#21 Leopard application of the day (Free)
When it comes to backing up your dvd collection so you can watch it on your Apple TV or iPhone, there isn’t a better free program than Handbrake. The current version for Mac includes a lot of upgrades and is even faster than previous versions.
From the developers site:
HandBrake is an open-source, GPL-licensed, multiplatform, multithreaded DVD to MPEG-4 converter, available for MacOS X, Linux and Windows.
Apple fans will be delighted over:
- Dolby Digital 5.1 (AC3) sound in MP4 files, for a true DVD experience on the AppleTV and in Perian.
- Multi-track audio support for Apple devices
- iPhone-compatible anamorphic video at its full size
Power users will find:
- Variable frame rate encoding with detelecine filtering
- More flexible, “loose” anamorphic video
- MP4 optimization for progressive web downloads
- Dynamic range compression for encoding from AC3 audio
- Robust program and transport stream support
Speed freaks will squee at:
- A fresher, faster version of x264
- Tuning of FIFO sizes by processor count
And everyone should enjoy the increased stability brought by:
- Better handling of audio discontinuities
- Better handling of DVD read errors
- Work-arounds for missing end-of-cell markers
- Recovery when streams have signal loss
- Better synced chapter markers
- Better handling of B-Frames
- No more cutting off the very ends of films
- No more lost subtitles or chapter markers
- No more crashes in 2-pass encoding