Are Handbrake and AnyDVD The 'Gold' Standard For Backups?

I don't know about necessarily better, but I used to use DVD Fab/DVD Shrink to rip my DVDs to folders, then use Handbrake to reencode and now I use MakeMKV primarily. After trying MakeMKV though I have converted. I like putting in a DVD or Blu-Ray, selecting the main movie, then having it rip directly to mkv. Like 2 mouse clicks...MakeMKV even preserves the audio and video resolution along with the subs. Just my $0.02.

With storage space so cheap, I don't reencode. like ABSiNTH, I use DVD fab to drop my collection to disk. Free, cheap and effective.

I wouldn't consider Handbrake the Gold Standard since many people don't like to encode. I would consider AnyDVD and/or DVDFab as the gold standard. If you are looking for specifically mkvs then MakeMKV is the gold standard. Handbrake and Ripbot264 seem to be two of the more popular programs when it comes to encoding

I just use AnyDVD HD and rip to ISO with the encryption removed.

Rip = DVDFab and/or MakeMKV, depending on how the # of chapters and titles. DVDFab seems to analyze BDs w/ more chapters much more efficiently, over MakeMKV.

Encode / Cropping / Transcode = Handbrake... I never liked DVDFab standalone for rip and encoding together, on-the-fly - too many software crash and stalling issues.

I haven't bothered with producing ISOs, unless I'm backing up DVD software.

What settings are recommended when using Handbrake? Ive been reluctant to compress due to quality loss. I have just ripped to mkv, but am now thinking about at least trying it to save a little space, especially on the not so important movies.

IMO AnyDVD HD is the gold standard for making lossless backups of DVDs and Blu-rays. It allows you to rip to ISO or folder structure without any quality loss (no re-encoding of audio and video), and retaining full menu navigation etc.

There are other solutions - like MakeMKV - that allow the DVD or Blu-ray audio and video stream (and in some cases subtitle) streams to be re-wrapped as an MKV with no re-encoding - but if your playback solutions are happy with folder or ISOs I've not seen the point in this.

Handbrake is useful should you need to re-encode for playback reasons (i.e. a device you want to play a DVD/Blu-ray on can't play the original content because of codec or resolution issues) I use Handbrake to re-encode DVD and Blu-ray content for iPad/iPhone replay - but wouldn't use it to create my only copy of a DVD/Blu-ray as there is inevitably some quality loss introduced in re-encoding. (And it takes longer too)

Never used Handbrake so I can't say anything about it except that I'd never use any app that compresses the original audio and video. I've got a lifetime sub to AnyDVD HD and I used to rip everything to iso's. I recently started using XBMC for movie playback and switched to MakeMKV for my ripping chores.

I no longer require image mounting software or expensive 3rd party playback apps like TMT5 or PDVD. I can also eliminate other apps like Media Browser because XBMC provides all the cover art and metadata for all of my DVDs and Blu-Rays on my server.

I still use AnyDVD HD on occasion because MakeMKV has problems with certain discs. I also used to use DVDFab for stripping out the unwanted extras in my DVDs and Clown_BD for the same task with Blu-Rays. Now I just do it all in one step with MakeMKV. MKV playback is smoother when streaming to a PC and seems to be essentially trouble-free (i.e., no stuttering or freeze-ups) like I used to experience with iso's periodically.