HandBrake and VLC: two free Mac apps that help you take your videos to go.
You’ll need both HandBrake (handbrake.fr) and VLC (videolan.org) to rip your videos for viewing on your iPhone and iPad. Luckily, they’re both free for the taking, so you’re just a download from portable video heaven. HandBrake does the actual encoding, but it relies on code from VLC to take care of DVD copy protection, so install them both.
Don’t bother encoding more pixels than your device needs. HandBrake’s presets will ensure you can fit the most video possible on your iOS device.
HandBrake shows plenty of love to Apple fans. Handy presets for all models of iPhone and Apple TV, as well as for the iPad, are baked right in. If you know you’re going to be watching on a certain device, using one of the specific presets will give you the best possible resolution at the smallest file size. If you want to get really geeky, you can manually set encoding options, too. If you don’t have the latest HandBrake presets, head to the Presets menu and choose Update Built-In Presets.
Even on a fast machine, encoding video takes a while. Instead of doing everything individually, use HandBrake’s Queue to line up a bunch of encoding jobs in sequence. Then you can start encoding before you go to bed and wake up to a bunch of new content to watch the next morning.
