What Handbrake setting to use to convert DVD to play both Appletv & ipod???

Try using the ipod high-rez option and make sure you've checked the little box that says ipod.

lenn

use the ipod and yes it matters; so I encode in two one for ipod and one for ATV.

It definately matters.

iPod High Rez is limited to 640 horisontal resolution, normal wide screen DVD's are often up to 1024 pixels horisontal resolution, so you are throwing away a lot of quality by using the iPod preset.

I convert all movies using the AppleTV preset, then make copies for my iPhone using the iPhone/iPod Touch preset (a bit higher resolution than iPod low res).

Sure it takes up more HD space, but USB2 harddrives are cheap these days and I want the best possible quality on my AppleTV and the smallest filesize on my iPhone.

Even HD TV-shows from Apple come in 2 versions (both are downloaded when you buy an HD show) - a "SD" version (640x480) and an "HD" (720p) version so this is the way Apple does it as well.

as far as i know then normal dvd movies are no higher then 576p == 720×576

Actually if they are widescreen (as most movies) they use a format called "anamorphic" to map the 720x576 = 414720 pixels into a widescreen format.

Since the widescreen format uses less pixels vertically (black bars on top and bottom), more pixels are available horisontally.

HandBrake using the AppleTV preset will correctly convert anamorphic video into H.264 files up to around 1024 pixels wide and around 405 pixels high (414720 / 1024 = 405 pixels in height).