Makin' Movies
The geek that I am, I have begun the improbable task of converting my DVD collection to MP4 format, and if anybody out there is interested, I thought I might give a quick how-to on the best way to do it. Granted to a certain point, the “best way” becomes subjective and determined by your preference. NEVERTHELESS, here’s all you need to do.
- Get Handbrake
Handbrake is an open source completely free, multiplatform tool for converting DVDs to a vast number of formats. You can download it here.
- Encode file from DVD
This is where your preferences come in, and it may require some tweaking and minor changes based on what you want to do with your movie files. For example, I wanted to convert mine in a format that my Xbox 360 AND my iPod could handle. Luckily this is pretty simple, but you may want to make sure it works on other devices. I am pretty sure if it works on an iPod, it will work on the Apple TV, but I don’t have an Apple TV, so no guarantees. Start by encoding a really small file, like say a trailer off the DVD, that way you don’t waste a ton of time.Handbrake luckily has a lot of built in profiles you can use as starting points. I started with the iPod profile, and made the following changes.
- Up the bitrate to 1500. This may too big for you depending on how much space you have, but storage is getting cheaper and cheaper. You can now get a 1 TB drive for a little over $100.
- Change the file extension to mp4. This way it can play on non apple devices, like Xbox 360 or PS3.
- Up the resolution to the highest possible, while keeping the aspect ratio. This is why we start at the iPod profile, because the iPod can only handle certain aspect ratios. Unfortunately, this may mean some dropped pixels, but hardly any you will notice, and in most cases the only dropped pixels will be black bars. If the iPod is the only device you want these files to play on, then this resolution is overkill, and you can get away with 320×240.
- Click Start. Depending on how fast your computer is, it could take about 4 hours. I usually do 1 a night, and then queue up some re-encodes (movie files I have downloaded that aren’t in the format I want).
- Add to iTunes (optional)
Once your encode is done, you can open it up in iTunes. Depending on your level of OCD (mine’s quite high), you can as many details to the movie as you want, and even paste in some DVD artwork from Amazon or Google image search. iTunes will actually embed the artwork in the file, so it will show up on other devices too. A big advantage to putting movies into a format that your iPod can read, is that you can get a TV out cable for it, and take about 30-40 movies around on your iPod. It’s perfect for road trips and plane rides.If you are adding a TV Show, make sure you edit the media type preference to TV Show, so it will be categorized in iTunes correctly.
- Store it! If you want to do this for a lot of your movies, you might want to get an external drive. Just remember that if you move a file, after you have added it to iTunes, it will look for that file in the old place. The easiest way is to just make sure it’s on the drive you want to keep it on, and then open it for the first time.
So there you have it, your movies in a DRM free format that can be played on multiple devices. Encode your whole collection and there’s no needle to juggle discs anymore. Hope that helps you!
