iTunes & Digital Copy will lead to the death of the open source, DVD ripper HandBrake.
Macworld 08 featured a tiny bit of information on the new “Digital Copy” format for DVD movies. Now, when you purchase a DVD movie from your favorite electronics retailer, an iTunes compatible file will be ready and waiting for you.
This new file is supposed to be automatically transfered to your iTunes library when you insert the DVD into your Mac.
You can move this digital copy of the movie to your iPhone, iPod or Apple TV for viewing.
Straight from the Apple website:
Buy select DVDs and you get something extra free: an iTunes Digital Copy. Just pop the DVD into your computer and the iTunes version transfers to your iTunes library, ready to watch or sync to your iPod, iPhone, or Apple TV. Look for “iTunes Digital Copy” on the DVDs you buy, starting with the DVD release of Family Guy: Blue Harvest Special Edition.
HandBrake was the only software I could use to transfer any of my DVDs to my iPhone – and it wasn’t that great. Experimenting with the format, resolution and other options was a pain to get right and it took an hour to copy an entire DVD. Plus, any movie with subtitles wouldn’t work because it couldn’t copy the text. So you’d end up with all the audio (in French) and no subtitles.
Now that the digital version will be included on future DVDs, (and EVERY studio is onboard) HandBrake is useless because the digital copy will be instantly ready to use and transfer to other devices.
No more time wasted screwing with formats and hopefully full support for subtitles – ready and waiting.
R.I.P. HandBrake
Whatz up Guru, I am glad I pressed harder enough until I found mac dvd ripper, because this post on Digital Copy! R.I.P. HandBrake was extremely helpful. Just last Wednesday I was pondering on this quite a bit.