Crunch is designed to help you get unprotected DVDs and video files onto Apple devices - video-capable iPods, the Apple TV and the iPhone - with as little fuss as possible. It looks similar to Roxio's Toast and Popcorn products, and has a very shallow learning curve.
The drawer on the left of the Crunch window provides a choice of four sources: a physical DVD, an image file of a DVD, a VIDEO_TS folder on a hard disk and batch conversion of video files.
Crunch provides presets of varying quality for all three Apple devices, and a custom option exposes more detailed Mpeg-4 and H.264 settings so you can tailor settings for other devices.
To the bottom right is a capacity indicator. Choose a target capacity and it gives a visual estimation of how much will be used by your selection. The indicator turns orange if it's a close call and red if it won't fit.
To convert video files, simply drag them into the central content area to add them to the batch list. Clicking a thumbnail exposes a playhead for scanning through the video, but this doesn't allow you to set the poster frame displayed in iTunes.
Crunch can't set metadata, although movies are added to a dedicated playlist so they won't be easily lost in a large iTunes library. iTunes provides for editing metadata and setting poster frames - it just feels a little too spread around.
Crunch can convert Mpeg-1, Mpeg-2, Mpeg-4 and DivX, AVI, and all QuickTime-playable movies. Although Flash's FLV format and Windows Media aren't understood by Crunch itself, close integration with QuickTime enables you to use third-party components such as Perian and Flip4Mac to add support. RealMedia isn't natively supported.
When converting a DVD, you can rip all content, just the main movies, or a combination of main movies and extras. There's no chapter-level control, though, just as there are no trimming options for video files.
If your DVD contains multiple audio tracks, the Custom option enables you to select which is ripped. The small Play button next to each movie previews your selection before conversion. However, we found the default audio stream was previewed even after selecting a different one.
When you're ready, the large red button starts the conversion, and you're asked to confirm the encoding preset. It couldn't get any simpler than this.
You can batch-convert DVDs by encoding the VOBs directly. Crunch treatsa sequence of VOB files as one movie, though, allowing the whole sequence to be converted to a single file rather than being similarly split in iTunes.
Overall, Crunch does its job well. It's easy to use, handles a broad enough range of formats, and is extensible through QuickTime. If you only care about Apple devices, it's a cheaper alternative to Roxio's Popcorn.
Verdict
Needs Power Mac OS X 10.4.9 + G4, G5 or Intel Mac + 256MB Ram + QuickTime 7.1.5 or later + iTunes 7.1.1 or later
Author: Alan Stonebridge
MacUser Online