ripping movies for eyehome/appletv/ipod

[davemchine]

I'd like to rip some of my home movies for use with my ipod and with my eyehome. In addition I'd like to make sure the resulting files will work with the appletv which I'm sure I will move to in the future.

I know the eyehome cannot play h.264 so I need to use mpeg4 for the video. I couldn't figure out how to do this with ffmpegx so I used mediafork (handbrake). I'm not sure about the audio setting though. MediaFork will do 2 channel aac and 5 channel aac. Which one do I want?

Also, what bitrate is generally acceptable? ffmpegx suggested 700kbps but that seemed terribly low. I told MediaFork to use 1200. I'm converting Die Hard the original movie right now. I'll certainly post back the results of how this works with the eyehome and my ipod but I have no way of testing with an AppleTV yet.

Dave

[Article Accelerator]

http://www.macworld.com/2007/04/secrets/.../index.php
http://arstechnica.com/journals/apple.ar...-us-to-you

[deckeda]

You have home movies to rip --- so they're shot originally on DVD, not miniDV tape?

OK, you have some choices. If you're using MediaFork, I would refrain from using anything but 2 ch. audio. Your source wasn't made with surround sound, which means you don't need another reason.

Wait, Die Hard? That's a home movie --- OMG you're Bruce Willis?

VisualHub has an AppleTV preset and it works. The latest Handbrake can easily be downloaded from source and compiled --- it has an AppleTV preset. They both generally work well but you still need MTR for most DVDs since Handbrake's ripper is out of date and VH doesn't rip DVDs at all.

Strictly speaking, you don't need software with an "AppleTV" setting to make compatible files. Something free like normal MediaFork or Handbrake --- use the iPod settings. If it plays on an iPod it'll play on AppleTV.

[deckeda]

The Trac page at Handbrake is somewhat buried in the development directory but if you are patient has a lot of important information they'd really really really prefer you read before asking questions on their forums. http://handbrake.m0k.org/trac

The latest is worth it for genuine anamorphic encoding of widescreen movies, versus VisualHub's method of upscaling to reach proper output IMO, but then again the anamorphic encoding isn't going to work on the iPod, so pick your poison (and your compromise.)

[davemchine]

I should have said I wanted to rip some of the movies I have at home. Thanks for the links, i'm reading now.

Dave

[ztirffritz]

Look for Instant Handbrake

[BigGuynRusty]

You must use optical out to get surround sound (5.1), no matter what device you own now or in the future, decoding output is through the S/PDIF port only, on both devices due to licensing issues.

BGnR
IF it were me, I would do DiVX for the EyeHome, because you don't own AppleTV yet, and once you see what is coming out in a few months, you aren't going AppleTV unless you have tons purchased iTunes you have to play through your 50" HDTV.
But if I wanted to stream iTune music purchases, I would've purchased that 100 buck Airport thingy.
But you can do the DiVX hack on ATV if you insist on AppleTV.

[Article Accelerator]

[quote BigGuynRusty]
IF it were me, I would do DiVX for the EyeHome, because you don't own AppleTV yet, and once you see what is coming out in a few months, you aren't going AppleTV unless you have tons purchased iTunes you have to play through your 50" HDTV.
But if I wanted to stream iTune music purchases, I would've purchased that 100 buck Airport thingy.
But you can do the DiVX hack on ATV if you insist on AppleTV.
Why use some bastardized, ripped-off version of MPEG-4 when you can easily use the premiere--and fully supported--encoding standard of H.264?

[BigGuynRusty]

[quote Article Accelerator]Why use some bastardized, ripped-off version of MPEG-4 when you can easily use the premiere--and fully supported--encoding standard of H.264?
LOL!
Is that butt you're kissing Chocolate flavored?
Where did H.264 come from? MPEG-4!
Jeezo, some brilliant folks come up with something and it is "Bastardized", but some huge corporations cook up something and it is "fully supported"!
Shall I list the "Fully Supported" codecs that Apple alone has abandoned over the years? Hell, parts of Core Image have already been abandoned.

BGnR