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Max resolution for ripping DVDs for iPhone

C

cowm007

macrumors regular
Original poster
Feb 2, 2005
195
0
This is directly from the Apple iPhone Tech page:
"Video formats supported: H.264 video, up to 1.5 Mbps, 640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per second, Low-Complexity version of the H.264 Baseline Profile with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats."

Since I have an TV and an iPhone, I figured I was better off ripping my DVDs at 640px @ 1500kbps as a good compromise to keep from having to encode more than once (720 for Apple TV, 480 for iPhone). Last night I left the "Planet Earth" series ripping and it looks like I accidentally let a couple episodes rip at 720x400 instead of 640x356. I realized this, and tried putting the video on my iPhone to see if it would sync/play and it looks like it had no problem doing so.

I'm curious now why this might be. My only thought is that the resolution limit means 640 x 480 = 307,200px limit and well 720 x 4800 = 288,000px. Anyone know what the deal is? I'd like to know if I can rip my videos at full DVD resolution and have them play on both the iPhone and the TV before continuing with the rest of my DVD collection.
 
You can use the iPod preset, and up the resolution to 720xN...and use 2,000 or 2,500 bit rate (see if you can see the difference). This is almost as good as the Apple TV (which uses the Main Profile, not the iPod), but only really noticable on large 1080P tv's. So far, this is the best of both worlds as only 1 file is needed for both the Apple TV and iPhone.

As far as why, not sure, outside that Apple set the Mac at 720 (try 721, it will not work) and they set the iPod to 640 for some reason...as far as why the bitrate can get so high, not sure either, but it always works, that I can tell you.
 
I just did some further testing and made a DVD rip of a small scene at the full 720x480 DVD resolution. I was unable to transfer this clip to the iPhone though, even though it appears under the "movies" list and it doesn't bring up an error message.

Like the post above says, I guess I can rip the wide and anamorphic movies to a 720xN resolution and leave the full screen ones at 640x480. The size difference between 720 and 640 was about 30mb for a 1 hour show so I can live with that. As far as the bit rate goes, 2000kbps+ does have a noticable difference on my TV (compared to 1000, 1500) but the size difference does have a big impact. I think 1500 is good enough for both.

For audio, I could hear no difference between 128kbps and 160kbps so for the sake of space I suggest sticking with 128kbps. It would've been nice to know about this possibility earlier since I have already ripped over 40 movies that could've had better resolution, but oh well. I'll just stick to Blu-ray if it's quality I need.

Now if only HandBrake could use the Turbo.264 hardware to speed up encoding times! I could feasibly make two copies of each (one at iPhone res, one at full res and quality) in less time than it takes me now.
 
For iPhone only, I've been using 480 pixels wide in Handbrake (letting it letterbox the vertical to whatever), 2 pass, at 700 Kbps and it looks excellent on the iPhone. Revenge of the Sith looks pristine and the whole movie comes in at 832 MB for 2 hours and 20 minutes. I did a bunch of tests and could see very little difference at that size between 700 Kbps and anything higher, so that's what I'm using. Now Sith is a widescreen movie and has a lot of letterbox area, so if you have something closer to a 4:3 aspect, you might want to bump that up to closer to 1 Mbps to cover the extra pixels.
 
If you're using a Mac, there is a new version of Handbrake (0.9.0) that has presets for the iPhone.
 
I don't get it. Handbrake's iPhone preset has the video at 480 horizontal pixels. Can't the iPhone display alot more than that?

What's the highest quality settings that can be transferred to an iPhone?
 
HiRez said:
For iPhone only, I've been using 480 pixels wide in Handbrake (letting it letterbox the vertical to whatever), 2 pass, at 700 Kbps and it looks excellent on the iPhone. Revenge of the Sith looks pristine and the whole movie comes in at 832 MB for 2 hours and 20 minutes. I did a bunch of tests and could see very little difference at that size between 700 Kbps and anything higher, so that's what I'm using. Now Sith is a widescreen movie and has a lot of letterbox area, so if you have something closer to a 4:3 aspect, you might want to bump that up to closer to 1 Mbps to cover the extra pixels.
Click to expand...

Ah.. yes. I think anything more than that doesn't make a difference on the iPhone because of the screen size limitation.

Thanks.
 
Don Bagles said:
I don't get it. Handbrake's iPhone preset has the video at 480 horizontal pixels. Can't the iPhone display alot more than that?

What's the highest quality settings that can be transferred to an iPhone?
Click to expand...

To quickly answer your question... No, the iPhone's display resolution is 480 x 320... It ends up scaling down files with an input resolution larger than 480 x 320.

There's a difference between display resolution and input resolution.

The iPhone can support H.264 in Baseline Profile up to 1.5 Mbps for 640 x 480 input resolution.

