What's the best format/resolution for movies on iPad Pro 10.5inch

[TJ82]

Never really knew how this worked. Should you just download the highest quality file for any device, or does it not make a difference between 1080p and 4k?

Started using the iPad Pro 10.5 for a lot of shows and movies recently when on the indoor trainer and started wondering about it..

 

[TheRealAlex]

Never really knew how this worked. Should you just download the highest quality file for any device, or does it not make a difference between 1080p and 4k?

Started using the iPad Pro 10.5 for a lot of shows and movies recently when on the indoor trainer and started wondering about it..

Here’s my Answer. The reason I own an iPad Pro is so I don’t have to think about what Aspect Ratio, or Codec or Resolution or File Format is Best. That’s PC talk and Torrent talk.
iPads are Media consumption entertainment devices. For me Netflix and Amazon Prime Video, And $5.99 New Release Rentals Are Far Superior than my Days Growing Up And Having to Go To BlockBuster Video To Rent a New Release. And also Apple TV 4K HDR just does it all from the comfort of the living room.

 

[sracer]

"best" is relative. It depends upon how you will use those video files. If the files will only be used on the iPad itself, then I tend to go with the lower resolution. Not only will the lower res videos take up less space, they're quicker to download (because they're smaller), and they'll be easier on battery life since the system won't have to work to decode and push the additional pixels to the screen. (granted, hardware acceleration minimizes this overheard, but it still exists).

I use Handbrake to rip my personally owned DVDs to .mp4 files using a slightly modified "iPhone" profile. The resulting video looks fine on my iPad Mini 4, and quite acceptable on my 12.9 Pro. I like that the resulting files are under 1 GB in size.

Having said that, everyone's vision and perception of quality is different. I'd recommend downloading a video at lower resolutions and see how well that looks to you. If that is unacceptable, then try the next step up until you find one that IS.

 

[MrMister111]

I have this similar question about watching bought iTunes films on 10.5".

What version should be downloaded for watching on the iPad screen only? 1080P? 720P HDR/non HDR?

I downloaded a HDR best quality version and it ended up being 8.35Gb which obviously uses a lot of space. As I say these are for offline viewing only on iPad for when I'm away.

 

[HDFan]

1080p is 1920 x 1080
720p is 1280 x 720

The iPad Pro 10.5 screen is 2224 x 1668 pixels.

Having said that, everyone's vision and perception of quality is different

So as stated above, if you can rip a disk via Handbrake or MakeMkv try various resolutions and see what you like/can tolerate size wise.

Once you find your resolution, try the same movie with HDR and without it and decide.

 

[strawberryshortcake]

I have this similar question about watching bought iTunes films on 10.5".

What version should be downloaded for watching on the iPad screen only? 1080P? 720P HDR/non HDR?

I downloaded a HDR best quality version and it ended up being 8.35Gb which obviously uses a lot of space. As I say these are for offline viewing only on iPad for when I'm away.

It depends how close you are to the screen. 1080p will obviously look the best. I haven't really looked into HDR, so I don't have an opinion on that. Would you be able transfer the 8.35Gb file onto your PC or desktop computer to encode the video to a smaller file size if you're concerned about size.

Example... an episode of Frasier (~22 minute) ripped into VOB file from a DVD is about 1.2 GB. Using MeGUI or FFMPEG, I managed to knock it down to about 120mb to 150mb.
Example... Pitch Perfect blu ray is 31.7 GB, encoded/compressed into an mp4 1.7GB file size (I can probably get it down to below 1GB if I re-do the encoding).


MeGUI (free)
https://www.videohelp.com/software/MeGUI

ffmpeg (command line encoder) (free)
https://www.videohelp.com/software/ffmpeg

I had to watch the following video to finally understand how to use ffmpeg. I was actually about to give up on ffmpeg.

The following video was great because he posted a method where I could simply double click on the .bat file to encode any video that I want.

Ffmpeg installation video, this is what helped me. Make sure to scan for virus or whatever.

Yes, I love the Pitch Perfect movies. I have both 1 and 2 on blu ray and still need to pick up the 3rd, despite it not being as enjoyable as the 1st and 2nd. I took a screenshot of the actual Blu Ray file (31.7 GB) and the compressed mp4 file (1.7 GB). This was done using Any Video Converter, but I no longer use it because both free MeGUI and FFMPEG does a better job creating smaller file size with the same quality. You can use the popular free software Handbrake, but from my experience, MeGUI and FFMPEG does an even better job at creating smaller file size than Handbrake. MeGUI and FFMPEG is also much faster as well.



Blu Ray Pitch Perfect 1 31.7 GB size

Compressed video file size 1.7GB ( I can probably get it down to less than 1GB using MeGUI or FFMPEG now if I wanted to).

