the handbrake thread made my head spin

[CultHero]

All I am trying to do is get my dvd collection ripped so when I do get an Apple TV they will be formatted to watch on my 42 inch plasma.

All I am doing is selecting Apple Tv in the preset under handbrake as it gives me the highest bit rate. What else should I be doing? I get wrapped around the axle when the talk moves towards anamorphic etc.

Is there anything else I should know????

 

[Cave Man]

I use the ATV preset in 0.9.2 with one mod - 2-pass encode. I saved this as its own preset. All's good to go with that.

 

[woolyback]

Does the 2-pass encode make that much of a difference in terms of quality ? I've just started ripping all my DVDs to my AppleTV and don't want to have to go back and do them again - but I will if it makes that much difference...

 

[Cave Man]

Yes, it does, particularly in scenes with a lot of changes between frames.

 

[bacaramac]

If your not worried about space!!

My custom settings in Handbrake:

Base Setting = iPod High-Rez
Changes = 70% Constant Rate, No iPod Atom, Audio 160kbps, Codecs AVC/H.264 Video AAC+AC3 5.1, Strict Anamorhpic, 64Bit (Only if movie ends up greater then 4Gb), and Remove "":vbv-maxrate=1500:vbv-bufsize=2000" from advanced settings.

My Devices: Quicktime, iTunes 7.7, iPhone 2.0.1, ATV 2.1.

Notes:
1.) If you want smaller files, reduce the constant rate to 65% or so.
2.) These settings may drop frames on iPod 5.5G.
3.) This gives me DVD quality that play on all my devices.

 

[CultHero]

okay thanks. It does seem that the apple TV setting will work just fine.

One last question, I just ripped two movies, the first one being a one hour documentary and the second one being Deer Hunter at three hours long. The first one took about two hours to rip with two pass, Deer Hunter about 4 hours and then the file was not recognizable and just disappeared.

How many rips are buggy? It seems to be taking a while and anything I can do to eliminate a bad rip would be useful.

Thanks

 

[woolyback]

Righty-oh then, 2-pass encode it is then.

Don't think space is a major problem (yet) as I got the 160Gb version and will be able to stream the non-frequently watched stuff from an external drive as and when required.

Thanks for that.

 

[bacaramac]

okay thanks. It does seem that the apple TV setting will work just fine.

One last question, I just ripped two movies, the first one being a one hour documentary and the second one being Deer Hunter at three hours long. The first one took about two hours to rip with two pass, Deer Hunter about 4 hours and then the file was not recognizable and just disappeared.

How many rips are buggy? It seems to be taking a while and anything I can do to eliminate a bad rip would be useful.

Thanks

I have never had a buggy rip that was software related. It is always the source or user error. On the second movie that you had issues with, it is probably going over 4Gb and that is an issue with 32 bit encodes (4Gb limit). You will need to select 64Bit if size is causing the problem.

If it is not the size, it is probably the source and you may need to extract it via another software MacTheRipper (MAC) or AnyDVD (Windows).

 

[CultHero]

okay, yea it was over 4 gig. Where do I select 64 bit? I am sorry for all the questions, I just can't seem to find the option for that!

 

[bacaramac]

okay, yea it was over 4 gig. Where do I select 64 bit? I am sorry for all the questions, I just can't seem to find the option for that!

I am not at home right now, but it should be under prefrences as selected from the menu bar under "HandBrake". Select this checkbox and it should put a 64Bit option on the Handbrake Interface. Personally I like Constant Rate vs. Average Bit Rate. It should be a quicker encode and still give you awesome picture quality if not better IMO. Sometimes it even gives me smaller file sizes.

EDIT: If you are planning on putting movies on any other devices besides Apple TV, I recommend not using the ATV setting as it is incompatible with iPhones, iPod Touch, iPods, etc. Also, 64Bit does not work on 5.5g iPods (and maybe even current gen iPod Classics). If you decide to use other devices down the road you will have to encode movies again.

 

[gnasher729]

All I am trying to do is get my dvd collection ripped so when I do get an Apple TV they will be formatted to watch on my 42 inch plasma.