Now, this only refers to the source material... but the DISPLAY resolution of iPhone is actually 480 x 320. Note that the iPod's display resolution is 320 x 240... less than the iPhone. But both support input files that possess a larger resolution.

The reasons for this are twofold:

Zoom function on the iPhone would make pixelation obvious if the input resolution matched the display resolution. i.e. blowing up a 480 x 320 video on a 480 x 320 display will expand the source pixels to the point where they are obvious. 640 x 480 can be rescaled nicely on a 480 x 320 display without much pixelation.

By supporting a higher input resolution, uniform files can be used across multiple devices with varying output resolutions...i.e. one file for AppleTV, iPod and iPhone (in principle).
 
PowerFullMac said:
Theres a good tutorial on ripping DVDs here.
Click to expand...

A couple things I'd add that the tutorial above doesn't mention:


1. Set the bitrate to 1500 Kbps.

2. Import chapter markers. H.264 and iPhone support them, might as well use them.

3. Enable two-pass encoding. You'll get much better clarity, particularly with movies that have a lot of motion and/or abrupt transitions.
 
Avatar74 said:
The iPhone can support H.264 in Baseline Profile up to 1.5 Mbps for 640 x 480 input resolution.
Click to expand...

This is not correct anymore though...it supports up to 720x480...the Bitrate can go as high as 3 (might even be higher, but I never tested past 2.5).
 
Related somewhat:

All this talk about video, what about Audio.

I noticed when I purchase a movie from ITMS the sound is decent I can hear it over the speaker.

When I ripped and converted a film, SQ was terrible and barley audible. The headphones at least let me hear, but again not enough to block out ambient noise.

What are you encoding sound at?
 
Avatar74 said:
To quickly answer your question... No, the iPhone's display resolution is 480 x 320... It ends up scaling down files with an input resolution larger than 480 x 320.

There's a difference between display resolution and input resolution.

The iPhone can support H.264 in Baseline Profile up to 1.5 Mbps for 640 x 480 input resolution.

Now, this only refers to the source material... but the DISPLAY resolution of iPhone is actually 480 x 320. Note that the iPod's display resolution is 320 x 240... less than the iPhone. But both support input files that possess a larger resolution.

The reasons for this are twofold:

Zoom function on the iPhone would make pixelation obvious if the input resolution matched the display resolution. i.e. blowing up a 480 x 320 video on a 480 x 320 display will expand the source pixels to the point where they are obvious. 640 x 480 can be rescaled nicely on a 480 x 320 display without much pixelation.

By supporting a higher input resolution, uniform files can be used across multiple devices with varying output resolutions...i.e. one file for AppleTV, iPod and iPhone (in principle).
Click to expand...

So what's the equivilent of 640x480 in widescreen? I assume the x480 part just get's cropped down depending on the height of the video, and the 640 remains 640?

edit: Although, i'm not intereseted in zooming in on video, because I always want to see the entire horizontal picture. So having the videos at 480 horizontal pixels would just save me space, and I wouldn't see a difference.
 
Avatar74 said:
A couple things I'd add that the tutorial above doesn't mention:


1. Set the bitrate to 1500 Kbps.

2. Import chapter markers. H.264 and iPhone support them, might as well use them.

3. Enable two-pass encoding. You'll get much better clarity, particularly with movies that have a lot of motion and/or abrupt transitions.
Click to expand...

Do you also enable Turbo First Pass?
 
Don Bagles said:
So what's the equivilent of 640x480 in widescreen? I assume the x480 part just get's cropped down depending on the height of the video, and the 640 remains 640?
Click to expand...
Yes. "Widescreen" is kind of ambiguous, as movies in particular will have all sorts of aspects, usually ranging from 1.85:1 to 2.35:1. 16:9 is sort of the accepted general widescreen aspect, and is the exact aspect of HD, but for movies it varies.

edit: Although, i'm not intereseted in zooming in on video, because I always want to see the entire horizontal picture. So having the videos at 480 horizontal pixels would just save me space, and I wouldn't see a difference.
Click to expand...
Right, if you like letterboxing and don't want to zoom in, there is no reason to encode at greater than 480 pixels wide for the iPhone. If you check the Keep Aspect (or similarly-named) box in the settings and set the width to 480, it'll adjust the height to maintain the aspect.
 
converting

Is there a way to take .avi or .divx files and convert them using handbreak?
 
What does 720xN mean. Does the N mean number? I have been using videora to convert my dvds for my iphone but i use the Apple tv profile and up the volume and it seems to work the best. my resolutions are comming out big at over 800 and they still work on the iphone. just wondering how they still work becuase i have use the iphone 3g profile and they do not work.
thanks
 
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