What I would like to know is what your personal recommendations are for rip settings in Handbrake.
I tend to use HandBrake most often when I am in a hurry and/or am running test or converting material which will not be archived later. Since I am most interested in speed here, usually end up using a single pass MPEG4 with a target average bit rate of 1500kbps (about 1650kbps combined video plus audio in the final file) with audio at 128kbps and either 44.1kHz or 48,0kHz (whichever was used in source). Normally use the 320x240 with a constrained aspect ratio unless I want to increase quality slightly without increasing the conversion time. In this case, I use the 480x480 resolution output again with constrained aspect ratio. Using audio setting to matched to original is a little faster than converting from one setting to another and I prefer the 48.0kHz sound a bit better for things like falling raindrops, etc. Using higher resolution seems to improve overall video quality slightly without increasing conversion time as when increasing the "Quality/Compression" setting or number of passes.
When going for quality, I usually use Forty-TwoDVD-VXPlus with the iPod specific preset in 2-pass AVC (H.264) at either normal or high quality. With above setting, audio sampling is fixed at 44.1kHz so there is no choice here. Keep audio bit rate at 128kbps. Since custom video bit rate is also fixed, I use the target file setting to control compression which in turn further effects the quality. I usually round up the length of the clip in minutes, multiply by 4, and enter my answer as the target file size. These settings should produce a "good" quality video. If file size is not a major consideration, multiply the length by 6 to decrease conversion time or if a major consideration multiply by 2 and expect increase in processing time and possible loss in quality as video bit rate automatically lowers.
NOTE: Regarding constrained aspect ratios, have noted a number of people complaining they end up with distorted video in their output file. If you constrain the aspect ratio the output is "scaled" to match the aspect of your original video. If your original video was widescreen, then your converted video will be in a widescreen aspect ratio. The same is true if your original video was VGA for standard TV -- your output will also be a 4:3 aspect ratio. Just because you can scale an MPEG4 file to 480x480 doesn't mean you have to do it. In fact, you are merely wasting data storage and either increasing bit rate (or lowering quality) unnecessarily.
TIP: If you do end up with a distorted clip, don't go back and re-do from scratch. Instead, open it in QT and perform an "unconstrained" re-scale of the video resolution to correct aspect ratio and save. (File extension will change to .mov but file will retain encoded format.)
TIP: To restore original aspect ratio, leave width of target file unchanged and only modify its height. For example if you perform an "unconstrained" scaling of a 16:9 widescreen movie to 320x240, then re-scale the output file to 320X180. (NOTE: Exact dimensions for non-standard or cropped sources must be calculated on an individual basis. E.g., a 656x361 original fill scaled -- i.e., unconstrained scaled -- by a program like MoviesForMyPod to 320x240 should be re-scaled to 320x176 to get rid of the distortion.)
Hope this helps...