"best" is relative. It depends upon how you will use those video files. If the files will only be used on the iPad itself, then I tend to go with the lower resolution. Not only will the lower res videos take up less space, they're quicker to download (because they're smaller), and they'll be easier on battery life since the system won't have to work to decode and push the additional pixels to the screen. (granted, hardware acceleration minimizes this overheard, but it still exists).

I use Handbrake to rip my personally owned DVDs to .mp4 files using a slightly modified "iPhone" profile. The resulting video looks fine on my iPad Mini 4, and quite acceptable on my 12.9 Pro. I like that the resulting files are under 1 GB in size.

Having said that, everyone's vision and perception of quality is different. I'd recommend downloading a video at lower resolutions and see how well that looks to you. If that is unacceptable, then try the next step up until you find one that IS.

FYI, try the free program MeGUI if you still rip your own DVDs for portability. I compared the encodings for Handbrake, Vidcoder (a program that's basically handbrake that looks different), and MeGUI and MeGUI was vastly superior. Smaller file size and better quality at the same exact bitrate, and also faster as well. Again, essentially default setting.

...superior in the sense that at the same exact bitrate, default settings, I could still see pixelation on the handbrake/vidcoder encodes compared to MeGUI. Oh yeah, vidcoder (GUI of handbrake) is also better than handbrake for whatever reason. In order to get the same image quality as MeGUI, I had to bump up the bitrate for both handbrake and vidcoder.

 

[MrMister111]

These are bought iTunes movies. So can't recode them.

Only option is SD, HD HDR on/off.

 

[strawberryshortcake]

These are bought iTunes movies. So can't recode them.

Only option is SD, HD HDR on/off.

Are there restrictions on itunes bought movies? Internet general search has conflicting information and I think I've read individuals say they can compress them. I personally don't really believe most of the apple store associate. Years ago I wanted to transfer my complete DVD Friends sitcom onto my Ipad and internet research say I couldn't, apple store associate said I couldn't. After running an internet search for 30 minutes to an hour or so, I finally managed to do so. Now I don't have to keep swapping DVD disk.

 

[augustya]

It depends how close you are to the screen. 1080p will obviously look the best. I haven't really looked into HDR, so I don't have an opinion on that. Would you be able transfer the 8.35Gb file onto your PC or desktop computer to encode the video to a smaller file size if you're concerned about size.

You have mentioned about the File Size, but I guess the OP wants to know what Resolution works out better to watch media on an iPad Pro 10.5" ? size is not the question he is asking ?

I haven't tried 4K Videos on an iPad. I do not even know if the iPad Pro supports that ? But obviously 1080P videos look well but it will all have letter box resolution, meaning dark belts on the top and the bottom of the video.

 

[strawberryshortcake]

You have mentioned about the File Size, but I guess the OP wants to know what Resolution works out better to watch media on an iPad Pro 10.5" ? size is not the question he is asking ?

I haven't tried 4K Videos on an iPad. I do not even know if the iPad Pro supports that ? But obviously 1080P videos look well but it will all have letter box resolution, meaning dark belts on the top and the bottom of the video.

My above lengthy post was more directed at the user MrMister111 because I've come across his post about the itunes purchased 8Gb movie a couple times already. Figured I'd help with his current issue.

The OP's post was back in Dec 2017, almost 5 months ago. I figured the OP figured it out a long time ago, possibly.

 

[mrklaw]

I haven't really spent much time with HDR on ipad. I have sometimes noticed an increase in black level (turning grey) when bringing up the UI during playback, and then settling down when the UI goes away. It should look decent but a lack of brightness combined with LCD, no local dimming, and big black bars top and bottom (even on 16:9 content) would suggest HDR wouldn't be amazing on ipad. Probably still decently better than non HDR of course.

Personally if you're stuck on space just go for the HD non HDR version - 720p isn't a big space saving and would be upscaled a lot. When you're able to dedicate more space or just stream, then go for the HDR.

 

[rui no onna]

I have this similar question about watching bought iTunes films on 10.5".

What version should be downloaded for watching on the iPad screen only? 1080P? 720P HDR/non HDR?

I downloaded a HDR best quality version and it ended up being 8.35Gb which obviously uses a lot of space. As I say these are for offline viewing only on iPad for when I'm away.

I just download 1080p HD. For iTunes bought videos, the 1080p version is not that much bigger than 720p. I tend to prioritize storage space over best quality available.
[doublepost=1524494097][/doublepost]

It depends how close you are to the screen. 1080p will obviously look the best. I haven't really looked into HDR, so I don't have an opinion on that. Would you be able transfer the 8.35Gb file onto your PC or desktop computer to encode the video to a smaller file size if you're concerned about size.

