Author: terry007
Source: articlesbase.com

No agnosticism you can acquirement movies from the iTunes Store accessible for iPhone/iPod Touch consumption, but if you already own the DVD, you don’t wish to decay your money on the aforementioned cine a additional time. Instead, you can rip the DVD to a video book on your computer, move it into iTunes Library, and again accompany it to your iPhone/iPod Touch. The affairs I’d like to acclaim to do this is alleged HandBrake, and it’s accessible for chargeless on both Windows and Mac.The afterward tutorial will appearance you how to rip DVD to iPhone/iPod Touch architecture using HandBrake. You can chase this adviser to catechumen DVD to iPod Touch/iPhone whether you are using Windows OS or Mac OS X (10.5 or later).Let’s yield a attending at how it works:Step 1. Download HandBrake from http://handbrake.fr/?article=download according to your computer OS and install it.Step 2. Insert a DVD and barrage HandBrake. If HandBrake doesn’t admit the DVD as a antecedent automatically, you may accept to bang “Browse” and absolute HandBrake to your DVD drive.Step 3. HandBrake will assay the DVD and let you accept the appellation and capacity you wish to rip for your iPhone/iPod Touch (in general, you’ll wish the aboriginal appellation and every chapter). You can get an abstraction of which appellation is the capital DVD appellation by allotment the appellation continuance that matches the movie’s playtime.Step 4. Bang the “Presets” card in Windows, or the “Presets” button on the top appropriate of the HandBrake window on the Mac. You’ll see several presets; accept the iPhone and iPod Touch preset.Step 5. Now just bang the “Encode Video” button (Windows) or Start button (Mac) and sit aback while HandBrake rips the DVD to one big file. This can yield a while, so you will not be able to rip a DVD on your way out the aperture to the airport. Make abiding you plan ahead.Step 6. When HandBrake finishes ripping the DVD, annoyance the book into iTunes for syncing to your iPod Touch/iPhone whenever you wish to.NoteHandBrake, “iPod touch“, Windows doesn’t do a actual acceptable job on ripping DVDs to iPod Touch/iPhone format. Here, I’d like to acclaim the DVD to iPhone Converter from Clone2Go. This section of software can absorb several DVD capacity into a individual file, trim the video length, abstract complete advance from DVD as audio file, abutment M4V, MP4, MKV, AVI, FLV, WMV, and, “iPod touch“, a lot added achievement video/audio formats, adapt contour for the achievement book and abutment sorts of adaptable players like iPod Touch, iPhone, Apple TV, PSP, Zune, BlackBerry, etc.

I would like to share my experience of using HandBrake with you.

Mac OS X is a wonder. When it comes to personal information management, entertainment and the Internet, it’s got all the basics covered. Beyond that, there are a handful of “essential” apps most Mac owners install on a new machine within minutes of booting it up for the first time. Handbrake is undoubtedly one of those essentials. And it just got a serious new upgrade.

Handbrake is a very handy (pun intended) DVD-ripping utility that converts DVDs to self-contained video files that can be played back on a computer or mobile device. (Contrary to the outright lies of major motion picture studios, there’s nothing wrong with having digital backups of movies you already own). In addition, DVDs can be converted into a number of formats, resolutions and aspect ratios. For many years, it has served as the single easiest way to get my movies off-of DVD discs and onto my iPods, iPhones and even my PSP.

The latest release, Handbrake 0.9.4, includes support for Snow Leopard, and is also available in 64-bit editions for both Leopard and Snow Leopard. It also adds the ability to include multiple subtitle tracks to exported video and a new “live preview” for viewing the likely outcome of an export before committing to a lengthy rip.

According to the release notes on the Handbrake website, the latest version includes new features like “macroblock tree rate control” and “weighted P-Frame prediction.” I’ve absolutely no idea what any of that means, and although they do provide links to explanatory articles, it made my head swim. I’ll just assume it’s all very swish and futuristic and good for my rips.

The introduction of a 64-bit version is good news for those of us using true 64-bit multi-core processors, though the performance increase is a fairly modest 10 percent. The software also supports non-DVD encoding, which is great news for those of us who do a lot of video editing. (I prefer to use Final Cut but often have to import raw data into iMovie only to export it out to a format Final Cut will accept. Handbrake won’t cut out this extra conversion step, but it performs far faster than the monolith that is iMovie and provides more flexibility in export formats.)

It’s not all about video, either. Handbrake offers great audio encoding options, including the newly-added ability to encode AAC using OS X’s Core Audio (which means far higher quality than was possible previously).

