Handbrake - how can I get better quality but still be Apple TV compatible?

[ss957916]

Hi all

I've been burning my DVDs at the Apple TV setting in Handbrake which I've now realised isn't quite good enough quality for my liking.

So I just slid the 'constant quality' slider up to 75% only to find the film will play in iTunes but not on my Apple TV!

I think it's cos the total bit rate is 10706kbps (even though the bit rate is 159kbps - not sure what the difference is) or perhaps cos the file size is 6GB?

So my question is this: what settings should I use to get the best possible quality whilst still being Apple TV compatible?

 

[eddyg]

62%

 

[ss957916]

That's the maximum?! Oh.

 

[eddyg]

That will give you perceivable transparency with the DVD. I personally also use a bitrate limiter to keep the bitrate under 5mbps since I stream my movies.

Note that the quality is not a percentage of what the source is, which is why HB is moving away from using a percentage since it was confusing people. Also note that the quality does not increase linearly with the percentage.

Mak sure you have te large file option ticked if you may go over 6Gb. The ATV is fine with large files a long as that option is ticked.

Cheers Ed.

 

[ss957916]

I thought 3.5mbps was the maximum (if you look at ATV's specs)

 

[eddyg]

The specs said 5Mbps for h264 last time I checked. And that is being conservative. It will handle brief excursions in bitrate way above that without issues.

Cheers Ed.

 

[roidy]

I thought 3.5mbps was the maximum (if you look at ATV's specs)

No the tech spec is confusing, reading from the site it supports H.264 main profile upto 5Mbps and mpeg-4 simple profile upto 3Mbps. I myself have Blu-ray rips of just over 6Mbps that play fine on the AppleTV.

For general dvd encoding I use Handbrake SVN 2592 with the following settings:-

Select the AppleTV preset and change the following:-

Advanced tab:
No Fast-P-Skip:- checked
No DCT-Decimate:- checked
Deblocking: -2 -1 - This a personnal taste thing, I find the default settings to soft.

Video tab:
Select Constant Quality and set to a RF value of 20.5

Video Filters tab:
Decomb:- default

I find these values give me an encode that is almost identical to the dvd.

 

[dynaflash]

Advanced tab:
No Fast-P-Skip:- checked
No DCT-Decimate:- checked

Just a note as per the newer version of x264 in the hb snapshot. No Fast Pskip is largely irrelevant now besides slowing down you're encoding ( in fact expect the gui widget for it to disappear in future hb's). This is born out in testing and as per one of the lead x264 devs. NoDctDecimate will increase files sizes considerably in some cases for what has largely been tested to be immeasurable visual quality gains if any.

Again just opinions but worth noting.

 

[ss957916]

But am I right in thinking that Duel won't play cos its total bit rate is 10706kbps?

 

[dynaflash]

But am I right in thinking that Duel won't play cos its total bit rate is 10706kbps?

Very likely. Frankly from an sd dvd that is an insanely high average bitrate. Likely higher than the source. Is that from your first encode at 75% or whatever ?

 

[Rich1963]

Is this the Steven Spielberg "Duel"?

 

[gan6660]

I find the universal setting to have the best quality and its compatible with everything.

 

[GermanSuplex]

The universal setting is fine for me. I've never had any issues with it. The only issue is that when I do concerts, the bitrate is a bit too high for the 5G iPod, so the video transfers and plays, but all I get is a black screen. All of my videos with the universal setting play fine with the iPod classic, iPhone and Apple TV. And they all look great. Anything higher seems like overkill to me.