AN.ONYMOUS  After hundreds of tests from VOB files, parametered using HB's profuse help menus, forums and links, I could NEVER reach the same quality as with MpegStreamClip and its Multiplepass + B-Frames options were selected. This was aiming at the same quality level (70 % = almost perfect) for both HB and MpegSreamClip.

MpegstreamStreamclip systematically provided better color rendition and contrast, whatever HB's parametering was. All was tested on 4 readers : MpegStreamClip, Movist, VLC and NicePlayer.

For comparable results, always with an advantage for MpegStreamClip, it seemed that HB was a bit slower.

Moreover, MpegStreamClip can repair the timecode ruptures that are frequent and hang HB, sometimes causing an overflow of the disk space (because HB's log becomes enormous or its first pass stores endless information). On other occasions HB could also hang my Mac, forcing me to reboot, a most seldom thing on a MacBookPro with OSX 10.6.5 and 2G memory that never happened with MpegStreamClip.

Finally, while my tests of HB often ended with unreadable files (typically when the Pyramidal B-Frames or the 8x8 BCT options were checked), MpegStreamClip never produced an unreadable file.

Therefore, I now use systematically MpegStreamClip and recommend it.

HOWEVER, HB has some advantages over MpegStreamClip :

- it does a better job when there are blocks of pixels. It can moulds them into a finer grain, so that no blocks can be seen anymore. For example, the 7 Gb of the DVD "The deer hunter" contains many scenes where blocks ofpixels are visible. Using HB, they are no longer visible. However, it happens at the expense of a small contrast loss (a frequent and limited drawback of HB)

- it can read and code.WMV files, while MpegStreamClips is not able to read more than 3 minutes unless a complementary encoder is paid (Flip4Mac ?)

- HB has a good batch processing function. MpegStreamClip does not offer this most useful possibility.

- HB could beat MpeagStreamClip when shorter files are aimed at. I only made the tests so that the quality is the same as the original (or better when blocks of pixels where bothering in the original DVD).

- HB provides a good management of the subtitles. MpegStreamClip is a disaster in this regard.

To sum, although HB should be able to provide the same quality as MpegStreamClip provided that its parameters are "equivalent" to those (unknown) of MpegStreamClip, I could never find this right HB parametering. MpegStreamClip provides better results (contrast, colors, details) in a slightly shorter time and is much more simple and safer to use.

If you are looking for quality and are ready to spend an average 3 to 4 hours per movie, without a batch capacity and loosing the subtitles, MpegStreamClip is definitely the right application.

If you have doubts, I suggest that you buy this movie "City of Angels", with Meg Ryan and Nick Cage and test the scene of the sunset on the beach (6th minute) with MpegStreamClip and HB, you will see...  
(Version 0.9.4)

AVIDMACUSER  This app has been great although some transcodes have resulted in no sound. Today during cued encodes it gobbled up 'active memory' until my 16Gb was full and my system (10.6.4) became almost unresponsive. Quitting HandBrake and relaunching the cue freed up the memory although during re-encoding it is currently back at gobbling active memory. My encode may not finish in time before my system becomes unresponsive again.  
(Version 0.9.4)

AN.ONYMOUS  The quality of this FREE app is incredible. Its speed, combined with a simple and efficient batching capacity, makes it a top tool for those who want to convert large number of DVD's. This was my case when I discovered that several of my collector DVDs were loosing were getting their layers destroyed and became unreadable aven if seldom viewed.

Although Handbrake comes with good enough presets, a lot of users are wondering which of the millions of alternative parameterings could provide the same quality as the original .mpeg file. Let's just say that it is impossible, whatever the parametering and time passed transforming the .mpeg2 into an .mp4, there is ALWAYS some quality loss when the original VOB is from a good quality film. That said and if you are not much interested in reducing the size of the film, you may just save the .mpeg film from the DVD using another free app: Mpeg Streamclip. The resulting file is an mpeg rigorously identical to the original film, without all the stuff (menus, backstage) usually added to the original .DVD.  
(Version 0.9.4)

R33C3  Fantastic Program!

I like the 64 bit version better, seem's to work better for me :)

The Ability to convert any file so simply is Superb  
(Version 0.9.4)

TOM MARVOLO RIDDLE  S-I-M-P-L-Y Awesome!  
(Version 0.9.4)

SMENASCO  It might be helpful to know this if you are wanting to run Handbrake in 64 bits.

You must be running this version of VLC to avoid scanning problems:

http://download.videolan.org/pub/videolan/vlc/1.0.2/macosx/vlc-1.0.2-intel64.dmg

It is the only compiled version known to work well with this version of Handbrake (0.9.4)

Good luck  
(Version 0.9.4)

ST00P!D M0NK3Y  Does exactly what I want it to. Thank you. :) Never had a problem with conversions.  
(Version 0.9.4)

STEEPS PATRICK  I do not like the interface one bit but the results are very good.

It is free so I do not going to complain.

Free and good.  
(Version 0.9.4)

SURFSPIRIT  I have several software encoders, but HandBrake is by far the best of all, and the most incredible is that this amazing app is free, not only it's the fastest by a huge frames per second difference, but it actually is on of the easiest to use. OK, it's limited to MPEG-4 and H264 output but those codecs are what actually is most used these days, input however can be as large as perian and quicktime plugins can understand, it has subtile support hard or soft "encoded", and an amazing and simple way to make the correct aspect ratio in different profiles, no more black borders nonsense, it just encodes the video!!!

The last version has such a great feature, that is Constant Quality, it's a time saver, just choose video quality 90% or 100% etc and Handbrake will put bit rate etc, dynamically, no more need to do 2-pass encoding and no more guess of bit rate versus quality lottery!!!

Congratulations HandBrake developers!! This is a remarkable Application!!!

P.S.: Queue is also supported!!  
(Version 0.9.4)

FXN  The linked version is 64 bits and it warns you that VLC 64 bits may be needed. There's a button to let it try anyway but it didn't work for me.

As of this writing there is no VLC 64 bits, but you can still go to the product site linked below the download link, and grab the 32 bit version of Handbrake.  
(Version 0.9.4)