Of course, there are a lot of other software titles that offer similar functionality (Aimersoft’s popular DVD Ripper, for instance) but Handbrake is free. Although this means it has no official support, it does enjoy an active and enthusiastic user community so if you get stuck you won’t have far to go to find answers and help.

If you are using a 64 bit machine and want to get the full 64-bit goodness from Handbrake, you’ll need the 64-bit version of VLC Player, the latest nightly builds of which can be found here. (Please note that VLC Player 64-bit is beta software and as such offers no end-user support.) Handbrake 0.9.4 is available from the Handbrake website now.

Here in the U.S., we’re getting ready to celebrate Thanksgiving, which for many folks means a long weekend — my favorite time to tinker, particularly with software. So I’ve gathered together seven free app tinkering ideas from around the GigaOM Network that you may get a kick out of.

Handbrake Speaks Video. Handbrake has long been a favorite open source video transcoding and DVD ripping application. Over on OStatic, Lisa discusses the latest release, which has a slew of new features, including better picture quality and ways to make ripping DVDs easier. You can also use preview features to see how a video will look before you go through a lengthy transcoding process.

Create Your Own Game. If you don’t think you have what it takes to create your own multiplayer online game, check out this post on Arianne, a free software framework for creating slick ones. Create your own game environment and Arianne does the work to deliver your game to users online.

Music Muscle. The world of applications you can use to enjoy, organize and share music is hardly limited to iTunes. There are lots of free applications that are fun to dig into.  Do you want to play Doom on your own customized OS for iPods or most other music players? Do you need customized music library management for multiple software platforms? Check this post for 8 free, open source tools that let you do those things and more.  Also check out this post on the popular Amarok music app, organizer, and media player, which is out in a new version.

Blender University. Blender has long been one of the most popular free, open source 3D animation and graphics applications. You can access almost 70 hours of free online instruction from Tufts University on how to use the app; you can learn how to create a great-looking logo, how to execute special effects and more. Blender has been used to produce striking full-length animated films and is worth getting to know if you haven’t tried it.

A Free Book on GIMP. In “6 Ways to Get Much More Out of GIMP” the OStatic editors collected a number of excellent resources for the powerful, free, open source GIMP graphics application, available for Windows, the Mac and Linux. You’ll find a complete, free online book on GIMP, tips on getting plug-ins and more.

Weekend Zen. Do you write a lot? I sure do, and if you do, too, you may enjoy WebWorkerDaily’s take on free, Zen word processors. They strip away the interface annoyances found in most word processors and leave you with a tabula rasa experience that some writers really like.Try a little tinkering.

Free Media Centers. Have you tried out any of the free media center software platforms that are available? Boxee is a very popular one, but there are other good ones for Windows, the Mac and Linux. Read about four here .

I have been asked numerous times about how to encode purchased DVDs into the video equivalent of MP3. For me, and many others, this is MP4.

The below steps will explain how to convert a DVD into a MP4 format, complete with metadata and artwork. (The process is nearly identical on Windows and Mac – Sorry Linux fans, I have yet to dabble with this on that platform, but I’m sure it’s almost the same too)

Even though you own the DVD, the act of ripping it and converting to another format is still very much a legal grey area. (I hope this guide doesn’t get pulled because of this!)

You will need a few applications;
MacTheRipper (Mac) or DVDShrink (Windows)
Handbrake (Mac & Windows)
MetaX (Mac & Windows) or Subler (Mac)

And a few sites to help with obtaining the metadata;
IMDb (General Data)
Netflix (Genre and Outline)
Barnes & Noble (Chapters)
tagChimp (General Data and Chapters)
Wikipedia (General Data)
Get Video Artwork (High resolution artwork)
Blockbuster (UK Ratings)
Internet Movie Poster Database (Last resort if you cannot find decent artwork)

Ripping the DVD

Handbrake can convert straight form the physical disk itself, but I prefer to rip it to my Hard Drive first.

With MacTheRipper, it’s easier to insert the disk and click “Go!”. This will rip the entire contents of the DVD, allowing you to pick out the parts you need later. Ripping a specific Title can be a bit fiddly.

DVDShrink can do the same thing via the “Entire Disk” button. But it is much easier to rip just the Title of the Main Feature using the Re-Author option.

To save getting into unnecessary detail, for the purpose of this guide, rip the whole Disk.

