The existence of the Apple TV has led to an increased interest in converting DVDs to a form compatible with Apple’s new set-top box. And with that interest comes a measure of confusion. Macworld’s Jonathan Seff provides a fine tutorial on ripping DVDs on the Macintosh. But questions remain.
One was posted on Macworld’s iPod and iTunes forum by member Chogori, who wonders how to rip a DVD that contains multiple episodes—a compilation of TV episodes, for example. I’d suggest this:
Download a copy of HandBrake 0.85b1. This is a brand new version of the application and offers a number of welcome improvements over previous versions including user presets (including a preset for Apple TV), support for surround sound, chapter markers, and, finally , a GUI version for Windows.
The feature I’ll focus on isn’t new, but it’s often overlooked. After downloading HandBrake, glance down at the bottom of the window and you’ll see the Enable Queue option. Click this and two buttons appear: Add to Queue and Show Queue.
From the Title pop-up menu select the first episode that you’d like to rip (if it’s a TV show it will be 20 – 60 minutes long). In the Destination area you’ll see a File field. Give your file a unique name—BlahEpisode1, for example. Click the Presets button at the top of the window and, in the resulting Presets pane, select the appropriate preset (HB-AppleTV if you intend to rip that content for Apple TV, for example). Finally, click Add to Queue.
Return to the Title pop-up menu and select the next episode. Again, provide a unique name for this next episode. (I stress this because if you fail to give each episode a unique name, HandBrake will simply replace the episode it just ripped because all the episodes have the same name.) Click Add to Queue to add this episode to the queue.
Repeat as necessary until you’ve added all the episodes. Click Start and wait while HandBrake goes about its business.