HandBrake

AnyDVD HD with free lifetime upgrades is the best (if they still offer it -- it's what I got but I know they've changed things since then). Almost every single new blu-ray release needs an update, which AnyDVD HD seems to always have, so just figure out how long you'll be buying blu-rays and transfe...

tsolignani wrote: I just do not know wheter I still have the same sources

And why not?

No, switching the language in Handbrake won't fix that -- it was what I said, that you needed to select another title (because that other title will have different files in it that show the stuff in the movie that is normally in English). Disney is usually the only people that do this, however (ther...

I play 5.1 encoded audio all the time on my PC (using VLC) and it plays just fine -- however, be aware that if you are going to make a habit of listening to movies this way the center channel will nearly always be overwhelmed by the FX and music (because of the nature of 5.1 surround sound -- no way...

Yeah, but it does (this was with one of the nightly snapshots and I asked here but no one could help). I updated to another nightly snapshot and had the same issue (that is, rebuilt each and every time) and apparently I'm not alone as in this OP. But changing the options at least made my symptom go ...

If it shows another language you need to select a different title -- the one that comes up by default is the longest one, which isn't always correct (actually, if there is more than one that is slighter shorter the slighter shorter one is nearly always the correct one, since foreign language version...

Scott, I kept having this problem and no one could help here but what I did to "solve" it was to go to Options and "Advanced" and checkmark "Disable Built-in preset update notification". I have a feeling that each and every time my Handbrake loads it's still updating th...

I've never had good luck playing with VLC on my desktop (it will play but nearly always stutters with almost any HD source). Because I don't really care about playback there I've never tried to track down what's happening. In any case, I solved the issue by re-encoding with a fixed framerate -- neve...

Well, well, well -- in literally hundreds of blu-ray encodes I've never had an issue, not one. And my first one is with a disc that shouldn't be special otherwise (and it was done with the same settings I always use, and a build I've used for 20 titles with success) but I'm stumped. Symptoms are a &...

Simplest way would be to use something like MKVMerge (once you've separated the tracks with something like TSMuxer).

I'm actually not using TS files but Mpeg files, so I can't use the tool you mention. Splitting mpeg files is, in general, a dicey thing to do (because of the compression they aren't "frame accurate" the way a lot of other file types are). That's kind of why I was using Handbrake and encodi...

I think you're going to have to ask Bunkus this (not a Handbrake question). For the record, I don't think MKVMerge actually merges MKVs very well. I tried almost exactly what you are doing (and for the same reasons -- to cut out commercials out of a recorded HD show) and while the sync wasn't off it...

The High Profile preset would be a good starting point. I'd probably tweak it to use the equivalent of the x264 "slow" encode preset by copying the following string to my x264 advanced options. ref=5:b-adapt=2:direct=auto:me=umh:subq=8:rc-lookahead=50 Forgive me for jumping in here, Ted, ...

There is absolutely no point in using 100% (in fact, that shouldn't even be there anymore -- they removed the percentage at least a version or two ago). Folks trying that have no understanding of how Handbrake works (anything less than RF 18 is insane. Note that the High Profile preset default is 20...

Michael, The presets are there for a reason. Your best bet is to try one or more of them and see what YOU like. The High Profile is for excellent quality but you will tradeoff a larger size file. The Normal is more likely what you want but if I were you I'd take a couple of typical sources and encod...

And just to reiterate some of the previous, you need to understand what you are doing here. You are re-encoding a video file -- one of the more CPU intensive tasks there is. Even the fastest computer there is will take a while to do this. On my i7 computer I can encode a DVD at the High Profile sett...

Well, not that my opinion means anything, but I actually think it looks more professional now.

Sure you can -- after selecting the preset just go to Container and choose MKV from the dropdown.

Just use the High Profile preset (but change output type to MKV) and you'll create a video without loss of quality (compression doesn't always mean you lose any quality you can discern -- as Spock observed, a difference that makes no difference IS no difference).

Do you have any sense on how much longer (if at all) the encoding is with your tuning as without? I'm not above (beyond?) changing my parms to perhaps gain some quality if it doesn't appreciably increase encoding time, but if it does something like doubling it then I wouldn't consider it. Right now ...

Well, the thing that was apparent to *me* was that without enlarging the images the RF 20 looked appreciably better (IOW, sitting in my computer chair just looking at the images I actually liked the first image versus the second one) in all but the Alien images. Just shows different strokes for diff...

Yeah, the problem is you're starting with the wrong preset. Rather than start with Apple TV and try and adjust it better, you should start with the High Profile and try and make it worse (so it will play on your device). That's only IMHO -- but RF of smaller than 20 won't make any difference when us...

You passthrough whatever it is you have on the disc -- if there is an AC3 track, pass it through. If it's DTS, choose that instead (this assumes your playback device is capable of handling DTS and/or AC3).

Remember I'm not the expert around here (there are plenty of those, and Rodeo is already on this thread). My understanding is that you don't need to detelicine anything other than TV series stuff and that's when I leave it at Default. My (limited) understanding is that it's harmless to leave at the ...

automatically name a file according to some rules

You answered your own question. In the Output file default path, just use the bracketed "source" code where it says Format and you'll get exactly what you want.