New user looking for good DVD conversion settings

[leng]

Hi. I'm just starting to use Handbrake to convert my DVD & DVD-R collection to mkv in order to reduce the size of the thing. I've already ripped most of my DVDs to ISO images using DVDFab so there are no protection issues. My aim is to achieve the best size reduction which does not cause a noticable loss of quality. I'm currently still using an SD CRT tv, but I anticipate moving to HD at some stage in the future.

My problem is that there are so many options in Handbrake that I could die of old age before I figure them all out, especially if I have to experiment with them! So, should I just accept all the defaults or can I do better? Should I use high-profile? Where should I put the Constant Quality slider (or should I specify the bitrate).

And then we come to cropping. Most of my disks are PAL and the non-films tend to be either 4:3 or 16:9 anamorphic. For a 4:3 program the windows version of handbrake offers me a default of strict anamorphic. It recognises the source size but the (greyed out) width/height boxes show 720x560 and the display size is shown as 749x576. Cropping is (greyed out) 10:8:0:0. For a 16:9 the display is shown as 1018:572 with 2:2:2:2 cropping. Setting anamorphic to loose results in display sizes bigger than the normal PAL standard (eg the 4:3 shows up as 769x592). The same 4:3 program with the linux version gives cropping and scaling dimensions of 702x576 and reports the display as 748x576 (aspect ratio 1.3:1). Turning anamorphic off increases the scaling size to 748x576. I understand some of these numbers from the anamorphic guide, but not all (why, for instance, crop left by 10 and not 8 thus leaving a width which is not a multiple of 16). Sorry for that tirade - sometimes I think the designers of this simply wanted to see how many ratios and conversions they could cram in before the users heads exploded. The real question is do I leave anamorphic on strict even for 4:3? Does it give better picture quality than loose for material which was originally 16:9. Should I decide that the technology has left me behind and go back to reading books??

Anyway, thanks in advance for any advice you might offer.

Oh, yes, is it possible to throttle the CPU usage? At 100% on each of 4 cores my machine expires of thermal exhaustion before completing a transcoding. I've currently forced it down to using one core by running handbrake in a VirtualBox but that is a bit extreme. I should probably replace the CPU heatsink but currently I don't have time to do that.

[ascianti]

Strict encodes the video in the exact resolution as the input source, and does not "pad" it with extra data to make it divisible by 16 (and therefore faster to encode). If this does not matter to you, leave it on loose (the default setting for high profile).

You can't throttle the cpu usage that I'm aware of. Instead, you should replace your heatsink (and/or make sure it is making proper contact with your cpu). You can also open the side of your case to let more cool air in, depending on how closed off your case is you might get up to 10 degrees of cooling.

You can stick with the defaults for high profile, if you want smaller file sizes you can bump up the b-frames to 4 or 5 (it almost never uses anything beyond 4), turn motion estimation to uneven multi-hexagon... Leave it on constant quality (it uses whatever bitrate needed to hit a given quality threshold. For RF value, smaller = higher quality). Don't turn it to 100%, you will get a file larger than the input. Instead, leave it as default. If you stick with constant quality, those settings I mentioned just make files smaller at the expense of speed. If you do something like give it a target size or specific bitrate, then turning on more and more settings which boost quality will give you an encode which looks better. Leave it on constant quality.

As for cropping, if you click "custom crop", the radio button below automatic crop, you can specify what cropping you want. The cropping lops off black bars that may be present in the encode which you don't necessarily see when watching the dvd (due to aspect ratio, settings on dvd/tv, etc.), cropping isn't there to make things multiples of 16, it's to get rid of stuff that isn't needed in the encode (and therefore make the file smaller as I understand it).

[leng]

Thanks for the clarifications. Speed is not critical, providing it doesn't take many hours to do each DVD, I just want to retain the perceived visual quality of the DVD but get a sensible size reduction.

I know I'll need to attend to the heat sink eventually - I've got a good third-party unit but I simply haven't had time recently to fit it. Maybe I can make time this weekend. Unfortunately opening the side of the box didn't help. I suppose I could buy a long kvm cable and put the thing outside in the snow ...

[mduell]

Hi. I'm just starting to use Handbrake to convert my DVD & DVD-R collection to mkv in order to reduce the size of the thing. I've already ripped most of my DVDs to ISO images using DVDFab so there are no protection issues. My aim is to achieve the best size reduction which does not cause a noticable loss of quality. I'm currently still using an SD CRT tv, but I anticipate moving to HD at some stage in the future.