Encoding the Movie

1. Launch Handbrake. You should be prompted for the Source File(s). If not, select File>Open.

2. Handbrake will scan the Contents. Once finished, open the Preset tray and select Universal.

3. In the main screen pick the Title you want to encode. This is usually the longest one for the main feature. Play the DVD elsewhere and take note of the Title number to be sure.

4. Type in the location and name of your desired output file (for the Windows version, all special characters must be removed. You can change the filename after).

The default setup here should be fine for most people, so it is safe to skip onto the Audio and Subtitles Step – you will be left with a perfectly acceptable video file. If you’re interested in some of the finer points, read on…

5. In the Video tab click Picture Settings.

5a. Set Anamorphic to Strict – this will force Handbrake to keep a pixel-for-pixel resolution of the original (no scaling like with the loose option)

Because of this, you have to adjust the Cropping to keep the video the correct shape;

5b. Set the crop to Custom and adjust the numbers so that they are multiples of 16 (this is to do with macroblocks – there are numerous post online explaining this, but for now trust me, 16 is the magic number) and even numbers (e.g. if you find you have 71 and 73 for the top and bottom, you should change them to 72 and 72 – this is to do with efficient encoding).

Keep note of how much of the video you are cutting away or adding back. adding too much back may leave more black edges than you would have liked. Cutting too much away may take away too much of the film. The last one is highly unlikely as, when overscan on CRT TVs was an issue, the extreme edges of the film were cut off anyway.

5c. If your source is interlaced or Telecined (again, plenty of posts about this elsewhere) select the relevant Filters. Decomb can be left on if you are unsure, as this is like a ’safe’ de-interlacer that will only be brought into effect if needed.

5d. Now check your Source, Output and Anamorphic numbers;

The Output should be the source minus your crop values, exactly. The Anamorphic should with the same height as the Output. This can be ignored if you have chosen “Loose Anamorphic”. I prefer strict as you are left with an exact pixel-for-pixel copy of the original without any scaling.

6. Onto the Audio and Subtitles Tab.

6a. The default here is for track 1 to be an AAC Pro Logic II mix-down of the 5.1 AC3 source, with Tack 2 being a passthru of the source. This is fine in nearly every case.

The two tracks are for compatibility. The Apple TV and Media Players can pick off the AC3 5.1 track (Amplifier friendly) whereas the iPhone and iPods can use the Pro Logic II track, as it’s just stereo. The ProLogic II allows those with PLII amps to playback the pseudo-5.1 from the portable devices too.

Ideally you would do away with both of these and choose the 6-Channel discrete AAC, as this is the ideal equivalent to AC3 5.1. But due to a slow uptake on this standard we are forced to use the 2-Track method above, breaking the MP4 standards. Plex and XBMC can down-sample 6-Channel discrete AAC to AC3 5.1, but they are the only ones, leaving you with a file un-playable on the iPods and iPhone and a mix-down to something non-AC3 from the Apple TV. A real shame, but what can you do?

You can set the 2nd Track to None if the source is only Stereo or Dolby Surround (no point have two sets of 2-Channel tracks).

6b. Choose any subtitles you would like hard-encoded to the movie file. These will be ‘burnt’ onto the video itself so be sure before you choose any (such as Forces Subtitles where some Movies may have translated scenes). I will post another guide for adding soft-subs to your files once I have found a bullet-proof method.

7. The Chapters Tab.

7a. Fill in the chapters via whichever method suites you (copy and pasting from one of the sites listed above, manually from the DVD box, or choose your own by watching the movie).

The Advanced Tab can be left alone, as this is really reserved for the hard-core tinkeres.

8. Click Add To Queue or Start depending on how many DVDs you are encoding. Depending on your Computer, the encoding process can take anywhere from 1 hour to 1 day (yes my 8 year old PC used to take a whole day to do this!).

Adding the Metadata, or ‘tags’

If you’re only interested in a file to playback the Movie, indifferent to cataloguing your collection, you can skip adding any data to the file. I, however, like having all the information stored within the file, like with MP3s (it’s only Apple Media players and various Operating Systems that can read this data for now, but this will change).

Open your weapon of choice, be it MetaX, Subler or one of the more obscure ones and populate all the required fields. The sites listed above are great for this.

Once complete, Save/Write the data to the file.

You’re done!

The file you are left with is about 33% to 50% the size of the DVD Title and can be imported to iTunes with all the data intact. It will be exactly the same resolution as the original (if you choose the ’strict’ method) and can be played back on almost any device – one file the rule them all!

I will post a guide for Blu-ray and High Def rips once that process has been more streamlined and standardised.

