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Best Handbrake rip settings for movies


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Best Handbrake rip settings for movies
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PKIDelirium
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Join Date: Oct 2005
 
2006-12-23, 13:45

I'll be getting a 30GB iPod Video for Christmas, so I'm starting to rip some movies today to load into iTunes, and I'm trying to figure out the best setting...

Right now I'm doing a test rip of Elektra using these settings:

File format: MP4
Codec: H.264/AAC
Quality, target size 700MB

640x272, not deinterlaced.

The quality on the preview looks great, but I'm curious if these are good settings, and if there's a better way?
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rasmits
rams it
 
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Seattle
 
2006-12-23, 14:23

Unless you really want a 700MB file, I'd recommend setting your quality to Constant at 2000 kpbs using MPEG-4 video. (The iPod can technically handle 2500 kbps, but constant doesn't necessarily mean peak) H.264 takes a freaking long time, and it's not really worth it in my opinion.

At MPEG-4, your iPod can handle the full resolution of DVDs as long as the pixel count is 307,200 or lower; (most) widescreen movies end up being 720x400 which is well under. You'll want to double check each time, though.

You can up the audio bitrate to 160 kbps if you want, but it doesn't make much of a diff. I would also choose 2-pass encoding if you've got the time. It takes twice as long, but it doesn't change the file size, and I think it helps.

This will give you the highest quality possible, so watching on your TV or computer will be much more enjoyable. The file sizes are about equal to the movies in the iTunes store, so, a bit over 1GB.

You had me at asl
.......
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PKIDelirium
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Join Date: Oct 2005
 
2006-12-23, 15:24

1GB, geez.

I"m gonna do two test encodes with MPEG-4 now, one with target size 700MB and the other at 2000 bitrate. I'l report back once I have compared the two.
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MBHockey
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Join Date: May 2005
Location: New York
 
2006-12-23, 15:43

I generally do two pass, H.264, avg. bit rate of 3000 kbps. Movies range from 2-3 gb in size. I have 500 GB HD though, so it's fine. I just wanted a slightly smaller way to watch them in front row
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rasmits
rams it
 
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Seattle
 
2006-12-23, 17:03

Quote:
Originally Posted by PKIDelirium View Post
1GB, geez.

I"m gonna do two test encodes with MPEG-4 now, one with target size 700MB and the other at 2000 bitrate. I'l report back once I have compared the two.
The problem with going by target size is it doesn't change the bitrate, which is what matters to the iPod. If you want a smaller file, lower the bitrate to 1000 or 750.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MBHockey View Post
I generally do two pass, H.264, avg. bit rate of 3000 kbps. Movies range from 2-3 gb in size. I have 500 GB HD though, so it's fine. I just wanted a slightly smaller way to watch them in front row
There's no way you can play those on your iPod though.

You had me at asl
.......
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Windowsrookie
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2006-12-23, 17:05

whats wrong with 1GB? unless you have 30GB of music 1GB video's shouldn't be a problem.
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PKIDelirium
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Join Date: Oct 2005
 
2006-12-23, 17:28

The problem is not my iPod. My problem is my hard drive. My music library is on my iBook's 60GB drive. This drive only has 10GB left. I'd like to add a few movies at decent quality and still have some breathing room.
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k squared
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Join Date: May 2004
Location: Verde Amarela
 
2006-12-23, 19:52

Quote:
Originally Posted by PKIDelirium View Post
The problem is not my iPod. My problem is my hard drive. My music library is on my iBook's 60GB drive. This drive only has 10GB left. I'd like to add a few movies at decent quality and still have some breathing room.
Time to get an external HD. Believe me, a few hundred dollars is not much of a pain when it allows you to have a lot of breathing room.
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PKIDelirium
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Join Date: Oct 2005
 
2006-12-23, 19:58

I have an external HD, a 250GB external. But my iTunes library needs to be on my laptop drive, as I don't leave the external on all the time. I might pay to have the internal upgraded here in a couple months.
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MBHockey
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Join Date: May 2005
Location: New York
 
2006-12-23, 20:20

Oh whoops i didn't see the part for your video iPod.

To the OP: For your video iPod, the max bit rate it can handle is 768 kbps...so don't encode above that.
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PKIDelirium
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Join Date: Oct 2005
 
2006-12-23, 20:41



Apple's Tech Spec page for the 5.5G iPod says it can take H.264 up to 1.5Mbps or MPEG-4 up to 2.5Mbps.
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MBHockey
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Join Date: May 2005
Location: New York
 
2006-12-23, 20:43

sorry i assumed you were using a low resolution. Here's the specs:

Quote:
Video formats supported: H.264 video, up to 1.5 Mbps, 640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per sec., Low-Complexity version of the H.264 Baseline Profile with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48 kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats; H.264 video, up to 768 Kbps, 320 by 240 pixels, 30 frames per sec., Baseline Profile up to Level 1.3 with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48 kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats; MPEG-4 video, up to 2.5 Mbps, 640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per sec., Simple Profile with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48 kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats
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PKIDelirium
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Join Date: Oct 2005
 
2006-12-23, 20:52

Yeah, I'll be fine then. I'm ripping with MPEG-4 with it set to target 700MB file size and 640 pixel width, and the quality is the same as the H.264 rip but half the file size, with the bitrate coming out at 980 kbps.
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tomoe
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Join Date: Nov 2006
 
2006-12-23, 21:29

I do two-pass, MPEG-4, and constant bit rate of 1500 kbps. I leave the audio at 128. The movies look fine when viewed ~12 feet away on my iMac screen. But the blacks look a little fucked up.

