How to Use HandBrake to Rip/Convert DVD to MP4?

Date April 18, 2016 Author Catherine Category DVD Tips, Handbrake

Editor’s note: The age of DVD is gone. People play DVD movies by ripping it to MP4 for playing on iPad Air 3, Galaxy S7 instead of relying on the heavy DVD Player.

Converting DVD to MP4 can make people store their DVD movies on NAS or Cloud so that people can get wide access to the movies on various multimedia players such as iPhone SE, iPad Pro 9.7, Sony Xperia X Series, Nexus 6P. Ripping DVD to MP4 allows DVD collectors to protect their fragile DVD discs from scratching, destroying and damaging.

What is the best free program to rip a DVD to mp4 files?

“I own a couple of DVD’s that I would like to rip and save to my to PS. I have done it a few years ago using DVD decrtypter or rip it for free and then converting the VOB’s to avi using avi demuxe. I would now like to convert from DVD to Mp4. I understand that there are programs that can rip and convert to mp4 in one process eg. mpegstreamclip What do most of you use today (free programs only please) Windows programs only?” – from videohelp.com

Just like the question showed above, ripping DVD to MP4 needs a DVD Decrypter. I have been using makemkv(free) for a while to rip lossless video and then use handbrake to convert to mp4. This has been the best solution I have found to rip my entire dvd and bluray collection. Makemkv will also remove any copy protection.

Actually, if your DVD is non-protected one, you don’t need to use MakeMKV (Alternatives) to decrypt it. You can directly use Handbrake to re-encode DVD to MP4. Read the specified steps to convert DVD to MP4 below.

Use HandBrake to Rip/Convert DVD to MP4

Note: If needed, you firstly need to decrypt DVD and backup DVD to your hard drive with MakeMKV. You can ignore the step when your DVDs are home-made.

Open up MakeMKV and hit the bit “Open Disc” button. It will scan through your disc, which will take a few minutes. When it’s done, it’ll give you a list of the chapters on the disc. Find your movie (usually the longest title) and uncheck all the other boxes. Then, just choose your Output Folder and hit the “Make MKV” button. Usually this’ll take a half hour or so, depending on the size of your disc, but once it’s done you should have a big MKV file waiting for you in the folder you chose.

Now, let’s start to re-encode DVD to MP4 with Handbrake.

Step 1: Open Handbrake and click on the “Source” button at the top left. Select DVD / VIDEO_TS folder from the drop down list. Then browse for the location where MakeMKV copied your movie. Select the folder, and click “OK.”

Step 2: You may be prompted to set a default path in Handbrake. This is an optional step. Click “OK.”

If you’d like to set a default destination folder, Go to Tools on the top menu, select Options. On the General tab, click “Browse” to select a destination output folder. Click “Close” when Finished.

Step 3: Next, click the dropdown list next to “Title.” Select the title that matches the length of the movie. It’s possible you may have see more than one title with a similar length. If so, consult the DVD information, or a site like IMDB.com, to find the proper movie title length. Select your container under Output Settings. This will be your final output file extension. We will be using MP4 for this example. You also have the option of MKV.

Step 4: If you didn’t set up a default destination folder, you’ll need to select one by clicking the “Browse” button. You can manually customize the output file name and change the output file extension to .mp4 (Unless you prefer the iPod friendly .m4v extension).

Settings

There are a variety of custom settings that can be changed either through the tabs listed under Output Settings, or by selecting one of the Presets to the right.

If converting exclusively for any of the devices listed in the preset list, simply click on that device and the settings will be automatically applied in the Output Settings tabs. For more Universal (non-Apple) devices or output, select the Normal profile.

The Video tab allows you to choose your codec. H.264 is the default. You also have the option to choose a target (output) size. The Constant Quality is recommended to be set between 59% – 63%. Anything over 70% will likely result in an output file larger than the input without any improved quality.

Step 5: When you’ve finished any customizations you are ready to begin the conversion process. Click “Start.”A Command window will open and you can follow the process. You’ll probably want to find something to do in the meantime as the process could take a couple of hours. When the process completes, you’re ready to watch your video.

Best HandBrake Alternative to Re-encode DVDs to MP4

If you want to rip any DVD movies to MP4 on Windows 10, Windows 8.1, Windows 8, Windows 7, Windows XP, etc with no effort at all, the best HandBrake alternative are recommended – Pavtube ByteCopy (Get Mac version), a professional DVD converter available to decrypt and rip any DVDs to MP4, H.265, M3U8, MOV, AVI, WMV, MOV, MPEG, MKV, FLV etc, and fashionable devices, iPhone 7, iPhone SE, iPhone 6s (Plus), iPad Air 3/mini 4/Pro, Samsung Galaxy S7/S7 Edge, Sony Xperia Z5, Windows Mobiles 8/10, Surface Pro 4, Xbox One, PS3/4 and more with Wi-Fi images and audios in a few clicks. Read its review.

Read: HandBrake Mac Tutorial on Mac OS X 10.11 El Capitan

Free download and install:

Simple Steps to convert DVD to MP4 with Handbrake Alternative

Step 1: Click “File”; “Load from disc” to import DVD movies to the program. This program will automatically select the main title by taking the tick in front of it. This app also support batch conversion so add more than one DVD movies at a time if needed. You can choose forced subtitle below the chapter list.

Step 2: Open “Format” drop-down list. Here, you can see hundreds of video formats. For the widest compatibility and high definition, HD MP4 is suggested in “HD Video” profile. In addition, if your multimedia players support MKV, lossless MKV is also recommended with all the info preserved.

Tip: If you want to preview the size of output DVD backups, you can click “Settings”. Here, you not only can preview the output size but also adjust video and audio parameters. If you want to shrink DVD movies to a smaller size, you can decrease the bitrate.

Step 3: Go back to the main interface, press right-bottom “Convert” button to start to rip DVD to MP4. When the process is done, you can open the output folder to locate the MP4 files. Then you can store the MP4 files on Dropbox, NAS, External Hard Drive and stream the DVD movies on TV, PC, Tablet, iPads, Surface Pro 4, etc.

Handbrake Alternatives and Handbrake Comparison