is complete:
- Download and install HandBrake.
- Open HandBrake and set the source directory to the MacTheRipper save location.
- A "Preview Source" window will open with an image from the DVD.
- Move the slider to a few points in the DVD and make sure the top, bottom and sides aren't being cut off.
- Adjust the Size Cropping if you believe the automatic crop setting is removing any part of the movie.
- Set the HandBrake Video settings as follows:
Format: MP4 file
Web optimized
Average Bitrate: 2200 kbps
2-pass encoding
Turbo first pass
Variable Framerate
- Leave the HandBrake Audio default settings:
- Set the HandBrake Subtitles settings as follows:
Select the Track labeled "Closed Captions - (Text) (CC)"
- And finally, click "Start" to begin encoding the DVD image to an MP4 file.
I keep the full extracted DVD images on my Drobo, so I can access the menus and special features from my Macs and I copied all of the MP4 files to a USB drive attached to my Boxee Box.
