Apple Tv And shrinking dvd

[werebear23]

Hi all, i have just recently purchased Apple tv and have alot of Tv series on dvd such as lost. I am wanting to put these on a external hard drive so i can stream on my wireless network, i use handbrake at the moment but when using H.264 the file sizes are massive and when using mp4 loose alot of the quality. Does anyone know a way round this so i can keep picture quality aswel as having smaller file sizes???



Thanks Mike

 

[NJuul]

humn, that doesn't make too much sense. h.264 is a codec you can use when ripping into mp4. But nevermind that.
First, are you using the latest version of Handbrake? (0.93)
Second, are you using the presets? specifically the apple tv preset? And if you have upgraded from an older version of handbrake, did you remember to update your presets? (it's a menu item)
What you should do is this:
Choose the stream on the dvd you want to rip/encode.
click on the apple tv preset
turn on decomb filter (think it's in picture settings)
Run.

If your disks are older I'd recommend using a variable bit rate instead of constant quality, as you may get really large files if there are lots of artifacts on the video stream. Somewhere between 1500 and 2000 should do.

Let us know what settings you use, and we can probably help you a lot better

 

[kolax]

Make sure you are using the latest version of HandBrake, update your built-in presets (via the preset window) and select the Apple TV preset.

As said above, your DVD's might be interlaced, so you'll need to turn decomb on (which basically lets HandBrake determine if any frames need to be de-interlaced) and select the value as 'Default'.

 

[spice weasel]

Hi all, i have just recently purchased Apple tv and have alot of Tv series on dvd such as lost. I am wanting to put these on a external hard drive so i can stream on my wireless network, i use handbrake at the moment but when using H.264 the file sizes are massive and when using mp4 loose alot of the quality. Does anyone know a way round this so i can keep picture quality aswel as having smaller file sizes???

Define "massive." Using the Apple TV preset in Handbrake 0.9.3, the file size for a typical hour-long broadcast TV show (45 minutes) should be something like 700-800 megs. You can trim a bit (but not all that much, really) off of that by not including the AC3 passthru audio stream. Shows with lots of fast moving action sequences will be larger than ones without.

If you want even smaller files, you can experiment with different settings. Obviously, given the same version of Handbrake, smaller files will tend to result in poorer picture quality.

Still, h.264 encodes will be A LOT smaller than the source mpeg-2 DVD files, so you're still saving space.

 

[werebear23]

I am using the apple pre-set on the latest version of Handbrake and to answer the question the file size with Ac3 is coming out about 1.2 Gb per episode at the minute.

The preset setting are as follows:
Format: MP4 file
Video Code:H.264 (x264)
Large file size is ticked
Audio:AC3 Passthru as i am plugging into a Denon Amp
Framerate:Same as Source
Deinterlace is off


Hope this information is what you wanted to know to help me bring these file sizes down


Thanks mike

 

[NJuul]

I am using the apple pre-set on the latest version of Handbrake and to answer the question the file size with Ac3 is coming out about 1.2 Gb per episode at the minute.

The preset setting are as follows:
Format: MP4 file
Video Code:H.264 (x264)
Large file size is ticked
Audio:AC3 Passthru as i am plugging into a Denon Amp
Framerate:Same as Source
Deinterlace is off


Hope this information is what you wanted to know to help me bring these file sizes down


Thanks mike

Actually, what I really want to know is:
In the Video tab, Quality:
Where is the dot?
In "Constant Quality"?, and if so, what's the number?
In any of the others, and at what setting?

And when you say "apple", you mean "apple tv", right?
And you are not messing with anything in the "advanced" tab?

Maybe post a screen shot of the "video" tab.
And these shows are about 45 min?
1.2 GB is way too much then.

 

[spice weasel]

I am using the apple pre-set on the latest version of Handbrake and to answer the question the file size with Ac3 is coming out about 1.2 Gb per episode at the minute.

The preset setting are as follows:
Format: MP4 file
Video Code:H.264 (x264)
Large file size is ticked
Audio:AC3 Passthru as i am plugging into a Denon Amp
Framerate:Same as Source
Deinterlace is off


Hope this information is what you wanted to know to help me bring these file sizes down


Thanks mike

1.2 gigs is definitely big for a 45 minute show. Did you use 0.9.2 before, and if so, did you update your presets when you installed 0.9.3? If not, you may unwittingly be using the old Apple TV present, which used a constant rate of 2500 kbps. File sizes under the new Apple TV preset are significantly smaller.

 

[werebear23]

The target size is pre set at 700(Mb)
Average bitrate (kbps)1587 and the constant quality is set at 59 %

have done nothing in the advanced setting to affect this, the tv shows are 45 min episodes also.

Hope this is the information you where looking for mike

 

[scotthayes]

I've just bought an Apple TV (today) and as a test I imported a movie in to iTunes using handbrake. A two movie took about 1.8GB and the quality is perfect.

So the plan is to get a Drobo with 4 1.5TB drives (giving 4.5TB in a RAID 5 array) and that should allow me to store about 187 days worth of movies. Which is more than enough for our collection of 600 DVD (yes I know, it will take months to import them all).

Bottom line is, if you use handbrake and use the default Apple TV setting you'll have no problems with quality and don't need that much storage.

 

[werebear23]

I've just bought an Apple TV (today) and as a test I imported a movie in to iTunes using handbrake. A two movie took about 1.8GB and the quality is perfect.

So the plan is to get a Drobo with 4 1.5TB drives (giving 4.5TB in a RAID 5 array) and that should allow me to store about 187 days worth of movies. Which is more than enough for our collection of 600 DVD (yes I know, it will take months to import them all).

Bottom line is, if you use handbrake and use the default Apple TV setting you'll have no problems with quality and don't need that much storage.

Did you use the option to import using AC3 ie dolby digital for the films or just Dolby surround 2 on the audio option???

 

[xraydoc]

I prefer to use the "Apple Universal" preset on HandBrake myself. Compatible with the AppleTV as well as iPods, iPhones and iPod touches (touchs? touch's?).

Anyway, file sizes are essentially what you get when downloading a similar video from iTunes. And this preset also encodes AAC 2-channel audio and passes Dolby Digital AC3 to the optical out or via HDMI on the AppleTV.

And on a 720P display, they look 95% as good as the original DVD.

 

[crackermac]

DVD conversion for Apple TV

Ok, I just ripped a DVD (4.24GB main feature only) and I used Handbrake to convert it for use with an Apple TV. I selected the "Apple TV" preset and did not adjust any other settings. The .m4v file that it output is only 1.07GB. Should I be concerned with this at all? That's a pretty huge compression. I don't really care about saving space as I have a large NAS to dump these files to, I just want to get ride of my physical media. Shouldn't a closer to a 1:1 ratio give me a better picture and sound quality.

Edit: I have noticed that there is a slider bar that is for "Constant Quality". The first conversion that I did was set to 59%, and this gave me the 1.07GB output file. Then, I adjusted this all the way to 100%. This time, the output file was 4.22GB. Now, I haven't had a chance to do a great side-by-side comparison to determine if it actually made any difference, so I don't know if the extra size is worth it. This is the only setting I changed after selecting the "Apple TV" conversion setting. Changing this made a custom setting.