Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Is VisualHub seriously the best in converting AVI to MP4?

J

je1ani

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Sep 19, 2007
455
1
I mean seriously isn't there something a little better? The quality is really rediculous and this setting was on "Go Nuts."

8bswnci.png


I am going to try a little something new.. I am using the advance feature and putting in the original file size in MB and try "Two Pass." Will this help? Thanks!
 
I'm using the trial version and so far unimpressed with its attempt to convert .avi to .mp4

Very blocky on low res stuff on Go Nuts settings with 2-pass. Just about to test a HD 720 mkv conversion
 
I have found VH to be better than QT Pro mainly because of the level of control VH gives you. All you can do in QT Pro is select the AppleTV option and cross your fingers. Unless you want to get into a custom mp4 setting, that is.

For .mkv files, VH is darn near the only solution on a mac. VLC limits you to a 3072 bitrate or something like that, and FFMPEGX isn't user-friendly enough for my taste.
 
First: You are transcoding. You will *ALWAYS* lose quality moving from one lossy format (DivX) to another lossy format (MP4).

This is like converting an mp3 to an ogg, or even an mp3 to another bitrate mp3. You lose data, it's data compression/compromise.

I wouldn't ever expect to take an AVI, toss it through VH or anything else to convert it to any other format other than VOB, which you would NOT lose any more quality, but you also do not gain quality.
 
Don't use 2 pass encoding. I would have thought that that would actually make the quality better, but it doesn't...

And definitely make sure you have h.264 selected.
 
I usually use High setting for transcoding and make sure you set H.264. Go Nuts should not be necessary in my experience, and may even increase your file size. Your sample shows a much greater loss of quality than I have seen with my conversions. I have noticed the difference in gamma between Standard and High, similar to your sample, with standard showing darker than the original.
 
No matter what program you use, you are going to loose some quality. But I am still very happy with visual hub. Until AppleTV can accept higher bitrates, you will lose some quality from the source. But it still looks great on a hi-def TV.
f_Picture1m_24a3c85.jpg
 
The quality loss you are seeing here is becuase Quicktime plays MP4 files alot DARKER than other players. Open up your original DivX in VLC side by side with your MP4 in VLC and the quality will be alot more similar.

Background: Quicktime has a bug when decoding MP4 files and causes the output to be alot darker than what it should.

Keep in mind - your apple TV uses quicktime to play the files aswell :p
 
Brentnal said:
The quality loss you are seeing here is becuase Quicktime plays MP4 files alot DARKER than other players. Open up your original DivX in VLC side by side with your MP4 in VLC and the quality will be alot more similar.

Background: Quicktime has a bug when decoding MP4 files and causes the output to be alot darker than what it should.

Keep in mind - your apple TV uses quicktime to play the files aswell :p
Click to expand...

f_vlcsnap1399m_784625b.png

here is a screen from VLC. That is weird that quicktime darkens the image like that. They don't seem darker when playing through the appleTV....
 
Here's the settings I use to convert an avi (XviD mpeg4 video & 5.1 ac3 audio) that I made in Handbrake before for my Philips DivX DVD set top player.

The video is passed through and the audio encoded to stereo aac for playback on an iPhone.

8fjomts.png
 
live4ever said:
Here's the settings I use to convert an avi (XviD mpeg4 video & 5.1 ac3 audio) that I made in Handbrake before for my Philips DivX DVD set top player.

The video is passed through and the audio encoded to stereo aac for playback on an iPhone.
Click to expand...

This works because Xvid is MPEG4 compliant, or vice versa or whatever, right? So you only have to re-encode the audio, and put the whole thing in a new container.

I had always wondered if this was possible, I guess it depends on how the original video was encoded. I am gonna try this with a random vid right now...
 
madmaxmedia said:
This works because Xvid is MPEG4 compliant, or vice versa or whatever, right? So you only have to re-encode the audio, and put the whole thing in a new container.

I had always wondered if this was possible, I guess it depends on how the original video was encoded. I am gonna try this with a random vid right now...
Click to expand...

Did this work?
 
7on said:
Did this work?
Click to expand...

No. I think there are too many different encoding settings and other variables, so for any given clip may it will work, maybe it won't.

For example, there are different profiles for H.264 encoding, and the iPods will play certain kinds (the more basic settings.)
 
Hiya there.

I'm using iSquint at the moment, and I too found the AVI -> MP4 conversion to be kinda poor...

But I'm on an ibook G4 1.33, so I didn't use the H.264 setting, because it jsut seemed to take to long. But like OP, even using 'Go nuts', the result was poor...

So are people saying that if I use a 'High' setting and H.264, I'll have something that basically looks like my source?

Because all I want is the quality to be kept the same... nothing more!
 
Borjan said:
Hiya there.

I'm using iSquint at the moment, and I too found the AVI -> MP4 conversion to be kinda poor...

But I'm on an ibook G4 1.33, so I didn't use the H.264 setting, because it jsut seemed to take to long. But like OP, even using 'Go nuts', the result was poor...

So are people saying that if I use a 'High' setting and H.264, I'll have something that basically looks like my source?

Because all I want is the quality to be kept the same... nothing more!
Click to expand...

The quality will never be the same... at the very least you are converting between two lossy formats. This is even true using Handbrake to go from DVD -> MPEG-4.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back