I'm not very satisfied with Handbrake. Compared to AutoGK on Windows, it lacks a lot of important features like external subtitles instead of hardcoded subtitles.

Plus it's very unstable, when I try to convert a DVD to something other than FFMPEG avi, it crashes, takes hours, or the resulting file is messed up and not usable.

The latest version seems to create grainy, blocked, and choppy DVD rips in both .mp4 and .avi format (and maybe other formats as well, I haven't tried). I've tried it on multiple Macs, with multiple presets and custom settings, and with multiple DVDs. The results are the same - disappointing.

What's more disappointing is the response that I got from the moderators of the HandBrake forum. The response that I received from moderator "nightstrm" and project administrator "jbrjake" was immature and petty. Looking at their responses to other new users asking genuine questions makes it obvious that my treatment was anything but out of the ordinary. They consistently badger and demean friendly people who are there to ask genuine questions. Pathetic.

I think HandBrake was a quality application, but the issues that I and other users are having with it are very bothersome. To top it all off, I have a hard time supporting a project (as a user and bug reporter which I do for many apps) when the people working on the project and supporting the user's forums are such... douchebags.

There are better options that HandBrake out there. I'd suggest you use them.

Great app. Amazing they don't charge for it.

Doesn't seem to work on Leopard: "no valid title found"
What a shame :(

Fantastic free app for converting ripped DVD's for running in quicktime/appleTV. However, since purchasing VisualHub, I find myself using Handbrake less and less on my MBP (for .mkv and .avi files mainly), although it still gets used plenty on my iMac (DVD backup machine).

@aliasdagain, You were probably trying to open the disk image for the 10.4 version (which is what the download link here points to) using 10.3. You'll have to use the older version that runs on 10.3, and you can find that using the homepage link here.

Wonderful. The new version is great.

I use this to rip dvds onto my ipod. Takes a while to do feature length movies (about an hour), but it's worth it.

The dmg failed to mount with reason "not recognized."

@aeko:
Some browsers add a ".bz2" extension to the ".dmg" file.
Delete that extension from the file's name and you'll be able to mount the DMG without any problem.
(This is the second time I post this tip about HandBrake. If you had read the previous posts, you could have found it.)

When I decompress the bz2 file, the dmg won't mount and says: "no mountable file systems".