Some likely questions and things to note

Why choose the ‘Universal’ Preset?
This is the most compatible format to use. It leaves out all the unnecessary ‘extras’ that make it un-playable on some devices. One example is the B-frames added for the Apple TV preset – this only saves about 10% more file space but makes no improvements to video quality.
The consoles are always changing their requirements and therefore rendering their presets useless too often. They are being removed from the next release I believe.
The AVI container is a dying format and will also be removed from the next release of Handbrake.
The device-specific presets reduce the resolution for playback via the device’s screen only – too low for TV use really.

Be careful of blank chapters at the end of a Title.
Some DVDs are authored with a chapter at the end of the movie no more than about 3 seconds long. This is to help with the menu navigation (I think) and can be left out (select the previous Chapter as the last one in Handbrake’s main screen). leaving it in will result in an unwanted entry at the end of your Chapter List – not a huge deal, but irritating non the less.

Double-check your Movie duration once encoding is complete.
Handbrake will add or remove a few frames here and there to keep things in sync (nothing that can be spotted during playback, don’t worry) so the output file’s duration should be the same as the original, give or take a few seconds at the most. The movie studios are very aware that programs like Handbrake can circumvent most attempts to prevent encoding, so have started adding deliberate errors to the DVDs. These errors are handled by stand-alone players no problem, and skipped over, but many can cause Handbrake to choke. I am suffering from this issue with Iron Man – selecting the subtitle track for the bits of translation at various scenes causes Handbrake to drop whole scenes from the movie, leaving me with a file a full 15 minutes too short. This is because they haven’t kept that particular subtitle track’s time-stamp in sync with the main movie… sneaky cretins.

You can set the Constant Quality to anything from 59% to 62%.
Anything lower will result in noticeable artefacts. Any higher and you are wasting space. In this version of Handbrake, the percentage is in relation to the original film source, not the DVD – setting it to 80% will result in a file the same size as the original DVD, any higher and the size balloons. In comparison, a Blu-ray is considered 95% percent of the original film source.

The same method can be followed for TV Shows and 4:3 sources.
Just select the required Title, or Chapter range, that relates to the episode you’re wanting.

Some DVDs will flat-out refuse to rip.
For these you can plump out for DVDFab.

Please post any questions relating to this guide in the comments below.
I will respond as best I can.

Ok, va bene, avete ragione: vi ho giustamente rotto i co***oni con Mac, Apple, iPhone e compagnia bella per anni. Ma ora non posso che condividere con voi anche le gioie che il mondo Mac mi ha donato e la mia sempre più convinta adesione a questo sistema operativo, a questa azienda, a questo marchio.

Il gran giorno è arrivato. 24 aprile 2009, Unieuro di Trezzano sul Naviglio, provincia di Milano. E’ un giorno di sole quando i neosposi Chiara e Francesco si apprestano ad entrare presso l’Unieuro per ritirare una serie di regali della loro lista nozze: ma sono lì anche per acquistare il pc per casa loro.

Francesco non ha dubbi: è arrivato il giorno del suo primo Mac. Anche Chiara è piuttosto convinta: infatti l’ha già visto e le piace, ce l’ha il cognato Fabio e la sua ragazza Viola, ce l’hanno alcuni amici. Insomma, è un sistema bello, facile, divertente. E poi perché non fare l’acquisto ora, per iniziare bene la convivenza anche dal punto di vista informatico?

Francesco ha le idee chiare: iMac. Non perché il Macbook non piacesse (per quanto i nuovi modelli alluminio non lo fanno impazzire – è un fan del vecchio Macbook nero, e sa che un giorno se ne comprerà uno, anche usato, non importa). Ma perché in casa un desktop ci vuole, con una bella stampante di fianco magari. E poi anche perché portatili già ne ha uno: sì, ok, è un pc, il buon vecchio Compaq che finora gli ha portato tante soddisfazioni. Ma per ora basta così, vuole sedersi comodo con un pc da tavolo.
Quando sta per staccare l’assegno non ci crede: il suo primo Mac, cazzo!!!
Calmati Fra, è solo un computer. Ma sarà che già sente nell’aria le canzoni che scriverà con GarageBand, o i video che monterà con iMovie, o le foto che scorrerranno via in iPhoto.. insomma, una gran cosa!
E che bel viaggio, con quello scatolone bianco dietro il sedile.
Per tutta una serie di ragioni (quella sera una cena dai genitori, poi il fatto che prima c’era da montare la scrivania sulla quale mettere il Mac) la prima accensione avviene il day after. E già dal primo clic è subito amore.

