Filed under: Utilities, Video, Macintosh

HandBrake Lite: Two-click DVD-to-iPod ripping

HandBrake Lite

Speaking of ripping DVDs, Tyler Loch, creator of iPod video converter iSquint, has released a Mac utility called HandBrake Lite which he describes as "a horribly-mangled abomination of HandBrake, jettisoning its non-crucial features with the one-track goal of creating iPod-sized movies from DVDs." The original HandBrake was a general-purpose open source DVD-to-MPEG4 converter, but Loch touts HandBrake Lite as having "less stuff to read, and fewer confusing words" and claims it will rip a DVD to an iPod-friendly format in only two clicks. In its very short FAQ Loch writes, "HandBrake Lite is done. I can't add any features because I don't know how to write Obj-C code; only blind mangling of existing code. It's a miracle this even works at all." But if it works, it works, right?