Seen a man standin' over a dead dog lyin' by the highway in a ditch
He's lookin' down kinda puzzled pokin' that dog with a stick
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PKIDelirium
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2006-12-23, 21:53



Top is MPEG-4 at 700MB and 981kbps bitrate. Bottom is H.264 at 1.65GB and 1000kbps bitrate. Pretty much identical, so I'm going with the settings for the top one.
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MBHockey
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Join Date: May 2005
Location: New York
 
2006-12-23, 23:40

Isn't H.264 supposed to give you better picture at the same file size as mpeg4? So shouldn't H.264 at twice the file size look MUCH better?

Are you sure the first one isn't the H.264 encode?
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PKIDelirium
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2006-12-23, 23:51

Positive...

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turtle
Lord of the Rant.
Formerly turtle2472
 
Join Date: Mar 2005
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2006-12-24, 06:35

Quote:
Originally Posted by PKIDelirium View Post


Top is MPEG-4 at 700MB and 981kbps bitrate. Bottom is H.264 at 1.65GB and 1000kbps bitrate. Pretty much identical, so I'm going with the settings for the top one.
Maybe it's my eyes, but the shadows have more details in the bottom image. Look at her ear and her cheek in the shadow area. While this isn't a big deal here in this movie, in some it will make a big difference.

Louis L'Amour, “To make democracy work, we must be a nation of participants, not simply observers. One who does not vote has no right to complain.”
Visit our archived Minecraft world! | Maybe someday I'll proof read, until then deal with it.
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chucker
 
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2006-12-24, 06:42

Quote:
Originally Posted by PKIDelirium View Post
Top is MPEG-4 at 700MB and 981kbps bitrate. Bottom is H.264 at 1.65GB and 1000kbps bitrate.
Something's off here. If the bitrate's less than 2% higher, the file size isn't gonna be 2.35 times as much.
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PKIDelirium
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2006-12-24, 12:03

Quote:
Originally Posted by turtle2472 View Post
Maybe it's my eyes, but the shadows have more details in the bottom image. Look at her ear and her cheek in the shadow area. While this isn't a big deal here in this movie, in some it will make a big difference.
Yeah, there is a very slight difference in shadow detail, but I'm not incredibly picky about it. I just finished two other movies and they look fine too.

Quote:
Originally Posted by chucker View Post
Something's off here. If the bitrate's less than 2% higher, the file size isn't gonna be 2.35 times as much.
Whoops. That was supposed to say 2000kbps.

While I've found now I can get near-same quality MPEG-4 or H.264, H.264 takes a LOT longer to encode, so MPEG-4 gets the win here.
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doublem9876
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2006-12-24, 17:30

I always use MPEG-4
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Eugene
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Join Date: May 2004
Location: Hillsborough, CA
 
2006-12-24, 22:21

Both stills are already very high quality. In motion, you wouldn't be able to distinguish between a sequence of frames like that. There is some macro-blocking around the medicine cabinet and on her neck in the MPEG-4 version, but there's a couple of reasons why they look almost the same.

Handbrake uses x264 for H.264 encoding and XviD for MPEG-4. XviD is the most widely used and mature open-source codec out there.

1000 kbps is overkill for either scene. There is likely very little camera movement in this scene, so it has a miniscule data rate requirement. Action scenes would be more telling.

http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~ceugene/KTVU-newsclip.mov

This is a 2000 kbps clip of the local news at 960x544 res, 30 fps. The shots at the gas station were taken with a standard def camera so they don't look as good. The artifacts around the gas prices graphic were present in the source unfortunately. Anyway, that was using Apple's compressor...it would probably look better in x264.

What I really want is for Handbrake to easily process regular MPEG-2 transport streams. ffmpegX and similar are terrible.
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Eugene
careful with axes
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Hillsborough, CA
 
2006-12-25, 07:54

http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~ceugene...x264plugin.mov

1000 kbps video with x264 via a QuickTime plugin. A little buggy, there's a feint line at the bottom, but otherwise I'd be hard-pressed to distinguish between this one and my earlier sample. If you really scrutinize the frames, you'll find the 1000 kbps sample flattens some textures like the black jackets of the man and woman at the pump. The Apple H.264 sample has obvious artifacting in scene changes.

This movie has 3x the pixels as the Elektra sample.

Last edited by Eugene : 2006-12-25 at 08:06.
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