Entertainment For Lively Minds
Anyone else use Handbrake?
I'm sure many of you are familar with the 'post Christmas rip DVDs so you can watch them on your iPod' mularkey. Well, I've used Handbrake on a Mac, successfully, for years. Now, however, once I've converted the file and added it to iTunes, I have to AGAIN convert it using the 'Create version for iPod' option. This surely unneccessary process can actually take in excess of 24 hours, so I'm quite keen to cut it out. Does anyone know what I'm doing wrong? I'm using the version 0.9.1, because the most recent version requires VLC and, even though I've downloaded the most recent versions of both, it doesn't work. I've tried the 'iPod' preset, I've faffed around with MPEG-4 and H.264 options, but no joy. If anyone has any tips I'd be very grateful.
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Bitrate?
I've used Handbrake in the past, and had no such problems. Since then my iPod screen was accidentally cracked, and I've not needed it since. Both iTunes and Handbrake have been updated since then.
However one issue I can recall was that you had to set the bitrate to below a specific value otherwise the iPod wouldn't play it. Perhaps the same is happening here?
There's a forum on the Handbrake site that should be able to answer your problems.
Bitrate
No, that's not it. And the forums have no answers that I can see.
Handbrake 0.9.4 and VLC
Handbrake 0.9.4 and VLC 1.0.1 Goldeneye seem to be working fine on my iMac with Leopard 10.5.8. I just use the preset for iPod using the toggle presets icon and choosing from the list. This is a complete guess but are you using Snow Leopard? Don't know if this could be an issue.
Snow Leopard
Yes, that's what I'm using. I downloaded the most recent versions of both Handbrake and VLC, but Handbrake still claims it can't find VLC. So I downgraded to my old version.
You may find this useful...
http://forum.handbrake.fr/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=13210
They seem to be suggesting that you need Handbrake 64 bit (0.9.4) and VLC 64 bit. The only 64 bit version of VLC available (1.0.2) is downloadable from the link on the forum page about halfway down. 1.0.3 is no good apparently. Once you've downloaded 1.0.2 it's probably sensible to get rid of earlier or later versions, otherwise Handbrake still says it can't find the right version. You can always fish them out of the trash again if you want.
After that, who knows? I'm encoding something at the moment on the iPhone/iPod Touch setting, but I suspect I won't know if it works until tomorrow morning...it certainly seems faster than previous versions, though. Oh, and I'm using Snow Leopard.
Thanks
That's certainly enabled the new version to work, so hopefully this will help. Many, many thanks.
Right...
This does work, so thank you very much. Once I'd downloaded the new versions of Handbrake and VLC detailed above, I then used the iPod preset and then - this is the crucial bit - checked the 'video codec' box with the option FFmpeg. Then and only then does it import files that don't need to be converted for an iPod.
Thanks again, mikethep.