Ripping and Encoding
May 14th, 2008
Since I bought my iPod nano I began ripping and encoding movies to watch on the minute device. I just started ripping and encoding television shows, most currently The Office. Ripping television series is an entirely different beast than ripping a movie.
I use a program called HandBrake, and it is, I think, the best program for doing this on the Mac. All I need to do is pop the disc in, click Source and select the disc. The program will choose the most likely title, I click start and everything just happens. With television shows, it’s somewhat different because of all the episodes that are present on the disc.
The only real way to distinguish what are bonus materials and what is the actual episode is by time. Still, if the bonus material is long then distinguishing between the two would be rather difficult. For the third disc of the second season of The Office, it took some trial and error before I figured out what was wrong. You see, I couldn’t find all the episodes and it wasn’t until I reloaded the disc that I was able to get those last three episodes ripped and encoded.
What’s next after The Office? I’m thinking of moving onto 30 Rock and then try out Alias. Alias is one of my favorite shows and I’ve watched individual seasons several times. That would be a good one, but then there is Seinfeld which would be great for the iPod. I find as I’m doing this that animated features and sitcoms work best on the small screen of the iPod nano. In the end though, it all doesn’t matter as long as you like the material, anything works well.
Tags: encoding, handbrake, ipod, ripping, Television, the office