Example... an episode of Frasier (~22 minute) ripped into VOB file from a DVD is about 1.2 GB. Using MeGUI or FFMPEG, I managed to knock it down to about 120mb to 150mb.
Example... Pitch Perfect blu ray is 31.7 GB, encoded/compressed into an mp4 1.7GB file size (I can probably get it down to below 1GB if I re-do the encoding).


MeGUI (free)
https://www.videohelp.com/software/MeGUI

ffmpeg (command line encoder) (free)
https://www.videohelp.com/software/ffmpeg

I had to watch the following video to finally understand how to use ffmpeg. I was actually about to give up on ffmpeg.

The following video was great because he posted a method where I could simply double click on the .bat file to encode any video that I want.

Yes, I love the Pitch Perfect movies. I have both 1 and 2 on blu ray and still need to pick up the 3rd, despite it not being as enjoyable as the 1st and 2nd. I took a screenshot of the actual Blu Ray file (31.7 GB) and the compressed mp4 file (1.7 GB). This was done using Any Video Converter, but I no longer use it because both free MeGUI and FFMPEG does a better job creating smaller file size with the same quality. You can use the popular free software Handbrake, but from my experience, MeGUI and FFMPEG does an even better job at creating smaller file size than Handbrake. MeGUI and FFMPEG is also much faster as well.



Blu Ray Pitch Perfect 1 31.7 GB size

Compressed video file size 1.7GB ( I can probably get it down to less than 1GB using MeGUI or FFMPEG now if I wanted to).

FYI, try the free program MeGUI if you still rip your own DVDs for portability. I compared the encodings for Handbrake, Vidcoder (a program that's basically handbrake that looks different), and MeGUI and MeGUI was vastly superior. Smaller file size and better quality at the same exact bitrate, and also faster as well. Again, essentially default setting.

...superior in the sense that at the same exact bitrate, default settings, I could still see pixelation on the handbrake/vidcoder encodes compared to MeGUI. Oh yeah, vidcoder (GUI of handbrake) is also better than handbrake for whatever reason. In order to get the same image quality as MeGUI, I had to bump up the bitrate for both handbrake and vidcoder.

Curious, how long did encoding down to 1.7GB take and on what hardware?

 

[mrklaw]

Can’t remember last time I timed it, but handbrake should run about 2x real-time so should encode a movie in about an hour. That’s on my i7 desktop. You can Speed it up a lot worth faster encoding at the loss of efficiency/quality.

Tbh I don’t care because I rip a Blu-ray when I get it using makeMKV, then set it going with handbrake and leave it to it. You can set handbrake to shut your PC down when it finishes too.

Then rips get out on my Nas for serving via plex to various devices

 

[augustya]

Handbrake is very efficient, but a huge energy consuming tool !

 

[strawberryshortcake]

I just download 1080p HD. For iTunes bought videos, the 1080p version is not that much bigger than 720p. I tend to prioritize storage space over best quality available.
[doublepost=1524494097][/doublepost]
Curious, how long did encoding down to 1.7GB take and on what hardware?

Specs listed just below. That's what it says when I right click on the icon 'My Computer'.

Processor: Intel Core i5-3330 CPU @ 3.00 GHz 3.20 GHz
Memory: 8.00 GB
System Type: 64 bit Operating System

It took a couple to a few hours, I don't quite recall. The encode was set to around 3000 bitrate at whatever default setting the program had. If I had to do it all over again, I would most likely use CFR instead of bitrate, or if bitrate drop the bitrate down to maybe 1500 or less, and I would probably like to get it down below 1GB.

I really didn't think much about encoding or video editing or gaming at all when I had my PC built. All I wanted at the time was a computer with the capability to record primetime tv when I'm not present at home (hauppauge tv tuner cards x 3).

Use either MeGUI or ffmpeg. Don't use handbrake. Yes, handbrake is popular but definitely not the most efficient. My experience is that MeGUI and ffmpeg does a much better job than handbrake. At default setting at the same bitrate, MeGUI and ffmpeg gave me a smaller file size and better compression quality (less pixelation). If anything use vidcoder instead of handbrake. Vidcoder is basically handbrake wrapped in a different skin, but for whatever reason, vidcoder seems to encode faster.



EDIT: Just wanted to add that I'm using a 55" inch HDTV Sony Bravia TV to compare and contrast the results when I'm editing/encoding. If they look good on the 55" inch, they will probably look good on an ipad.

 

[sparksd]

I rip Blu-Rays at 1080 with video data rate of 5000 kbps and audio at 320 kbps. A 2-hour movie is about a 4.6GB mp4 file. I store them on a 4TB portable hard drive attached to my NAS at home and then use the same drive on travel, either with a FileHub for my 10.5 iPP or with my laptop. I use higher quality rips so I can also view on a hotel TV over HDMI but for the iPad it is overkill.

