HandBrake Presets for new Apple products?

[casperse]

Hi All

I want to know what "preset" to use in Handbrake when I only want the video to support the new Apple devices (Not the old iPhone etc).

I thought that "Universal" would be the only option, but after reading things like this:

Just a heads up for those who also like compatibility with their iPhones: the 3GS and newest iPod Touches will now play encodes with more advanced x264 options like B-Frames and CABAC, making presets like the Apple TV one viewable on the iPhone! And that the "reference frame can be 3 instead of 2" etc...

I am beginning to think there might be a optimized "Universal" preset that dosent have to support the old models.

I want to have the best available vide for iPad2, iPod touch & iPhone 4.
So does this mean that Apple TV 2 would cover these?

Any input on this would be much appriciated.

Thanks!

 

[El Aurens]

I've been using the ATV2 preset in Handbrake. Works great watching it on my 50" plasma. Looks even better on the iPad and iPhone4 when viewing via homesharing.

 

[peterjcat]

Yep, the Apple TV 2 preset will work for at least the iPhone 4, both iPads, and the most recent iPod Touch (maybe also for the iPhone 3GS and the last iPod Touch).

A lot of people (myself included) are treating the ATV2 preset as the new Universal preset. It's handy because it automatically knocks everything down to 1280x720 max which is the maximum resolution of any of the current iOS devices, it includes AC3+AAC audio tracks so can be played in stereo on the portable devices and surround on the Apple TV, etc.

Bear in mind that the video quality won't be better than the old Universal preset in an absolute sense, it will only be better for a given bitrate. If you use a constant bitrate than you'll see better quality; if you use a constant quality setting (as is recommended) then you'll just see smaller file sizes.

 

[casperse]

That sounds promising!

I was using iPad settings that look great! but these are not working on iPhone 4.

And I just did 2 universal encodings and they dont look pretty (I did use a pre-defined size with 2 passes to compare how effective the presets was with.

I think the Apple TV 2 have more advanced settings so should in theory produce better picture...

Thanks for your quick feedback please share any tweaks if any needed to the Apple TV 2 presets

 

[casperse]

Update:

I found these recommended Video Filters settings.

Detelecine: Default
Decomb: Off
Deinterlace: Slow or slower (PAL Source)
Denoise: Medium

I only use these files for Transportable devices (On the big screen I use ISO/DVD) but with these many new HD devices I think its important to get the most out of the picture quality. Sound is Stereo 160 or 128 not a big deal with headset.

I was thinking of a size of 800MB for a normal movie 1:45 - 1:55.
Again this library is for all the portable devices in the family.

Looks like even the one Nokia N900 plays these files 100% - UPS NO only universal...

 

[bigpatky]

the majority of my videos are ripped w/ the apple tv 2 preset. i was excited to see that they synced with my iphone 3gs....that is most. there are just a few exceptions. not sure why. at first it looked like bitrate. a couple tv shows transferred from my tivo and then ripped w/ handbrake (atv2) wouldn't transfer. they had a noticably higher bitrate than my other shows. (up around 5000kb) but then i noticed that 2 of my blu-ray rips wouldn't transfer, which had reasonable bitrates. i haven't had time to look into it yet.