What's your playback device that's connected to the TV?

sometimes I think the designers of this simply wanted to see how many ratios and conversions they could cram in before the users heads exploded.

Damn, he figured it out. Handbrake is well enough designed that if you don't understand it, leave it alone and you'll be fine.

[Pnuts]

I am doing the exact same thing (for the most part). Just sticking all of the media on a network drive and using XBMC to play it.
I originally ripped just under half of my DVD collection to ISO's with DVDFab, but quickly ran out of space(tv show seasons will kill ya). Handbrake seems to be my savior in this regard.

I am using the Preset: High Profile with the following changes:
Preset: High Profile
Container: MKV
CQ: 16 (I am still debating of using something else 18? for TV shows.)
Audio: removed AAC (faac) so only AC3 Passthru remains
Subtitles: Add Foreign Audio Search (Bitmap) and Closed Captions (Text), if no CC, I use bitmap, cc just has a cleaner end result via XBMC.

Everything else is the default for High Profile.

I did probably a hundred test encodes (single chapters of various movies) with all kinds of settings, for me, the above simple results, I felt, were the best. To be honest, the differences were so subtle in most of the things I tried, I wasn't even sure I was seeing differences in some cases.

I also read I may need to go to CQ 15 for anime or cartoons, but I haven't encoded to many movies (maybe 10) since I finalized my decision a few nights ago, so I will tackle that once I get there.

-Pnuts

[nightstrm]

I am doing the exact same thing (for the most part). Just sticking all of the media on a network drive and using XBMC to play it.
I originally ripped just under half of my DVD collection to ISO's with DVDFab, but quickly ran out of space(tv show seasons will kill ya). Handbrake seems to be my savior in this regard.

I am using the Preset: High Profile with the following changes:
Preset: High Profile
Container: MKV
CQ: 16 (I am still debating of using something else 18? for TV shows.)
Audio: removed AAC (faac) so only AC3 Passthru remains
Subtitles: Add Foreign Audio Search (Bitmap) and Closed Captions (Text), if no CC, I use bitmap, cc just has a cleaner end result via XBMC.

Everything else is the default for High Profile.

I did probably a hundred test encodes (single chapters of various movies) with all kinds of settings, for me, the above simple results, I felt, were the best. To be honest, the differences were so subtle in most of the things I tried, I wasn't even sure I was seeing differences in some cases.

I also read I may need to go to CQ 15 for anime or cartoons, but I haven't encoded to many movies (maybe 10) since I finalized my decision a few nights ago, so I will tackle that once I get there.

-Pnuts

Your RF values are way too high... you're wasting bits for the sake of wasting bits.

[Pnuts]

Your RF values are way too high... you're wasting bits for the sake of wasting bits.

What do you suggest? Would you advise a different value based on content\type of the Movie or TV Show?

[nightstrm]

Your RF values are way too high... you're wasting bits for the sake of wasting bits.

What do you suggest? Would you advise a different value based on content\type of the Movie or TV Show?

I wouldn't go lower than 19.5 for DVDs and depending on how capable your playback device is, 23-20 for HD content.

You can usually use a higher RF with animated sources, and you'll want to play around with it for noisy/problematic sources such as older movie transfers and concert footage.

[leng]

Hi. I'm just starting to use Handbrake to convert my DVD & DVD-R collection to mkv in order to reduce the size of the thing. I've already ripped most of my DVDs to ISO images using DVDFab so there are no protection issues. My aim is to achieve the best size reduction which does not cause a noticable loss of quality. I'm currently still using an SD CRT tv, but I anticipate moving to HD at some stage in the future.

What's your playback device that's connected to the TV?

I'm using an EVA9150 (netgear) which will play most formats and will upscale for me once I get an HD TV. I hooked it to a friends 60" plasma and the upscaling was more or less indistinguishable from his Oppo device ... much to his disgust.

sometimes I think the designers of this simply wanted to see how many ratios and conversions they could cram in before the users heads exploded.

Damn, he figured it out. Handbrake is well enough designed that if you don't understand it, leave it alone and you'll be fine.

Hehe, I reread that after I had posted and realised it sounded like a dig at handbrake. Actually, I was complaining about the video standards protocol designers. Handbrake just ices the cake

Thanks to everyone else for the comments. Now that I've installed a new CPU cooler I'm in a position to successfully do transcodes in reasonable time so I'll experiment a bit with you suggestions and find something which suits me. For the record, my new Xigmatek cooler keeps the chip below 66 degrees while transcoding my sample (72 minute) program. With the stock cooler the temperature reached 110 (cutoff) in about 7 mins - probably because there was only about 35% coverage with thermal cement.

