This is the second article in my three part series on how to rip a DVD for your iPod. The first article in the series outlined 3 available options for putting movies on your iPod. Then it focused on the third option and listed the 2 pieces of software needed. In this article, it’s time to install those two applications and learn how to use them together to rip a DVD movie for iPod viewing.

DVD43 installation and usage

The DVD43 installation is very simple and similar to other typical Windows application installations. The steps involved are as follows:

1. Download and save DVD43 to your computer’s hard drive
2. Locate the downloaded file and double click the DVD43 icon to launch the installation
3. A “welcome to DVD43″ dialog box appears. Click “Next” to continue
4. Next, another dialog box appears asking you whether you want an application icon added to your desktop and whether you want to add a Quick Launch icon. I suggest you at least allow the installation program to add an icon for DVD43 to your desktop
5. Next a dialog box listing recent changes to the application appears. Click “Next” to continue
6. The final dialog box indicating the installation was a success appears, and prompts you to restart your computer to complete the installation

Once you restart your computer you’ll notice that DVD43 has loaded itself into the Windows system tray (lower far right corner of your screen). I’m not a big fan of loading something into the system tray at start up unless I absolutely have to. In the case of DVD43, you only need this application when you are decrypting DVDs — probably not something you do everyday. Therefore, I suggest you disable DVD43 from loading at start up for that reason and because it’s always trying to decrypt something that gets inserted into the DVD/CD drive, which has caused my machine to freeze on several occasions. To avoid a similar experience, follow these steps to prevent DVD43 from loading at startup:

1. On the lower Windows toolbar select Start -> Run
2. Type “msconfig” and press “OK”
3. The System Configuration Utility appears. Click on the “Startup” tab
4. Scroll down the list of applications and locate “dvd43_tray”
5. Deselect the check box and then press the “Apply” button (figure 1)
6. Press OK and restart your computer for the changes to take effect

Figure 1: Windows System Configuration Utility

Note: The above steps work for temporarily disabling DVD43 from loading at system start-up. To permanently disable this application from auto starting, please read my series summary for a correction to this process

That completes the DVD43 installation. Now, whenever you want to rip a DVD follow these steps:

1. Insert the DVD into your DVD/CD drive
2. Depending on your system, other applications might automatically start after inserting the DVD into the drive. Cancel or quit any of these applications
3. Now, double click the DVD43 icon to launch the application
4. The DVD43 icon appears in your system tray and its color changes from yellow, to angry yellow (mean smiley face), to green. The green icon indicates it has successfully decrypted the DVD and is now ready for “ripping”
5. If the icon color never gets to green, then remove the DVD, clean it, and try again

Handbrake installation and usage

Similar to the installation of DVD43, installing Handbrake is also very easy and follows the standard Windows application installation process. Here are the installation steps:

1. Download Handbrake for your computer’s operating system. Since I’m using Windows, I downloaded the Windows GUI package
2. Locate the Handbrake icon and double click it to launch the installation
3. An installation welcome dialog box appears. Click “Next” to continue
4. The general End User License Agreement appears in the next dialog box. Click “I Agree” to continue
5. The installation directory dialog box appears next. By default (on Windows) Handbrake wants to install itself into “C:\Program Files\Handbrake” You can change the installation directory or accept the default. I recommend accepting the default and then clicking “Install” to continue

Once the installation is complete (takes only a few seconds), a final dialog box appears indicating success. It also wants to automatically start once you click finish. You can deselect the check mark to simply exit or leave it checked. Either way click “Finish” to complete the installation

Once Handbrake is installed, you’re ready to start ripping DVDs for your iPod.

1. Follow the steps from the previous section outlining how to insert a DVD and start DVD43
2. Once you have a green DVD43 icon in the system tray, start Handbrake (double click icon to launch) and you’ll see the basic Handbrake interface (figure 2)

Figure 2: Handbrake interface

3. Select your DVD source by clicking the top most “Browse” button. Navigator your computer’s drive and folder structure to locate the DVD drive.
4. Open the DVD drive icon and locate the VIDEO_TS folder. Select this folder and press OK.
5. An empty command prompt window appears which indicates that Handbrake is reading the contents of VIDEO_TS. Be patient, this process takes a few minutes. When the empty command prompt window disappears, you’re ready to move to the next step
6. Click on the “Title” drop down list (this option appears below the “Source” option). Notice all of the tracks found on this DVD and how each listing also has total time listed next to it.
7. This is the hard part — finding the track that represents the movie; however, I suggest ignoring all of the short tracks (less than 15 minutes) and look for tracks that have total times close to the length of your movie. You might even want to experiment with ripping different tracks to see what you get. Keep in mind that once you’ve done this a few times, locating the right track for the movie you’re trying to rip gets easier. For now, however, you’ll have to guess or experiment
8. Next, select an output format preset. Press the “Show Presets” button on the upper right side of the Handbrake interface and a list of presets extends on the right side of the application (figure 3)

