Guide to copying a DVD to a digital file

Its fairly straight forward to copy a DVD to a blank DVD, but what if you want to copy just the movie to a file? Here is a guide on how to copy a DVD to your hard disk for playback on devices such as an AppleTV, Xbox 360, PS3 or a video capable iPod.
In this guide, I am going to use my Mac mini running OS X Leopard to copy a DVD for playback on an AppleTV.

Step 1: Encode the DVD to a file

Download Handbrake and install from www.handbrake.fr (Mac OS and Windows compatible - free). Insert the DVD into your DVD drive and then launch Handbrake. You will be prompted to locate the video source so browse to the DVD and select the VIDEO_TS folder.

Step 2: Configure the settings

To start off with, I would advise that you use the many available presets that come with Handbrake (see picture below). I have my settings configured as below which include "AAC + AAC3" audio for 5.1 surround sound pass-through and also uses 2 pass encoding which doubles the processing time but improves the picture quality.

Step 3: Begin the copying process

You can either click the "Start" button or "Add to Queue" if you have multiple DVD (folders) to process. This is the longest part of the process and can take up to  movie length x 1.5 on a modest computer.

Step 4: Tag the file

I use a program called MetaX which tags the movie file with the DVD cover art  as well as other information such as Genre, Storyline, Rating etc. It does this by searching web sites such as Amazon and IMDB. Check the information you require and then click the "Write and Share" button. You can download MetaX from http://www.kerstetter.net/page53/page54/page54.html (Mac OS - free).

That's it! Your file is now ready to be copied into iTunes (or whatever you choose to use to manage your movies and sent to the AppleTV (or whatever device you have connected to your TV).

For more information on encoding movies with Handbrake, please visit:

http://handbrake.fr/?article=documentation

http://handbrake.fr/?article=documentation