E qui torniamo dalla terza alla prima persona, con una disamina tecnica delle impressioni che un utente fortemente Windows-based come il sottoscritto ha avuto dell’ambiente e del mondo Mac.
Premetto che sei mesi sono pochi per una valutazione generale. Ci sono ancora delle applicazioni con le quali non riesco a trovarmi appieno, e il buon Windows XP virtualizzato in Parallels aiuta non poco nelle indecisioni. Ma posso dire ormai che con il Mac ci lavoro sempre più volentieri e sempre più disinvoltamente.
La prima cosa che del Mac mi ha colpito è la pulizia grafica e la sobrietà unita alla funzionalità. Sul desktop non c’è nulla di più di ciò che serve: i menu sono chiari, e utility come Spotlight e Exposé sono autentiche droghe, una volta che ti ci abitui! Pensare poi che nello spazio di un monitor si cela tutto l’hardware di un pc è qualcosa davvero di stupefacente: c’è una webcam, c’è una fessura laterale che è un’unità dvd superdrive, un modem wireless, un’unità bluetooth… insomma, già il case è una magia.
E poi la velocità. La prima volta l’ho acceso, ho inserito le quattro cose che chiede per creare l’utente e poi mi son trovato tre secondi dopo già sulla scrivania. No, non è possibile mi son detto. Un avvio che dura pochissimi secondi. E idem la chiusura! che meraviglia!
E vogliamo parlare delle velocità di calcolo? l’ho subito messo alla prova con Handbrake, programma per creare video compressi (Xvid, etc). Ecco, giusto per capirci. Per fare un Xvid da 700 mega, con il pc di prima, ci volevano almeno 4 ore: e parlo di una situazione dove avevo già copiato il dvd sull’hard disk. Con l’iMac e con Handbrake, con il dvd dentro il superdrive, in 45 minuti hai fatto tutto. E ci siamo capiti.

E passiamo al pacchetto iLife 09.

Su iTunes c’è poco da dire: ormai tutti lo conoscono e tutti lo apprezzano. La versione Mac è chiaramente più veloce di quella pc, essendo nativa su quella piattaforma.

Safari è eccezionale, ma io ancora uso Firefox: mi ci trovo più comodo. Stesso discorso per Thunderbird, anche se pian piano mi sto avvicinando a Mail.

iPhoto è certamente il programma di iLife che so usare meglio. Splendida la possibilità, tra le altre cose, di geolocalizzare album ed eventi: in questo modo diventa davvero l’album dei momenti della tua vita. Grande Steve Jobs, ci hai preso dentro ancora.

iMovie è estremamente interessante: purtroppo lo conosco ancora poco, non avendo ancora avuto il tempo sufficiente per farci tutti gli esperimenti necessari. Stessa cosa per Garageband, anche se con questo ci ho già lavorato un po’ di più, creando tra l’altro una serie di suonerie per iPhone targate The Crow!

Altre funzionalità, come Time Machine, ancora non le ho usate. Ma il Mac è un mondo e come tale ci vuole tempo per conoscerlo.

Cosa mi ha sorpreso? la stabilità, la semplicità d’uso e la velocità. Tutte qualità che conquistano, quando il pc serve per fare le cose fatte bene.

Conclusioni? Sono soddisfattissimo del Mac. Lo ricomprerei subito. E ora Redmond deve proprio fare un miracolo per farmi ritornare ad avere un pc, Windows 7 o non Windows 7.

Lunga vita ad Apple. Lunga vita a Steve Jobs.

I was having problems converting recorded video from a Panasonic EH65 burned onto a DVD into an audio MP3 file using FFmpeg (Windows | Mac [Alternative: ffmpeg from ffmpegX, but did not work well for me]). The typical

was not working. I got 2 different errors/problems:

Error 1: Output file #0 does not contain any stream

Error 2: Segmentation fault

I admit that the burning process of the DVD ran into issues but it seemed to have burned the DVD properly as I could play it. Really not sure what could be the cause of Error 1, perhaps metadata was not written properly, but for Error 2 it is because the VOB file is a combinations of 2 different titles of the video. The EH65 (and I think every video DVD burning software) creates VOBS of not more than 1GB. So if you have a 2.5GB MPEG2 video it will be split into 3 VOB files on the DVD. I was burning 2 separate recordings that was split in a total 3 VOBS, VTS_01_1.VOB was the first part of the first recording, VTS_01_3.VOB was the last part of the second recording and VTS_01_02.VOB (the middle file) was the last part of the first recording combined with the first part of the second recording. I believe ffmpeg has an issue at the joining points of these 2 recordings. Thus it is able to retrieve the last part of the first recording but is unable to retrieve the first part of the second recording.

