HandBrake

Handbrake does not automatically deal with the iPhone's "rotated" flag. You have to manually set the rotation. And I do not see a way to do that in the graphic interface... You would have to use the command line interface (CLI).

The problem is probably the same:
The decoder apparently doesn't like mono PCM streams.

A copy of the log from an encode would go a LONG way to helping us help you.

Add "2>somelogfilename.txt" to your command line, and post the contents of the file "somelogfilename.txt" in your reply.

Of the listed titles, District 9 has been out for many years (it was the very first BD I bought), and Amazon does not list a more recent release than the original 2009 version; For it to have a "new copy protection" is HIGHLY unlikely. Hancock came out in 2008, and that's the current relea...

The advanced tab is disabled by default because the settings in it are not intended for people who "don't get it". And most of the people who create youtube videos on "how to do things" are in that "don't get it" class. The "best settings" for youtube are to p...

Have you restarted your computer recently? It seems that something has consumed a lot of memory (possibly handbrake), and is not releasing it. You might also want to look at something like MakeMKV, which will convert the BD video to MKV files directly, which then can be fed to handbrake for further ...

There are a lot of subtitle types that are NOT "switchable" using the Apple TV. Your logs will tell us which type you're working with.

I get chastised when I suggest this, and it is outside the scope of support here, but... Try waxing the disk. I use Pledge furniture polish. Spray on lightly, use a CLEAN finger to rub it in until most of the water carrier has flashed off (it gets thicker), then wipe the disk clean with a soft cotto...

Your subtitles are of type PGS, which means they're graphic images. Handbrake overlays the transparent subtitle picture over the frame, so what you see is what was in the source. The disk author put them where they would have the least interference with the scene and good contrast. If you were using...

Recorded video like this often has problems. There are redundant sections to handle drop-outs, but they screw up encoding.

You might want to google "VideoRedo", and try using that to correct the time codes. I understand they have a trial version so you don't have to pay for it to try it.

At the very least, MakeMKV will give you better error messages as to why the rip failed... Which will usually point towards cleaning the disk.

Best quality audio is always going to be from "pass through", if your playback device supports the format. You won't see choices on what to do with pass through because you've already made the only choice - pass it through. The logs will let us see what types of audio you are dealing with,...

Making them NARROWER would be reasonable, but you'll still get some lost detail because of scaling. You could take the values handbrake determines for the autocrop, and adjust them to take, say, 50 or 75 pixels off the top and bottom as well. That level of crop would usually not affect important ele...

True, cropping to 16x9 could be done, but a straight crop like that would really screw up scene composition. That's the job of video editing software.

Question 1: Have you played back the original MKV file, to see if the audio issue is there, as well?

Question 2: Have you tried audio pass-through for the track, assuming the audio is in a format supported by 0.9 handbrake?

If you had posted the logs from one of the encodes, we would know whether you suppressed cropping, but, by default, handbrake DOES crop off the vertical (and horizontal) bars. The player is responsible for putting them back if it needs it to fill the screen and maintain the aspect ratio. Both ST and...

Handbrake, on its own, does not rip protected disks. You can put third-party libraries in place to assist it, but that does not work for all disks , AND certain operating systems have been known to remove those third-party libraries during updates. And the "3PLs" are not supported here on ...

Do you have permission to access the directory you have as your destination?

What happens if you type in a known-valid path, BEFORE you click Browse?

Stream #0:1: Audio: pcm_s16le ([1][0][0][0] / 0x0001), 8000 Hz, 1 channels, s16, 128 kb/s

Handbrake found an audio stream of unknown language. Did you manually select it? Auto selection would have problems with the lack of a language, and no audio is selected for output.

You miss the point - handbrake is a VIDEO ENCODER. As such, it encodes video. There are numerous reasons, which you could have read if you uses the search parameters Rollin provided, that explain why handbrake isn't ffmpeg, and why video pass through is not going to happen.

The log said source was AAC... Which is why I suggested it.

Then you really do not need to specify a bit rate - setting the constant quality to RF=18 or maybe even RF-16 will preserve the detail, at whatever bit rate is needed to do so. When there isn't a lot of motion, you'll see a much lower bit rate. Also, you should set your audio to "AAC pass throu...

Question - Why do you need to limit the bit rate going INTO Adobe Premier? It should be able to handle the full rate on input, which would also give you the best quality to edit.

Well THAT is weird - if disabling Web Optimization, which only affects the "directory" of the MP4 file, "fixed" the bit rate, your tool for telling you the bitrate is broken...

What? Something that wasn't Apple's fault? Outrageous!