I’ve been using Handbrake to encode video for a couple years and love it. The open source Handbrake works on Windows, OS X and Linux. I’ve always preferred and used the OS X version. It had been about a year without a new version of Handbrake but the drought was ended in November 2009 with the release of Handbrake 0.94. I was a bit slow to upgrade since the old version was working fine for me. Finally I upgraded. I had an issue (it wouldn’t encode) and kept using the [...] Read the rest »
The OS Quest Trail Log #36: Year End Edition
This site has been silent for a couple of weeks so I figured I’d end the year with a Trail Log. I’ve been considering an expansion of the OS Quest data center and finally pulled the trigger with Newegg’s Year End Sale and placed an order on Saturday. I’ll wait for the stuff to arrive before I get into the details since it should be fodder for a few posts. Included are parts for two system builds and some network upgrades. Between the holiday and the fact that I like [...] Read the rest »
Video Encoding: Handbrake
After ripping the DVDs I’ll be needing to encode them so I can watch them on my various devices. The premier software in this category is the open source Handbrake. There’s versions for Mac OS X, Linux and Windows. I’ve been using Handbrake 0.9.2 for OS X. Handbrake can encode directly from DVD if they are unencrypted or encrypted with CSS encryption. But Handbrake isn’t a dedicated ripper and feeding Handbrake unencrypted video is recommended for best results. I took the approach of first ripping the DVDs to disk using [...] Read the rest »
Video On Demand
I’ve been batting around the concept of being able to have a video and music library available most anywhere in my apartment but didn’t make much progress. It was always easier to pull out the DVD, copy the file, or just go to where the video was easiest to watch. I was recently laid up for a couple of days and couldn’t get around very well, so ended up streaming from iTunes or watching whatever was handy. That was enough to motivate me to start building a video library that [...] Read the rest »