So I ended up using Handbrake and it worked like a charm. I had to create a video file using Handbrake (setting video size to 0MB caused it to crash) so just used
ffmpeg -i video.mp4 -vn -acodec copy output.mp3
to retrieve audio. FFmpeg will always have a place in my multimedia handling/transcoding workflows. I did try VLC (via the “Streaming/Saving” option) to do the transcoding but it just seemed to dump the entire output instead of creating an audio file (MP3/OGG vorbis). Some possible alternatives to FFmpeg are VLC command line transcoding and mencoder that I’m still trying to get a hold of, but FFmpeg is still a great piece of work =)

Seems to be Handbrake. Another option is Perian but has known issues with Video/Audio sync when exporting to Flash files.  Read more about it here.

Well, the Handbrake guys picked up the ball on providing the public with a few SVN snapshot releases. They work pretty well but still have some glaring bugs. Of note:
- When audio is downmixed from stereo to mono, the audio is distorted and plays very strangely, slowed/pitched down and skips to keep time. May be relevant that the source was VBR MP3 from an XviD AVI but it’s pretty uniform in its occurrence.
- In WinGUI, the chapter markers box is greyed out after automatic scan, until you re-select the title to process. Appears to be a bug in the way the GUI is refreshed after autoscan.

And perhaps most importantly, despite the fact that the GUI automatically scales and provides a scroll bar to navigate the interface, it refuses to run when the resolution is too low. It flat-out does not allow the program to run due to this arbitrary limitation – no bypass switches, nothing. It needs to be recompiled. But it works just fine at lower resolutions. You can test this functionality by launching Handbrake at 1024×768 (or higher), minimize the GUI, then change the resolution to 800×600. Restore the GUI, and it suddenly grows scroll bars like magic and it’s still usable. The devs have consistently ignored countless requests to remove this limitation so, well, once again, that’s where I come in.

Look closer - shit bricks.

This is a compile of the GUI only. It does not include the CLI. It is a drop-in replacement for the GUI available with the svn2845 snapshot available (at the moment) here. Install that, then extract these GUI files to the folder you installed Handbrake to. Voila! Handbrake on your netbook.

Download the patched version here. Includes source code – the files in the /src/ folder do NOT need to be extracted to the Handbrake install directory. Only handbrake.exe and handbrake.pdb.

edit: Just realized I typo’d the filename: “handbreake”. Guess it’s a fitting typo.

Oh, look, Handbrake works fine at 992x673.

The new version can’t come fast enough. Hard to believe they still have that stale old version on the main page! =(

(CFD.net.au – Contract for Difference, Share, Forex, ETFs, Commodities Traders) – A man has run off after stealing a car with a child inside in Melbourne’s east.
The vehicle, with the two-year-old in the back seat, had been left running outside a college on Cardigan Road in Mooroolbark around 6:30am on Sunday.

The driver had left the car to open a gate.

The man took off in the car, driving it for about 500 metres before getting out.

He left the handbrake off, causing the car to crash into a tree, but the child was not injured.

Source: Man steals car with toddler, flees after 500m

A lorry which crashed through the rear door of a ferry had been left with its handbrake off, investigators find…. From BBC News. Full story

This site may contain information about: buy a boat. The blog is also related to: boat accesories.

No no not really a Britney fan and it got nothing to do with her. I miss my post again for yesterday. I was busy watching tv with all the new episodes from network to network. I think a TIVO is next on my list of gadget. I only remembered that I was supposed to put up a blog entry when I was about to shut my eyes off to sleep. Dang!

Yesterday, I was more of a TV junkie. All I was able to do was download Handbrake and DVD43 (needed if running a PC).  A software recommended by my Mac GURU Durwin.

I tried converting a couple of episodes of Desperate Housewives 5 but they are in .avi format. It didn’t take that long and it think the quality will also depend on what you have downloaded. I haven’t tried converting a DVD yet. I need to visit the library again to test it out.

Now I have videos in my iphone. I can watch before I go to bed. I did put in the 3 movies that Durwin gave. AAA quality. Thanks again.

Muchos utilizábamos VisualHub para pasar los vídeos de un formato a otro (por ejemplo .mov a .avi), después de ‘’su muerte”, en mi caso, me pasé a HandBrake. Presento ahora un programita de lo más simple, ya que pocas características son las que podemos modificar, y eso lo hace de lo más fácil si solamente queremos cambiar el formato de un video.

