I use Handbrake for Mac, and on the rare occasion VisualHub.

Handbrake, AppleTV preset w/ 5.1 & 2ch sound – or even more conveniently and at a VERY minimal quality stepdown, Universal preset w/ 5.1 & 2ch sound, constant quality of 59-61 gives you ~2000kbps rips w/ 5.1 sound that will play on itouch/iphone and AppleTV. Then just add some MetaData in itunes and put it in your library.

Helpful hint, to get multiple movie tracks to show as one “folder” in AppleTV, give them all the same “Show” name in Video info. If you want them to show as one icon in iTunes, give them the same “Album” name in info. Good way to get special features to all be under one heading.

For downloaded avi files, I use the now defunct iSquint for a quick conversion to mp4 using h.264. No real savings in file sizes but puts it all in the same format.

@Brian, that’s awesome, thanks for the tip!

I think the universal answer is going to be MacTheRipper and/or Handbrake for ripping/encoding, and MetaX for tagging.

I guess I’m the only traitor here… A PC user.

I use FairUseWizard to rip my DVDs into AVI files (it’s free). Then I use iPodifier to convert AVIs into MP4s for my iPod and ATV (free as well) which I use for a lot more than the DVDs I ripped.

I used to use HandBrake but unfortunately version 0.9.3 doesn’t rip commercial DVDs anymore. I am now looking for alternatives.

I use Handbrake. And the new version does rip commercial DVDs. You just have to know the ins and outs of it. I ripped The Dark Knight into Apple TV format and it came out very good (I had some issues doing it the default way, but I got around it).

Visualhub , Handbrake, MetaX….

RipIt (rips more titles than Mac The Ripper I’ve found), Handbrake and MetaX

Handbrake does a great job. . . .

I use Handbrake with either AnyDYD or DVD43, depending on which PC I’m using. DVD43 is a free option to use for decrypting DVDs (as is Handbrake for the encoding). I also use Handbrake for converting my home media. You can use Windows Movie Maker on PCs or iMovie on Macs to edit the final products (once again, focusing on free software).

For all you PC users that have been endlessly looking for a good tagging utility, someone just wrote a Windows version of MetaX. I downloaded it last week and it works great. One thing that iTunes is deperately lacking is the ability to put ratings in for movies and tv shows. MetaX does that, plus a lot more. Having the movie ratings tagged is the best way to control content for any little ones in the house.

Just Google MetaX or DVD43 to find them.

One other little tip I haven’t seen around much – you can enable playlists for your Movies in the Settings->Audio & Video section. Just set Show Playlists to All. Then you can make nice little video playlists for things like “New Movies” or “My Top 10″.

Handbrake with Apple preset and constant quality of 60% for DVDs.

iSquint for avi files.

I use VisualHub, but I find every now and again AVI files that I convert have audio lag issues. Handbrake is my fallback, but it crashes a fair amount so my fingers are crossed for a more stable release of Handbrake and/or the open source TranscoderRedux.

DVDs:
I use MacTheRipper to rip my (paid for) DVD’s and then Handbrake to convert them using the default AppleTV settings. My Quad-Core G5 can convert 6 to 8 movies overnight. I have more than 150 of my DVDs now on the AppleTV.

DVR recorded shows:
I use AVC Video Cap to transfer un-protected content from my Comcast DVR via FireWire. I then use MPEG Streamclip to convert them for the AppleTV.

All my media lives on a mirrored RAID consisting of two 750GB NewerTech MiniStacks connected via FireWire to my MacMini, connected wirelessly to my AppleTV using it’s built-in AirPort card.

Although the process for gettings DVD’s, etc. into the AppleTV is far from “friendly”, I was amazed at how easy Apple makes it to set up/manage a RAID using Disk Utility. Piece of cake!

ripping dvd’s I use good ol’ dvd shrink, then transfered onto my server where I have the linux version of handbrake encode the movie then add them to my itunes so apple tv can access them…

for dvd’s it usually takes about 2 hours total from inserting the disc til I can play it on apple tv

for my other content I download to my server, have handbrake/linux encode, then add to itunes…

for some reason handbrake running in linux seems to be the most stable and fastest way to encode out of the three, OS X, Linux, Windows

Hello,i am jonna,nice to meet you!~~~.These days i met a problem about how to convert quicktime movie to dvd
and i just wanna watch it on my home dvd player. I'm kinda on a clock!
At the end, i found one passage,which is a good tutorial about how to burn quicktime video to DVD in Google. I am so happy now!