[Jonathan Norris]

Yea handbrake is awesome and so is the x264 ecoding engine, I recomend if you are interested in this stuff to read up on all the handbrake settings in their FAQ, you can use the high profile setting for even more x264 wizardry. If you are using this for broadcast video turn CQ (constant quality) up to about 64%, at that point the Handbrake community basically agrees that it becomes transparent to the source (though you will be doubling your file size). Get a small sample file, like 2 minute video, and play around with different settings till you find something that works for your application (to warn you some of the 'high profile' settings will break compatibility with certain players).