Es Gratuito y funciona perfecta con Snow Leopard, así que ahora mismo se convierte en una adquisición muy atractiva

Descargar

Pour ceux qui veulent sauvegarder des films dvd sous divx ou autres (ayant le dvd d’origine!!!) peuvent le faire facilement sous linux. Personnellement je n’en possède qu’un seul En tout cas, j’ai testé dvdrip chez moi sous debian et ubuntu. Pour cela, dans Synaptic vous avez un paquet qui se nomme “dvdrip”. En plus de ce programme qui porte le même nom vous aurez en plus l’installation de “xine” qui un bon lecteur dvd par ailleurs. Le programme marche à merveille. Une fois lancé, la fenêtre principale est vide. Il faut avant tout créer un nouveau projet.

Ensuite vous suivez la procédure pour ceux qui ont l’habitude de le faire. Ce programme donne des bons résultats.

Il existe une alternatif à ce programme: “handbrake”.

Aussi bon. Mais il faut le télécharger compilé en .deb, si vous voulez, par exemple d’ici: http://linux.softpedia.com/progDownload/HandBrake-Download-3051.html

Bon travail

He compilado la última versión de HandBrake sacada del repositorio, ya que la actual me daba fallos y se cerraba sin motivo, ya de paso la compilé en modo 64bit.

Como novedad incluye la posibilidad de añadirle subtítulos desde un archivo y alguna cosa más. Abajo un par de capturas.

Bueno ya me diréis si hay diferencia o no.

La web de HandBrake es http://handbrake.fr/ en ella podéis encontrar la versión estable, para la compilada por mi, usad el icono que hay abajo.

La contraseña de la imagen es: elrincondelmacbook

Un saludo.

// – - Actualizado – - //

Iré actualizando las versiones svn según vayan apareciendo y las iré enlazando a la misma imagen:

16 Septiembre 2009 — svn2826

21 Septiembre 2009 — svn2834 (Última)

\\ – - Actualizado – - \\

when ripping a dvd or wanting to convert a video file (or even audio) you had to resort to expensive programs to get the job done, but with the open source revolution, those days are almost gone, here are 2 great programs i recently found:

Handbrake

I’m not sure how i stumbled onto this, but i am glad i did, my big problem with dvd rippers and encoders are that you need a phd in using the program, handbrake is real easy, i enjoy one feature and that is saying what size i want.

Mediacoder

if like me, you have a couple of flv video’s from youtube (either music videos or shows) and you either want to change it to avi so it can play on your PS3, or want to rip it to mp3 for you ipod, this is the program for you, it’s free and does the job well

in short, i can highly recommend these 2 programs.

I’m getting ready to depart for Florida in two days as I’ll be heading to mom and dad’s to help celebrate my father’s 70th birthday.  Pretty awesome, eh?

In this day and age one would be hard-pressed to not have something to do while travelling considering all the options now available.  And as I’ll be travelling by plane I will have plenty of free time on my hand while I’m aboard said planes and hanging out at the Charlotte, NC airport (a very nice airport by the way).  In the past I have brought along a MP3 player to while away the time and this has always been quite satisfactory, but now I bring a whole new level of technology to the endeavor:  the iPhone 3GS!

Not only is it loaded with about 450 songs (selected at random by iTunes), it is also festooned with a handful of games (as you already know from my previous postings I have Civilization Revolution, Checkers and Scrabble, but I just added a cribbage game today) and a video.

“Video?” you query.

Yes.  Video.

Just today I got the wild hair to see what would be involved in moving some DVD movie or such to the iPhone.  I had hoped the process would be incredibly easy and done completely in-house with software already installed upon my iMac, but this wasn’t to be the case.  However, this does not mean the process was difficult.  Not by a long shot.  It simply meant that a bit of software was needed (free software, I might add) and some searching on the Internet for help.

I half-expected to be able to take a DVD of a television show I have (a purchased DVD product) and using either Quicktime (which I had never used before) or iTunes I would be able to compress and encode said DVD for syncing to my iPhone.  If this is possible via either iTunes or Quicktime I couldn’t figure it out.  Browsing the web for help yielded zero results for using these bits of software, but I come across a web site that offered not only a link to software that would perform this function for me, but also included step-by-step directions on how to do so!

RESULT!

The software downloaded and installed, Handbrake, worked flawlessly and was quite easy to understand even without the tutorial found here.  My only criticism, and this is very minor, is that the tutorial didn’t discuss how to make certain the DVD now converted was associated with iTunes and subsequently one’s iPhone or iPod.  As this was an integral part of the party’s question I thought it strange no answer was forthcoming.

