anything faster than handbrake?

Gottcha9 · Mar 13, 2010

I have used it, and while it works it seems very slow. I am running it on a MBP 2.26 w/4gig and plenty of disk. I don't mind paying for an application if the benefit (speed and ease of use) is there. thx

86Apex · Mar 13, 2010

It would help to know what exactly you use Handbrake for as it has several different uses.

Gottcha9 · Mar 13, 2010

sorry...copying DVD to the Mac

86Apex · Mar 13, 2010

Do you want a full copy of the DVD (I'm assuming this is going to be a legal copy without any copyrights) including menus, chapters, extras, etc., or do you want a to convert into a video file?

For a full copy, go for Mac The Ripper.

For DVD to video conversion, Visualhub is the only other alternative to Handbrake I can think of off the top of my head. Don't know how it compares in terms of speed though.

Gottcha9 · Mar 13, 2010

just trying to convert movies that we own, so I can watch them while I travel. I guess for that I don't need any of the extras, just the main movie.

Kevriano · Mar 14, 2010

Not sure if it's faster or not, but:

ffmpegX a DVD, SVCD, VCD, CVD, VOB, DivX, XviD, H.264, PSP, iPod, MP4, MOV, FLV encoder for Mac OSX

is worth a look at as well. I reckon it's more to do with how much ram you have and processor speed to be honest.

DarkestRitual · Mar 14, 2010

I doubt it's faster, and it has nothing to do with how much RAM and processor speed, Kev. It's more the limit of how fast your computer can read data from a spinning shiny circle inside it. If it were up to the Mac, it'd have that data over a SATA connection and be done with it way quicker. Unfortunately, you've got to get the data from the DVD. Which means.....

Sloooooooooowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww

Maybe try unchecking the 2 pass encoding box, then it'll be half the time!

bobtomay · Mar 14, 2010

Let's just say, uhm... for example, most of Steven Seagal's movies do not have copy protection, and on my Win 7 HTPC I can move 4.5GB from disc to hard drive in 7-8 minutes and 7 GB in 10-12 minutes. No, there is nothing I've seen in OS X that can touch it.

And before this thread goes too far and has to be closed, please read:

Mac-Forums.com - Announcements in Forum : Movies and Video

Kevriano · Mar 14, 2010

DarkestRitual said:
I doubt it's faster, and it has nothing to do with how much RAM and processor speed, Kev. It's more the limit of how fast your computer can read data from a spinning shiny circle inside it. If it were up to the Mac, it'd have that data over a SATA connection and be done with it way quicker. Unfortunately, you've got to get the data from the DVD. Which means.....

Sloooooooooowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww

Maybe try unchecking the 2 pass encoding box, then it'll be half the time!

Ok cool. Yes didn't think about read times.
Maybe if you drag the pre-encoded files to the HD, and then encode them it would make a difference.

Lifeisabeach · Mar 14, 2010

If space is not an issue and you just need to get the movies off the DVDs for traveling, then MakeMKV is the way to go. It doesn't compress the video data or otherwise modify it… just extracts it and puts it in the MKV container. You just need a player that supports the MKV container. VLC and Mplayer OSX Extended both will play them. VLC has a tendency to crash if you try to do things like zip forward, but it better handles some files than Mplayer does.

Zoolook · Mar 14, 2010

Kevriano said:
Ok cool. Yes didn't think about read times.
Maybe if you drag the pre-encoded files to the HD, and then encode them it would make a difference.

Handbrake is actually just about one of the best converters out there, but MPEG2 to h.264 is a slow conversion process, even on very fast machine. Even my 3.2ghz Quad Core PC converts at about 90fps, so a two hour film still takes 20 mins.

Converting to mp4 would be much quicker (although the file size would either be much larger or the quality much lower).