Newb Questions

[Trachr]

Hi I have a couple basic questions on using handbrake... I am in the process of backing up my bluray library and adding it to a Plex home Server... my general goal is to try to keep them under 5 GB while maintaining good quality


1st a question on settings, kind of a multipart question

From what Im seeing H.265 is the codec of the future, and as it seems like all my TVs and such handle it just fine and my dedicated computer for my plex server seems to transcode it ok for my needs...maybe 2 videos running the same time, TOPS 3...but the VAST majority of the time just 1 I went ahead and picked .265... here are the settings from handbrake:

I encode it into a MKV Container, My source comes from MKVs I ripped from a bluray using MakeMKV

Picture: I left that whole tab alone since Id end up making things worse

Filters: Same as Picture

Video: Codec H.265, Quality: Constant RF 20, Framerate 30 Constant, I did not do turbo first or 2 pass encoding since again unsure and would probably screw things up, Optimse Video: I go with medium speed, Encoder Tune None, No Fast Decode, Auto for profile, and Auto for Encoder Level

Audio Tab I have No clue what Im doing so I just go for the english track and do Auto Passthru for codec

Subtitles: I have issues here cause PLex hates my subtitles so Ive ended up picking the main subtitle and adding it then if theres a foreign Translation track I add that as well... Ive ended up checking burn in for this (Ive tried default which works great in VLC but plex absolutely refuses to show those by default even if I mess with the server settings)
I havent tried Forign audio scan or forced only cause I am skeptical on how well that would work.

Chapters tab: I leave it alone

So question number 1.... do those settings look good? is there something I should tweak to get better results.. From what Ive seen so far things have done ok except as I mentioned with subtitles... Ive came across 2 movies Ive encoded that have weird scenes here and there... like I occasionally see a negative image of the scene... its never the full movie and only lasts for a few seconds which is annoying cause its hard to find out if the movie has those without watching the whole damn thing lol

Question Number 2: Slow Computers... I have a couple older computers that dont do anything because they are outdated and slow... is it possible to use these for handbrake encoding, Assuming Time is not a factor in encoding... well Id prefer it under a day or 2 lol but within reason time would not be a factor if I use those computers.

Question Number 3: Multitasking... I sometimes play games, do work, and really whatever else strikes my fancy while I am encoding on my main computer... will this screw up my encodes somewhat? Is that possibly a reason that a few of my movies go wonky as mentioned in Question Number 1, That is my current theory and why I am asking question number 2 Cause having my main PC tied up for hours on end will get annoying if I cant use it..

Thanks

[rollin_eng]

Could you please post your logs, instructions can be found here:

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=31236

[mduell]

Constant framerate is a bad idea.

You can run encodes on your older computers. There's no integrated support for distributing jobs, you'd have to run HB on each yourself.

No, multitasking is fine, it won't mess up the encodes.

[Trachr]

Sure, heres the log: https://pastebin.com/gYKLqmuP

I had thought since I was asking general questions I wouldn't need one ... as far as I know none of these have the weird negative image thing. The problem is I usually dont know I have that problem till a month later when I get around to watching it Spot checking movies rarely show me the problem since its only for one or 2 scenes at a time and only like 3 or 4 times throughout the whole movie.

As for the constant framerate being a bad idea, may I ask why? I'll switch it that is not a problem, I just figure its good to know the whys as well

Do the rest of my settings look ok? I wont run into problems sometime in audio for doing auto passthru?

Thanks again

[Woodstock]

If you do audio pass through, the only "problem" is if your playback device doesn't support that audio encoding.

As for the logs, if you don't show us what you're doing, we can't say if it is good or bad...

[mduell]

As for the constant framerate being a bad idea, may I ask why?

When your source isn't 30fps and constant frame rate, which most sources are not, you'll have frame doubling making for jerky motion.

[Deleted User 13735]

Constant framerate "same as source" should be fine and in many cases (older media players, external applications, is necessary.

[mduell]

Only with broken legacy [Censored].

[Deleted User 13735]

Nope--with 2017, high$$$ nonlinear Windows editors - - no [Censored].

