How to rip a DVD with HandBrake

Video software

[Editors note: The MPAA and most media companies argue that you cant legally copy or convert com-
mercial DVDs for any reason. We (and others) think that, if you own a DVD, you should be able to over-
ride its copy protection to make a backup copy or to convert its content for viewing on other devices. Cur-
rently, the law isnt entirely clear one way or the other. So our advice is: If you dont own it, dont do it. If
you do own it, think before you rip.]

Looking to liberate the movies in your DVD collection from the confines
of their plastic-and-metal prison so you can enjoy them on your iPhone,
iPod, iPad, and Apple TV? Well look no furtherall you need to do is get
some free software and follow a few steps.

(Note that this guide pertains only to DVDs. To learn more about dealing
with HD discs, read our story about watching and ripping Blu-ray discs
on your Mac.)

Step one: Install the software

To rip a DVD with HandBrake, you need to download the free software. The latest version
works on 64-bit Macs running OS X 10.6 or later. But HandBrake doesnt include the software
needed to decrypt commercial DVDs, so you also need to install libdvdcss, an open-source li-
brary that can circumvent the Content Scramble System (CSS) used on DVDs. (You should, of
course, only rip DVDs that youve purchased.)

The first time you launch HandBrake and attempt to scan a DVD, the software will inform you
that you need additional decrypting software and will offer to send you to a page where you
can download the libdvdcss installer (currently version 1.2.12, although you can always find the
latest version here). Run that installer, and it will put libdvdcss where it belongs on your drive.
Now youre ready to rip.

One more thing...

Alternativelyand especially if you encounter problems getting HandBrake to work with your
DVDsyou can use a separate app to decrypt your DVDs, leaving you with a Video_TS folder
containing unencrypted files that HandBrake can then deal with easily. Some good choices are
The Little App Factorys $25 RipIt and DVDSuki Softwares $25 Mac DVDRipper Pro. (Both can
also do some video conversion.)

Step two: Insert a DVD and pick what to rip

Now insert your DVD into your Macs DVD drive and launch HandBrake. By default, the app
opens a dialog box and ask you to select the DVD mounted on your Mac (you can turn off auto-
prompting in the General pane of HandBrakes preferences if you prefer). Choose your DVD and
click Open, and HandBrake then scans the DVD for the titles it contains. Once the scan is com-
plete, HandBrake chooses what it thinks is the main title, but you can click the pop-up menu
next to Title and choose the item you want to encode. Generally speaking, the title with the
longest duration is the DVDs main feature.

HandBrakes main interface.

Want to make sure youve chosen the right title before you start encoding? Pick the one you
think you want, then click the Preview Window button and a new window opens up. From there
you can scroll through ten still images from the title or, if thats not good enough, choose to en-
code and watch 15 to 240 seconds of the title (in 15-second increments).
 Benders the king, baby! Yep, thats the episode I wanted.

If you encounter problems such as HandBrake quitting or crashing when it scans your DVD, or
a DVD with 99 titles of almost the same length, youve run into copy-protection scheme meant
to thwart ripping. In that case, launch Apples DVD Player application, and navigate through
the warnings, ads, and previews until youre playing the main feature. Then choose Go > Title
from the menu bar, and find the title with a chek mark next to it. In HandBrake choose File >
Open Source (Title Specific), select your DVD, and enter that title number in the box and click
Open Title.
 Want to rip everything on a particular disc? Theres a button for that.

If you want to convert several itemsall the episodes on a TV show DVD, for exampleyou
can select one item, click the Add To Queue button, and then repeat the process for each item un-
til youve added them all to the encoding queue (youll want to adjust your encoding settings
prior to adding the items to the queue, however, which Ill discuss in the next step). Rather than
worrying about overwriting items in the queue if you forget to rename each before adding
them, you can go to the General tab of HandBrakes preferences and choose Use Auto Naming
(uses DVD name and title number), which makes sure each title has a unique filename. You might
even find it easier to choose File > Add All Titles To Queue, which as you might expect adds
everything to the queue. From there you can delete any title that you dont want to rip by click-
ing the X to the right of each titles name.

Step three: Choose a preset

Now that youve decided which title(s) to rip, you You can pick a preset and make it your default, or you can create
your own.
need to choose your encoding settings based on
the device(s) on which you plan to view the con-
tent. Although you can tweak every aspect of en-
coding, HandBrake includes handy presets that
make it much easier. Generally speaking, I advise
using them.

