AutoBrake.sh is a BASH script designed to make archiving DVDs as simple as possible. It utilizes the excellent HandBrakeCLI (along with a few other open-source tools), and is intended to be extremely user-friendly while still yielding uncompromisingly high-quality results.

• Answer only 3 simple questions (title, target size, audio bitrate) then you're off and ripping!
• Archives any standard DVD movie into the 3 best of breed open formats: H.264 for the video codec, Ogg Vorbis for audio, and Matroska for the file container.
• The built-in default H.264 profile yields professional quality results every time.
• Dumps the DVD to your HDD before encoding to free up the disc and save your DVD-ROM some unnecessary wear and tear.
• Automatically crops off unsightly black bars and maintains aspect ratio without the need for user intervention.
• Utilizes HandBrake's new decomb filter, which only deinterlaces video when it visibly needs to be.
• Audio is automatically normalized as part of the transcoding process, bringing movies with abnormally low volumes up to optimal values.
• The script can clean up temporary files for you after completion.

• Any UNIX-like environment that can run BASH,¹⁾ e.g. Linux, Mac OS X, or BSD
• A copy of the latest HandBrakeCLI for the platform of your choice
• MPlayer, with which we rip the DVD and audio
• MKVMerge, normally provided by the MKVToolnix package
• Normalize²⁾ (available as normalize-audio in Debian/Ubuntu repositories)
• liba52/a52dec to decode and downmix a DVD's AC3 audio tracks to a neutral format
• OggEnc, typically provided by the Vorbis-Tools package

• The ability to rip and include subtitle tracks in the language of the user's choice
• An advanced mode with more choices for savvy users
• The ability to rip and include commentary tracks
• Deinterlacing options
• Multi-track ripping — Currently, only the longest track is automatically ripped by default
• The ability to choose from a few different audio and video codecs, e.g. Xvid, MP3, AAC (though H.264/Ogg will remain the defaults)
• Possibly a batch encoding mode

⇒ The latest version of AutoBrake.sh is 0.8.43, and can be downloaded here: http://autobrake.info/pub/autobrake.sh

Happy archiving!
Chris

Still have questions? Have a look at our FAQ.

Find bugs? Report them on our Bug Tracker.

Want to ride the bleeding edge? Every week or so, I've been building Handbrake 'deb' packages from the latest SVN against Debian Lenny x86 for my own personal usage. It's been an order of magnitude more reliable for me than the current stable build, not to mention faster and more feature-rich.

⇒ Get the debs here: http://autobrake.info/pub/handbrake/