[Deleted User 13735]

In fact, HB is one preferred route for converting iPhone .mov [Censored] to cfr mp4 for editing and production.

[mduell]

Nope--with 2017, high$$$ nonlinear Windows editors - - no [Censored].

All broken, all based on legacy [Censored].

[Deleted User 13735]

Thx for sharing x2.

[Deleted User 11865]

99% of Blu-rays out there are true CFR anyway, so same as source VFR is more than fine for BD. DVD is another story.

[Trachr]

If I just click on same as source that should be fine right? then I dont need to worry since it will be the same as, surprisingly enough, the source.

Also, what do you guys usually do for your sound settings if its being played in a home media server setting such as plex? I have come across the occasional problem where sound is really low, to the point of having to max out the TV to hear it. So far this has presented itself mostly on a firestick which I figured had to be a problem with the plex app on said firestick.

I haven't really looked to see if it was DTS or AAC on all of them but the latest movie that presented this problem was in DTS 5.1 I did an auto passthru, So Im curious if DTS is in general a problem? or is it just plex being plex and no good way to prevent this from happening in the future, Hell I could theoretically just add a second track, one that does autopassthru and one that converts it to AAC.. would add size to the file but it would be a good way to test it.... so unless any of you know whats going on there I probably will do that to test the various codecs


I also have come up with a new question, related to subtitles...

As I mentioned before I have issues with plex behaving when it comes to subtitles... I was doing a subtitle that was foreign parts only and a full subtitle track then would open the completed file in MKVtoolnix and make sure the foreign parts were forced as well as the default track... sometimes this worked but more often than not plex would utterly ignore my suggestions and do its own damn thing.

I initially tried to combat this by burning in the foreign tracks... which works great... up until you decide you want the full subtitle track to go. Then you get double subtitles.... irritating

So, now, as of today I started trying my next way of dealing with this infuriating problem. I am mkvextract to extract the subtitles from the original ripped mkv, I then open them subtitle edit so I can see them.

I then had the option of converting them to .srts but I found that takes entirely too much correcting since the program gets a lot of the stuff wrong and needs me to manually correct spelling and lots of other stuff so I decided to use these 2 files to mainly see how many subtitles there are suppose to be, as well as times and such.

I then go to subscene and download a full subtitle srt for the movie and quickly compare it to the .sup that I ripped from the mkv... mainly to make sure the srt I downloaded wasnt crap and completely off on times and such. I then open up the foreign translation .sup and manually look at what is said in those lines and the times, then go to the .srt and delete said lines from the file.

Then after this is done I go to handbrake and import the srt, along with adding the foreign translation track that is in the mkv and select burn on that one. So in theory I will have a movie that will always have the foreign parts translated but wont have double translations every time I want to enable subtitles for the rest of the movie.

So my new question is simple... is this really the best way to go about what I want? Other than giving up on plex its the only way I have thought up to make sure I dont have to fiddle with subtitles every time I want to watch a movie that has foreign dialogue in it.

Thanks again

[Deleted User 13735]

The current majority of phone and portable footage is vfr. FCPX handles it. Except for Varicam format, Windows editors, including Adobe Premiere, Magix Vegas, Avid Media Composer, and Edius struggle or choke on it.

There is a difference between the way players decode interframe source in realtime, and the way NLEs must unpack to raw bits in a time structure for frame editing, and this has been discussed ad nauseum on this forum.

Apple, in its isolationist sanctimony, has chosen to leave its Windows libraries, qt32lib.dll, virtually untouched for nearly a decade, and Windows developers operating under commercial license are unable to use them with any reliability since about iPhone 4. Writing new commercial libraries that do not violate iTunes patents is daunting, as is using open source decoders in concert with commercially licensed codecs in the same application. It will eventually be done.

So the only component worthy of the highly articulate "legacy sh**" designation are the QuickTime for Windows 32 bit decode libraries, not the high end NLEs that are stuck with them.

Meanwhile, Handbrake continues to do a bang-up job of transcoding to edit-friendly format.