Regardless, Handbrake worked just fine and the end results were simply wonderful.  I now have two episodes of Sherlock Holmes to take with me while I’m jetting south and then back north.  And, if nothing else, it will be fun to show my parents and amaze them with this bit of technological marvel.  That said, it should be even more entertaining to show this to a very old friend of mine, with whom I have become reacquainted of late, who is completely out of the loop regarding the world of consumer electronics and technology.  I’m actually in the process of helping her decide upon what sort of computer she would like to purchase (desktop, laptop or netbook) and then will help her get it all set-up and such once she has purchased everything.  Granted, I’ll be offering my tech support long distance, over the phone, but at least she knows she will have someone to help her through those rough spots.

And before I go, a caveat:  copying a DVD and placing such onto my iPhone may very well be outside the scope of the law.  It may very well be a copyright violation.  However, I think Ask Dave best summed up this issue with the Editor’s Note he placed upon his site and so I shall tender it here as well:

I own this DVD and so while copying it onto my phone might technically violate copyright, I believe that pouring a movie onto a device I also own so that I can enjoy the movie on multiple devices is well within the intent of “fair use” laws. Nonetheless, I encourate you to please use applications like Handbrake appropriately and within the parameters of copyright law. I am most assuredly not a lawyer.

I have no intent and will not disseminate this video to any other party or parties.  Period.

Sebenarnya aku pengen buat article tentang software development untuk kali ini, namun berhubung pengetahuan ku tentang software development masih kurang, jadi ngga bisa sekarang. Mungkin di lain waktu aku akan cerita tentang Design Pattern untuk menggenapi keinginanku.

Hokeh .., mari kita lanjut dengan topik yang sebenarnya. Topik kali ini adalah bagai mana cara melakukan konversi plus kompresi file DVD ke single file seperti file .avi, .mpeg, .mkv. Teknik konversi ini sering disebut dengan `ripping` atau nge-rip. Pada dasarnya ukuran keseluruhan file DVD bisa mencapai 4GB, file ini cukup besar untuk disimpan pada hardisk komputer, kalo kita sering menyimpan file DVD ke PC bakalan cepat lah Hardisknya kehabisan Space.Nah …, Tujuan dilakukan ripping adalah mengubah file DVD yang terdiri dari beberapa file seperti file yang berekstensi .IFO dan .VOB menjadi satu file dengan ukuran file yang tidak terlalu besar yang berikisar (600 – 800 MB) dengan kualitas video yang lumayan bagus. Sehingga kita bisa mengkoleksi video ke hardisk PC kita tanpa menghabiskan space space 4 GB untuk satu DVD.

Teknik ini dilakukan dengan menggunakan software DVDRipper. Nah …, aku dah temukan sebuah software gratisan dan juga powerfull untuk mendukung teknik ripping DVD. namanya adalah HandBrake. Software ini sebenarnya memiliki fitur yang begitu kompleks, terdapat fungsi untuk mengeset width dan height, video codec, frame rate, target size, bitrate, aubtitle dan lain-lain. Namun untuk user biasa, kita dipermudah dengan hanya mengeset target size saja.

Langkah2 melakukan ripping DVD adalah:

1. Pilih Source File (Berasal dari Drive, Folder Video-TS, atau File)
2. Pilih Tab Video
3. Tentukan target size video yang kita inginkan (700-800MB ukuran yang direkomendasikan untuk mendapatkan kualitas video yang bagus)
4. lalu tekan tombol start.

Waktu yang diperlukan untuk melakukan conversi lumayan lama. Aku telah mencoba dengan spesifikasi PC yang memiliki RAM 1 GB dan Processor 3GB, memakan waktu sekitar 40 menit.

Hokeh lah, selamat mencoba y

Oh ya, Handbrake dibangun dengan teknologi .NET, jadi sebelum menginstall Handbrake, PC kita harus terlebih dahulu terinstall .NET framework

Axxo, Klaxxon, FXG, etc. are peer sharing celebrities no more because making DVDRips is a common PC/Mac chore. If you want quality or a strict 700mb file in avi or mp4, Handbrake can do it all. And above all its absolutely free. So enjoy it. To download visit their website -> http://handbrake.fr/

Its very easy to use but if you still need instructions -> http://forum.handbrake.fr/viewtopic.php?t=382

Here is a screenshot of the settings that I use and work like a dream: