Robbie Ferguson: But yeah, Handbrake is an application for ripping your DVDs to your computer, so you can actually get your video files on your computers. The reason that I used that is because I’ve got a computer apt by my TV that’s actually connected in through the television sets so that we can watch videos that are on that computer, and I’ve got like this you know, I’ve ripped all of my movies pretty much to that computer, so that essentially it started because my daughter started destroying our DVDs when they are on the show.

Carrie Webb: Oh no.

Robbie Ferguson: So, needless to say, we decided okay let’s do things a little different. Let’s install our computer. Let’s get it set up and install at least a media center and it was brilliant. And it looks like Ubuntu’s booting, wicked. So Handbrake is the application that I used to copy my DVDs on to the computer, so that I can watch them through that system.

So, you’re going to find that at handbrake.fr it’s available for Windows, Linux and Mac, but the amazing thing is that the Linux version finally got a GUI. It used to be a Command Line Interface. It makes things a lot easier, so I’m going to bring it up on my system here. The GUI is available as DEB package unfortunately, it’s not in the repository it’s just the ad, but as long as you keep on top that you’re going to have the newest version. It’s one of those applications that you absolutely can’t live without, so might as well, alright?

So, the GUI is pretty clever. It’s a really, really simple. I mean, they’ve got a presets over here if you want to use them. You can change the high quality presets like film and that’s going to save as in MKV file. There’s also OGM it’s nice to see some open formatting, and basically you just go through. It’s so simple, you’re going to be able to figure this out.

When you insert your disc, was kind of impressive about it is as soon as I inserted the disc, the application actually got the title of the disc and automatically filled in most of the forms. So, I actually put Click in there, so I’ve got Click the DVD through with in and it came up and it’s going to save Click.MP4, so that’s very cool.

Carrie Webb: Okay.

Robbie Ferguson: So, from there, then we just go through our settings here, so we’re going to use H.264 or MPEG-4 using either Xvid or FFMPEG. I’m on with H.264 and you can go through each one of these, set your Bitrate to something like higher than 1000 if you want a good. Certainly, it could be as high like 2500 to 3000. You can set all those settings and things like that, choose your formats your container for the file itself.

So, essentially if you are a new user and you’re not really sure what a container is or what H.264 and things like that. You can use the presets and those are free, so right over here just decide what you are doing like high quality profiles, here film. If it’s a movie and you want it to be full quality, film, but it is going to save with an MKV containers. So keep in mind that if you’re a player it doesn’t support MKV, you might want to change the container to something like MP4 or AVI, but MP4 would probably be a good one.

And then just go through the Settings and set things up the way that you want. If you want sub-titles and things like that, but essentially using the presets you ‘re going to be able to do things you know, right out of the box and not have to think about it. And then selecting your source is all automatic as well because it just it throws it in as you as you inserted the disc, so that’s really lovely.

So, I just give you a quick look at that file. I’ll just bring it up right on the computer here, so I just rip like a few chapters and it’s a long process. It’s a thorough process. I went with two passing coding, and you know it does take quite a while to go. Let’s say where my player is, here it is. There, so if it makes and look a little chubby it’s not. So, we’re looking at essentially an exact duplicate of that DVD which I can use on my TV, it’s really, really nice

Carrie Webb: That’s great.

Robbie Ferguson: Am I cool?

Carrie Webb: Somebody in the chat rooms was asking if you can use it against copy protected DVDs, that’s bad isn’t it?

Robbie Ferguson: What he means is, can you rip like this is my DVD okay?

Carrie Webb: Yeah.

Robbie Ferguson: I know what’s that weekly rental because that’s where I buy —This is not a rental, I actually buy them like on the discount bin and stuff like that

Carrie Webb: Okay.

Robbie Ferguson: So, don’t use it for illegal stuff but yeah you can use the DVDs like I showed you there real quick. It’s a copy protected, but that said, like we don’t endorse using it for illegal things obviously, it’s not about that is—just can you rip those DVDs.

Carrie Webb: Yeah.

Robbie Ferguson: And yes you can but you know in all good conscience we use that for good and not evil.

Carrie Webb: Right.

Robbie Ferguson: Yeah.

Carrie Webb: That’s awesome like I don’t know how many times I’ve lost DVDs or have them scratched.

Robbie Ferguson: Oh yeah, it make bankrupts.

Carrie Webb: You know they are expensive like if you want a new released they are so expensive so.

Robbie Ferguson: They are very.