User Rating: 3.5 (27 votes)

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HandBrake is an open-source, GPL-licensed, multiplatform, multithreaded video transcoder. You can import a DVD folder or video file by using the file browser or the "drag and drop" method. Then, you can select the title and chapters, preset, output format destination, as well as configure settings before initiating the encoding process. I recommend using the included Presets if you lack the needed advanced knowledge. The program uses a moderate amount of system resources, takes a long time to complete a task but manages to keep very good image and sound quality. There's also an online user guide available.

Supported Sources:

* Any DVD-like source: VIDEO_TS folder, DVD image or real DVD (unencrypted--protection methods including CSS are not supported internally and must be handled externally with third-party software and libraries), and some .VOB and .TS files
* Most any multimedia file it can get libavformat to read and libavcodec to decode.

Outputs:

* File format: MP4 and MKV
* Video: MPEG-4, H.264, or Theora (1 or 2 passes or constant quantizer/rate encoding)
* Audio: AAC, MP3, Vorbis or AC-3 and DTS pass-through (supports encoding of several audio tracks)

Misc features:

* Chapter selection
* Basic subtitle support (burned into the picture)
* Integrated bitrate calculator
* Picture deinterlacing, cropping and scaling
* Grayscale encoding