All I am doing is selecting Apple Tv in the preset under handbrake as it gives me the highest bit rate. What else should I be doing? I get wrapped around the axle when the talk moves towards anamorphic etc.

Is there anything else I should know????

You don't have to understand what "anamorphic" means, just turn it on (Try first with a short segment whether it works or not, just in case). You get smaller files at same quality or higher quality at same file size that way.

The next important thing is "de-interlacing". If your DVDs come from a TV show, turn it on. If you have movies on DVD, turn it off. If you are not sure: Look at the ten preview images that handbrake shows you. Check if you have jagged edges in scenes with motion. If that is the case, turn de-interlacing on; the second quality is fine. If you don't have it, turn de-interlacing off. You have to check this one; setting it the wrong way will reduce quality.

You get the best quality by using h.264, two pass. That also takes longest. Remember, your Mac doesn't get tired. Doesn't hurt it at all to encode movies for two weeks in a row.

Then before you start, I recommend you experiment a bit to see what quality you are happy with with short scenes instead of complete movies. Better spending an hour or two trying out things then compressing 50 DVDs and being unhappy with the results afterwards.

Next thing before you get going: Get Mac The Ripper. This one is real important when you do a whole DVD collection. Mac The Ripper just sucks the DVD onto your hard drive, so you can get quite a few DVDs on your Mac in an evening. Once that is done, you can start Handbrake and tell it to convert all those DVDs, one after the other. That can take a long time, but you won't have to swap DVDs anymore, so it can run overnight or while you're at work.

 

[61132]

The appletv preset is great in handbrake. I made a couple changes to it for full length movies though. 3000kbps, and 2 pass encodes. For tv series I do single pass encodes at 2500 kbps (the appletv preset)

 

[gnasher729]

One last question, I just ripped two movies, the first one being a one hour documentary and the second one being Deer Hunter at three hours long. The first one took about two hours to rip with two pass, Deer Hunter about 4 hours and then the file was not recognizable and just disappeared.

Just reading this: 1. Documentaries are often TV material; check whether you need deinterlacing. 2. Many DVDs are hard to read; Mac The Ripper is better at reading them.

Many DVDs intentionally contain some amount of garbage, so you have to check things a bit. For example, I have one DVD that claims it has the main feature three times, with 100 minutes, 120 minutes and 140 minutes length. Turned out the first one was the real film; the second and third were the real film with random bits repeated at the end.

 

[AliensAreFuzzy]

The next important thing is "de-interlacing". If your DVDs come from a TV show, turn it on. If you have movies on DVD, turn it off. If you are not sure: Look at the ten preview images that handbrake shows you. Check if you have jagged edges in scenes with motion. If that is the case, turn de-interlacing on; the second quality is fine. If you don't have it, turn de-interlacing off. You have to check this one; setting it the wrong way will reduce quality.

That's not always true. A lot of time, interlacing can be taken care of by turning on detelecine, with much better results.

 

[CultHero]

thanks for all the help. This is great. I have turned on the 64 bit rate, it was under the preference pane, but now it says that it will not be compatible with streaming to the Apple TV from iTunes.

This doesn't seem right to me. Am I missing something.

 

[bacaramac]

thanks for all the help. This is great. I have turned on the 64 bit rate, it was under the preference pane, but now it says that it will not be compatible with streaming to the Apple TV from iTunes.

This doesn't seem right to me. Am I missing something.

Apple TV now supports 64Bit since 2.0 I think.

 

[dynaflash]

thanks for all the help. This is great. I have turned on the 64 bit rate, it was under the preference pane, but now it says that it will not be compatible with streaming to the Apple TV from iTunes.

This doesn't seem right to me. Am I missing something.

Nah, I missed something when I a) let 0.9.2 out the door without removing that old tooltip (was true of atv 1.xxx) . And b.) kept the pref to enable/disable that checkbox kind of hidden.

imho 3000 kbps is a bit high for most material. 2500 should be almost transparent to most sources.

1 vs. 2 pass difference in quality will vary from source to source. Its just a matter of encoding time.