If the Presets Drawer isnt already open, click the

Toggle Presets button at the top of the HandBrake
window (or press Command-T). In the drawer,
youll see two types of presets: Devices and Regu-
lar. In most cases, you can just focus on the Devices
section. There youll find options for Universal,
iPod, iPhone & iPod touch, iPad, AppleTV, Ap-
pleTV 2, AppleTV 3, Android, and Android Tablet.

If you want to watch your movie on an iPhone, for

example, choose iPhone & iPod touch for the best-
quality settings that will work on that device. The
same goes for other devices, based on their play-
back restrictions. The Universal preset is helpful if
you want a file that will work on all current Apple
devices. If you find a preset that you plan to use
often, you can set it as your default (otherwise,
HandBrake defaults to Normal as its preset). High-
light the preset you want, then at the bottom of the
Preset Drawer click the gear icon and choose Make
Default from the drop-down menu. Youll know it
worked if your chosen preset now appears in bold.
Also note that you can create custom presets for
specific needs, such as after makingany of the
tweaks discussed next that you want to use again.

Step four: Tweak your settings

Once you pick your preset, there are a few settings

you might want to tweak, depending on your spe-
cific needs.

Decombing/deinterlacing: Many TV shows youll

find on DVD are interlacedthat is, each frame dis-
playing on screen as even lines and then odd lines
(as opposed to progressive video, which refreshes
all lines in order per frame) that can lead to jagged
video when viewed on your computer or portable
device. To overcome this, HandBrake can deinter-
lace while it rips so that the video will be smoother when you view it. The downside to deinter-
lacing, however, is that you sacrifice some picture quality.

So instead of using the Deinterlace setting in The Picture Settings display lets you turn on decombing or
deinterlacing, among other things.
HandBrake, try the Decomb option instead. The
Decomb filter looks at each pixel of each frame of
video and deinterlaces only frames that show visi-
ble signs of interlacing. That process can slow
down the ripping process, but you should end up
with smooth video that suffers minimal quality
degradation. Only the AppleTV 3 preset uses the
Decomb filter, so if you want to use it with another
preset, click the Picture Settings button and then
the Filters tab in the window that appears. Click
the Decomb pop-up menu and choose Fast (the
same setting used in the preset above). To see if
that does the trick, try encoding a short bit in the
Preview Window before and after changing that
setting. If the jaggedness disappears with Fast
turned on, use that setting. If not, you can play
around with the other choices. (Want to really get
into the weeds with decombing and deinterlacing?
Check out the HandBrake Wiki page on the topic.)

Audio Altering or removing audio tracks is a great

way to reduce the size of your finished file. Click
the Audio tab, and look at the audio tracks your preset has selected to include. There may be lan-
guage tracks you dont need, or if your Apple TV isnt connected to a surround-sound audio
system, you may want to remove a 5.1-channel audio track or down-mix it to stereo, for exam-
ple.

Dont need a particular audio track? Get rid of it.

Subtitles If your movie is in a foreign language, or you have a hearing impairment and need to
read the closed captions when you watch, HandBrakes Subtitles tab is the place to look. There
you can find whatever subtitle or captioning data comes on your DVD and decide which to in-
clude in your ripped file. Typically, subtitles must be burned into your file, meaning you cant
turn them on or off, whereas closed captioning data is added as a separate text track that you
can choose while watching in QuickTime, for example. You can also add an external .srt text file
for the movie if you have it (one you downloaded, say).

For the most part, you shouldnt have to worry about much of the HandBrakes other minutia
(and there is a lot of it). But if youre curious about other settings, check out Christopher
Breens Beyond HandBrakes defaults.

When youre all set, click the Start button and go take a nice walk; depending on the length of
the files and the speed of your computer, it can take a while to transcode the video.

Step five: Tag your movie with metadata

While this last step is very much optional, adding cover art, cast names, summaries, and the like
will make your movies or TV shows look and act a lot more like those purchased from the
iTunes Store, sorted and grouped correctly in iTunes and on your devices.

A tagging utility like iFlicks can fill your rips with useful metadata.

Several applications can look up metadata online and add it to your files. Rodney Kerstetters
free MetaX is designed for that purpose (and HandBrake even has an option to send completed
rips to MetaX directly). But Chris Marrins free Video Monkey and (my personal favorite) Jen-
drik Bertrams $20 iFlicks are video-encoding applications that you can use just to add metada-
ta. Whichever software use, once youre done, just add the movie to your iTunes library and it
will then ready for you to transfer (or stream) to your devices.