 

[rui no onna]

Specs listed just below. That's what it says when I right click on the icon 'My Computer'.

Processor: Intel Core i5-3330 CPU @ 3.00 GHz 3.20 GHz
Memory: 8.00 GB
System Type: 64 bit Operating System

It took a couple to a few hours, I don't quite recall. The encode was set to around 3000 bitrate at whatever default setting the program had. If I had to do it all over again, I would most likely use CFR instead of bitrate, or if bitrate drop the bitrate down to maybe 1500 or less, and I would probably like to get it down below 1GB.

I really didn't think much about encoding or video editing or gaming at all when I had my PC built. All I wanted at the time was a computer with the capability to record primetime tv when I'm not present at home (hauppauge tv tuner cards x 3).

Use either MeGUI or ffmpeg. Don't use handbrake. Yes, handbrake is popular but definitely not the most efficient. My experience is that MeGUI and ffmpeg does a much better job than handbrake. At default setting at the same bitrate, MeGUI and ffmpeg gave me a smaller file size and better compression quality (less pixelation). If anything use vidcoder instead of handbrake. Vidcoder is basically handbrake wrapped in a different skin, but for whatever reason, vidcoder seems to encode faster.



EDIT: Just wanted to add that I'm using a 55" inch HDTV Sony Bravia TV to compare and contrast the results when I'm editing/encoding. If they look good on the 55" inch, they will probably look good on an ipad.

Been a while since I encoded something. I use MeGUI/StaxRip or Handbrake depending on the goal. It's not the best quality (Handbrake processes the video in-between decoding and encoding instead of letting ffmpeg handle the entire chain) but if I want something done really fast (sometimes with hard subs), Handbrake + QuickSync is my go to. QuickSync typically encodes faster than real time. In any case, I keep the original Blu-ray rips (yes, at 25-40GB/movie) on my 20TB file server. The originals are what I watch at home while the encodes are only used for mobile.

Maybe at one point, I'll redo encodes in MeGUI/StaxRip but I'm feeling too lazy and too distracted by other things to do it right now.

 

[strawberryshortcake]

Been a while since I encoded something. I use MeGUI/StaxRip or Handbrake depending on the goal. It's not the best quality (Handbrake processes the video in-between decoding and encoding instead of letting ffmpeg handle the entire chain) but if I want something done really fast (sometimes with hard subs), Handbrake + QuickSync is my go to. QuickSync typically encodes faster than real time. In any case, I keep the original Blu-ray rips (yes, at 25-40GB/movie) on my 20TB file server. The originals are what I watch at home while the encodes are only used for mobile.

Maybe at one point, I'll redo encodes in MeGUI/StaxRip but I'm feeling too lazy and too distracted by other things to do it right now.

Point me in the direction of a QuickSync youtube tutorial (I'm a visual learner). I tried StaxRip but didn't really like the user interface. Still prefer MeGUI or FFMPEG at the moment.

 

[walkthruwalls]

Nice thread. On the iPP, one thing I've learned is that HEVC induces local dimming so I avoid that. Everything else seems to be good.

 

[rui no onna]

Point me in the direction of a QuickSync youtube tutorial (I'm a visual learner). I tried StaxRip but didn't really like the user interface. Still prefer MeGUI or FFMPEG at the moment.

Sorry, I don't know of any YouTube tutorials. I rarely go on YouTube and last time I used it was 2016. On Handbrake, I think you just go on the video/codec/encoder tab and select H.264 QuickSync from the dropdown.

Note, QuickSync is far less efficient than ffmpeg/x264 so if quality and small size are your primary goals, you're better off with your current setup. Only reason I'm okay with it is because I have the originals on my file server if I need higher quality.

 

[strawberryshortcake]

Sorry, I don't know of any YouTube tutorials. I rarely go on YouTube and last time I used it was 2016. On Handbrake, I think you just go on the video/codec/encoder tab and select QuickSync from the dropdown.

Note, QuickSync is far less efficient than ffmpeg/x264 so if quality and small size are your primary goals, you're better off with your current setup. Only reason I'm okay with it is because I have the originals on my file server if I need higher quality.

Oh okay. I guess I'll skip the QuickSync though. Do you have any experience with ffmpeg, i'm getting an error trying to test out the NLmeans denoise filter. It says something about filter not found.

 

[rui no onna]

Oh okay. I guess I'll skip the QuickSync though. Do you have any experience with ffmpeg, i'm getting an error trying to test out the NLmeans denoise filter. It says something about filter not found.

I usually just research stuff when I actually need to use them. Last time I messed around with video stuff was 2016. Quick thought, your ffmpeg version might be too old or wasn't compiled with the filter enabled. Or perhaps a missing library/dll (libavfilter)?