[Pnuts]

I wouldn't go lower than 19.5 for DVDs and depending on how capable your playback device is, 23-20 for HD content.

You can usually use a higher RF with animated sources, and you'll want to play around with it for noisy/problematic sources such as older movie transfers and concert footage.

Thanks for the info. I did a few test runs at 20 and I couldn't see a difference compared to 16, but had decided on 16 because of suggestions from other threads I read.

Do not have and HD sources yet, but I will keep that in mind if I ever do.

[creamyhorror]

What do you suggest? Would you advise a different value based on content\type of the Movie or TV Show?

I wouldn't go lower than 19.5 for DVDs and depending on how capable your playback device is, 23-20 for HD content.

I use 17-20 depending on the DVD. Below 17 is largely pointless and blows up filesize unnecessarily. I would recommend going below 19.5, though, just for the additional detail preservation, even if you can't see it easily during casual watching.

[Deleted User 18830]

What do you suggest? Would you advise a different value based on content\type of the Movie or TV Show?

I wouldn't go lower than 19.5 for DVDs and depending on how capable your playback device is, 23-20 for HD content.

I use 17-20 depending on the DVD. Below 17 is largely pointless and blows up filesize unnecessarily. I would recommend going below 19.5, though, just for the additional detail preservation, even if you can't see it easily during casual watching.

I used two of the last chapters from The Matrix before deciding, but I found that everything higher than 17 (lower than 66% circa) would show incredibly large visual artifacts (the big square things usually found in the dark): the scene of the last kung-fu battle in the corridor is very dark, and the squares are very easy to spot. Maybe it's not the ideal situation, I don't know, but when I encoded the whole movie at 17 it took only 2GB for 2+ hours: 1GB/hour is something I can very well live with...

On the other hand, Dr. Who's S2E1 (The Christmas Invasion) 59min, encoded with the same settings, eats 1.32GB, which is weird... I need to experiment a little more, I think...

I've read that it's best for animated movies to use higher quality than usual, should 17 be enough or should I go below that?

Thanks...

[creamyhorror]

I used two of the last chapters from The Matrix before deciding, but I found that everything higher than 17 (lower than 66% circa) would show incredibly large visual artifacts (the big square things usually found in the dark): the scene of the last kung-fu battle in the corridor is very dark, and the squares are very easy to spot.

I find this a bit doubtful. Do you have screenshots of these "incredibly large artifacts"? It just seems unlikely that such big artifacts would be present at sub-20 RF values.

Maybe it's not the ideal situation, I don't know, but when I encoded the whole movie at 17 it took only 2GB for 2+ hours: 1GB/hour is something I can very well live with...

Yeah, 1GB/hour is decently high quality.

On the other hand, Dr. Who's S2E1 (The Christmas Invasion) 59min, encoded with the same settings, eats 1.32GB, which is weird... I need to experiment a little more, I think...

Is it grainy and noisy? I've seen one or two old Brit DVDs that take a lot of bitrate because of noise.

I've read that it's best for animated movies to use higher quality than usual, should 17 be enough or should I go below that?

17 is enough. If you find detail is being blurred out you can increase AQ-strength. For very simple, flat animation, higher RF values are fine in my estimation...you'd only be preserving relatively unimportant noise.

[Deleted User 18830]

I find this a bit doubtful. Do you have screenshots of these "incredibly large artifacts"? It just seems unlikely that such big artifacts would be present at sub-20 RF values.

Ok, they're not that large, but at the default High Profile level of RF20, or even at 19, I notice them (while in motion, of course). I just watched again chapters 36 and 37 @ RF20, and the blocks are definitely there; maybe it's not that they're large themselves, but they form distinct areas of a different hue that shrink and grow by big blocks instead of small pixels. For example the last fade to black, before the green terminal appears and you hear Neo's voice in the phone call to the machines, is especially ugly. I tried to capture some screenshots, but by themselves they might lead you to think I'm paranoid; but in motion the moving/shifting blocks and "rough transitions" are quite obvious (at least, they appear so to me).

Is it grainy and noisy? I've seen one or two old Brit DVDs that take a lot of bitrate because of noise.

