As we reported, VLC 2.0 shipped last week. With it comes a new UI and experimental Blu-Ray support. Sadly, one of the changes with this release makes it impossible for third party applications to take advantage of VLC's DVD decryption capability. [quote]Starting with VLC 2.0, libdvdcss is no longer available as an individual dylib in the VLC application package, which means HandBrake can no longer use VLC's libdvdcss for DVD decryption.[/quote] Unfortunately, that means that ripping DVDs in Handbrake is no longer as easy as dragging VLC.app and Handbrake.app into ... more

It takes the HandBrake team a long time to deliver stable versions of the popular transcoding app. They're all unpaid volunteers, so it's understandable. That said, we're often left using year-old technology when there are developer builds available that take advantage of the latest and greatest in the world of video compression. Nightly builds allow you to download newer versions of HandBrake, but they are likely to be unstable. You'll get to test out the new features before anybody else. Be warned, though – nightly builds are not for the unexperienced. Sometimes you'll ... more

Everyone's favorite video transcoding tool is Handbrake, right? Right. Well, there are a TON of different configurations in Handbrake for your video. Luckily, they have done some house cleaning recently. Now there are two containers to choose from: MP4 and MKV. If you plan on using iTunes, an AppleTV, an iPod, or an iPhone, stick with MP4. I consider myself an expert when it comes to digital video, but even I can't keep track of every single nuance of each encoder. There is no need to bother with that ... more

After Snow Leopard was released, it became very clear which applications were 64 bit capable, and which were not. For chunky applications, like video transcoding, there was a rush to make the apps 64 bit capable. Even if the 64 bit label didn't improve the application's performance, nobody wanted to be left out of the gold rush. Unfortunately, that lead to a few problems. Applications like HandBrake and FairMount rely on libraries that are included with VLC. If you're running a 64 bit build of HandBrake, you'll ... more

The lack of Blu-Ray support in Mac OS X is slowly driving me insane. As my Blu-Ray collection grows, my disdain for Apple executives snowballs. The fact that I can't play Blu-Ray content on my three thousand dollar computer is absolutely infuriating. That said, just because we can't play back commercially produced (Encrypted) Blu-Ray discs doesn't mean we can't enjoy unencrypted Blu-Ray content. To accomplish this, you'll need MakeMKV and Handbrake installed on your system as well as access to a Blu-Ray drive. Essentially, all you ... more