Figure 3: Handbrake presets

9. Since we’re ripping movies for playback on a video enabled iPod, select the iPod Low-Rez. You could select the iPod High-Rez option to see whether you notice the difference; however, I recommend the Low-Rez option because it consumes less disk space and since the iPod screen is so small, you probably can’t tell the difference between Low-Rez and High-Rez
10. Now, specify a destination directory for the ripped output. Click the “Browse” button in the “Destination” section of the Handbrake interface
11. Navigate to a destination directory (a.k.a folder) and enter a name for this soon-to-be ripped movie. There is no need to give it a file extension because based on the format preset you previously selected, Handbrake will fill this in for you. Click “Save” to continue
12. With the source selected, output format preset specified, and a destination folder and filename filled in, it’s time to rip the movie. Near the bottom of the Handbrake interface locate the “Encode Video” button and press it

Sit back and wait because this is the part of the process that takes the longest, and the total time you’ll wait depends entirely on the power of your computer.

Time to rip – a personal test

As a test I ripped a standard 60 (actual viewing time, 42 minutes) minute television episode from a DVD in two different formats: Normal preset and the iPod Low-Rez preset.

Normal preset

• Output settings: H.264, unknown width and height settings, AAC audio encoder, and 1.78b aspect ratio
• Total time to copy: 50 minutes
• Final file size: 510 MB

iPod Low-Rez preset

• Output settings: H.264, width 320, height unknown, AAC audio encoder, and 1.78 aspect ratio
• Total time to copy: 12 minutes
• Final file size: 262 MB

NOTE: I was not running any other applications during the ripping process except for the Windows Task Manager. My computer specs are as follows: Intel Duo Core 2.4 Ghz, 2 GB of RAM, and a 500 GB SATA disk space.

Handbrake options worth exploring

Handbrake has more options and features than I covered in the basic ripping process. Here are a couple of other things in Handbrake you should take a closer look at once you get comfortable with the basic ripping process:

• Presets: Handbrake’s different output formats for a ripped file is one feature worth exploring in greater detail. This article assumes you want to rip movies or television episodes for a video enabled iPod; however, you might have other viewing destinations in mind. If that is the case, then definitely take a closer look at the different format presets because they’ll give you height and weight settings more approrpriate for different viewing devices.
• Encoding Queue: Most popular television shows make an entire season available on a multi DVD box set. If you own one of these series, and want to watch them on your iPod, then use Handbrake’s encoding queue to make the copy process a little easier. Most series include anywhere from 2 to 6 episodes on a single DVD, which means you have to repeat the ripping process that many times for a single DVD. In these ripping situations, the “Add to Encode Queue” option comes in very handy. This feature allows you to create a list of tracks to rip. To get started select an individual track from a single DVD, specify the filename and destination directory, click the “Add to Encode Queue” button, and then repeat the process for the next track. Once you’ve added each track you want to the queue, press the “Encode Video” button in queue dialog box and let it do its thing. While the tracks are getting ripped go have a bite to eat, take the dog for a walk, or simply go to bed. When you come back to my computer, several tracks from a single source have been ripped. Eject that DVD, insert the next one from your box set, and repeat the entire process. Before you know it, you’ll have an entire season of your favorite television show on your iPod.
• Default Preset: Rip only for the iPod? Consider setting a default output format for all of your copies. You’ll see the option to “Set Default” in the In the Preset Functions section below the preset listing box. Here you just select your preferred output format, press the Set Default button and the default is set. To repeatedly use that preset, however, requires a few more steps. The next time you start Handbrake you can select Presets -> Select Default Preset from the menu bar. This activates your default setting; however, when I think of default, I think of something that is always set and does not require further selection from me. To make Handbrake automatically always use the default setting, select Tools -> Options from the menu bar and then place a check mark next to the option “Load Users Default Settings on Startup”

Final part of the series coming this Friday

You’ve got most of what you need to get started ripping DVD movies for your iPod; however, you still need to get those movies into your iTunes library so you can sync them with your iPod. You probably already know how to accomplish this last step. If not, check back this Friday (2/8/2008) for the final installment in this article series where I’ll walk through the simple steps for importing movies into your iTunes library.

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Filed under: How-To & Tech Tips