That's it then, it's a pain to see even on dvd; very often the shapes have a sort of "halo" around them, like an after-image of the edge shifted by just a few pixels (I'm sure there must be a correct name for this sort of thing, but I'm very ignorant). Every episode in that season is full of artifacts like that; it's not that old either (2006) and stranger still, the 1st season was absolutely perfect (relatively speaking).

17 is enough. If you find detail is being blurred out you can increase AQ-strength. For very simple, flat animation, higher RF values are fine in my estimation...you'd only be preserving relatively unimportant noise.

AQ-strength? Sorry, I'm fairly new to all this complicated stuff...

Thanks a lot by the way, you've been very helpful!

Cheers...

[mduell]

I used two of the last chapters from The Matrix before deciding, but I found that everything higher than 17 (lower than 66% circa) would show incredibly large visual artifacts (the big square things usually found in the dark): the scene of the last kung-fu battle in the corridor is very dark, and the squares are very easy to spot.

What'd you use to play it with?

[Deleted User 18830]

What'd you use to play it with?

VLC: I'm on Win64, and will never ever use Windows Media Player or Windows Media Center (I'm an ex Mac user after all...)

XMBC won't install, and I don't know any other application...

Do you think VLC might have playback problems?

[creamyhorror]

VLC might be glitching, as I've heard it does from time to time. The good players include MPC-HC, KMPlayer, and a few others - try one of those.

I tried to capture some screenshots, but by themselves they might lead you to think I'm paranoid; but in motion the moving/shifting blocks and "rough transitions" are quite obvious (at least, they appear so to me).

I'm sure I could get a rough idea of what you're seeing with a few screenshots. At least to identify if it's really the result of low bitrate or actually due to glitchy playback.

That's it then, it's a pain to see even on dvd; very often the shapes have a sort of "halo" around them, like an after-image of the edge shifted by just a few pixels (I'm sure there must be a correct name for this sort of thing, but I'm very ignorant). Every episode in that season is full of artifacts like that; it's not that old either (2006) and stranger still, the 1st season was absolutely perfect (relatively speaking).

Is it a light halo around all edges? That's probably the result of oversharpening, but I'd have to see a screenshot to be sure. Haloing itself doesn't result in high bitrate requirements, but it sure is ugly!

AQ-strength? Sorry, I'm fairly new to all this complicated stuff...

Oh, never mind then. It's an x264 option that you put in the settings line ("aq-strength=1.4" for example). Useful for tweaking the amount of detail retained in 'flat' areas that x264 might otherwise oversmooth/blur out.

[Deleted User 18830]

VLC might be glitching, as I've heard it does from time to time. The good players include MPC-HC, KMPlayer, and a few others - try one of those.

Thanks for the suggestion, I'll try them.

I'm sure I could get a rough idea of what you're seeing with a few screenshots. At least to identify if it's really the result of low bitrate or actually due to glitchy playback.

This is the original DVD, as played on VLC.



This is the same frame, encoded @ RF20. Very ugly, isn't it? Look at the fingers on Neo's neck, and also take a look at his chest, where the light reflects on his shirt.

Let's try again, @ RF16.



Much better, no doubt. Still, if you look at Neo's shirt you'll still see those ugly blocks. It might seem negligible, but if you watch it in motion, the blockish effect is very visible (and ugly) even @ RF16. This is puzzling... Should I go below 16? Wouldn't it be easier, at this point, to simply rip the VIDEO_TS folder? I've just bought a 2TB RAID, but even that would fill up pretty fast...

Coming up next, the Doctor...

[Deleted User 18830]

Doctor Who?

Here are some screenshots from the DVD (S2E1, "The Christmas Invasion").



St. Mickey, with his customary halo...



Mr. MinorCharachterWhoGetsKilledSoon, who apparently suffers from a quantum displacement syndrome, causing him to be in one and a half places at once...



OMG! The Quantum Displacement Syndrome has got them all! Even Prime Minister Harriett Jones and the general with the radioactive-white ribbon on his right shoulder!



Angry alien armed with a quantum displaced sword...



The Doctor wins the duel thanks to his brand new radioactive polymer pajama...

I think I don't need to waste any more bandwidth on this, and the screenshots speak for themselves... Could these visual artifacts be responsible for the oversize MP4 files I get?

[mduell]

I have no idea wtf you're on about, but at 5GB/movie I'd just keep the VOBs.

[Deleted User 11865]

arkeo, all your screen captures look fine, but I think I can see some of what you're saying when opening them in Preview.app and increasing the brightness to the maximum. You need to better calibrate your monitor.