Finest Rip

[bryancy]

I am relatively new to handbrake and would like to rip some of my dvd's at the absolute highest quality possible. The movies will be stored on hard drives and played on a computer. file size and time to rip are not an issue: the best quality is the goal. On my initial settings I noticed some artifacting...

If it is possible to give advice on all the parameters that I should set for
1. Format (MP4, MKV, AVI, OGM)
2. Codec (ffmpeg, xvid, h.264)
3. Quality (target, average, constant? 62%)
4. Picture Settings
5. The Advanced Settings
6. Any thing else I might have missed ...

It would be nice if the resulting file played in Quicktime or DVD player, i.e. standard Mac software, but willing to entertain other software if it works as well.

Thanks_ I'm sure this simple but vital info will be useful to many!

[kryten2001]

Hey mate.

This is a rather difficult question to answer, but I'll give it a crack for you. (And I'm assuming you want to convert to a single playable file - not ripping/reduplicating DVD's - that's not really what HB is for)....

It all depends on what you want to do with the output, really. If you want something to play back onto a large TV, you will need to pick a method of encoding which is friendly to large screens, as well as the devices you're likely to want to play the video back on. You won't be using a DVD player, you'll be using (most likely) either an AppleTV, a PVR type device, or maybe even a media centre.

The only reason (from my experience) that you need to figure this part out - is because it may determine what container (MKV, M4V/MP4) etc that you select. MKVs won't play on some devices, but will on others..

Anyway, containers aside (you pick one for whatever device you want to use to play it back - MKVs work fine on most PVRs but not too great on ATVs - if you're using a media centre it's not so important), you then want a really hot encode.

From my testing, the best encodes are H.264s at 2500kbs for SD video, or 5000+kbps for HD. If you want 1080P, then you're looking at something around 7500-10000.

If it's DVD's though, it's all standard def stuff..

So after you've picked a suitable container, I generally use the following settings for optimum output (again, this is for my needs, this works great on an ATV)..

Video Bitrate - 2500
Anamorphic - strict, if it's an anamorphic video
framerate - same as source
Decomb - default
Audio - I use AAC/stereo on track one, and AC3 passthru on track 2.. Watch this one, as your hardware may not allow it. This is outside the MP4 standard, I understand.
Then in advanced, under deblocking (from memory), I usually set that to -2,-2.

That makes for a very pretty encode. Spews out approx 2GB files for most movies. You shouldn't be able to discern that from playing the regular DVD, even on the largest of monitors (I use a 47" Samsung and it looks fantastic).

Decomb will be the killer as far as encode speeds go, but from my experience it's very important, and produces far sharper outputs than going with a blunt deinterlace.

Files encoded like this (again this is my opinion) are pretty much good enough to be considered archival quality - pretty much as good as the source, at least to my eye.

Good luck with it.

[hunterk]

I noticed that kryten2001 didn't mention any advanced x264 options. I recommend you utilize these options to get the highest quality out of a given bitrate when using x264. The apple TV preset has a pretty good smattering of options that will be high-quality without sacrificing compatibility.

Also, a note about the deblocking filter: negative numbers are essentially like running a photoshop sharpening filter on the image, so the higher the negative number, the more likely you are to create artifacts out of nothing. On the flip side, using a positive value is like a smoothing filter and it will flatten out details (I use positive values on animation sometimes, but never on live action; I usually stick with 0,0 for most encodes but YMMV).

I recommend doing some research on the handbrake wiki and doing some test encodes to find what works for you, since video encoding is necessarily a subjective science.

[dynaflash]

I would not recommend abr (average bitrate) us constant quality. Deciding on an average bitrate is crazy as the required bitrate for any given source to achieve consistent quality varies wildly. That is what constant quality is all about and why it is used for the appleTV and universal preset.

As well, read up on the x264 options.

[bryancy]

Thanks for the previous recommendations.

Just to clarify: I will be playing the movies out of a laptop onto an apple cinema 30" with 2560 x 1600 resolution (I might use a projector in the future. I don't own a tv.

So, is the apple tv preset still the best for my set up?

Should not use mkv but stick with the mp4 container then?

Is there any harm or downside to using a very high constant bitrate, other than time?

And about those h264 options: what should I watch out for?

I really do appreciate the comments here - they are so helpful even though I have looked over the wiki and manual, they don't put it all together for me like someone who has gone through the gauntlet of options like I might not be able to do.

[hunterk]

The Apple TV setting is still a good jump-off regardless of the resolution you'll ultimately playback at. IIRC, that preset doesn't affect the resolution of the file (i.e., no down-rezzing), but that might be something to confirm on your own, just to be safe.

The x264 options included in that preset will ensure compatibility with Quicktime, which is going to be a major concern if that's what you use for playback. Some things you definitely want to avoid are too many B-frames (Quicktime can only handle around 5 max), no pyramidal B-frames, and watch out for 8x8DCT and no-DCT-decimate, as those can sometimes be problematic in my experience.

The m4v container is what I use because it will allow for AC3 passthru along with an mix-down AAC audio track, while standard mp4 won't work with those together (of note, the containers are EXACTLY the same except for the extension; you can even rename an mp4 to m4v if needed for compatibility). Mkv support is available for Quicktime through the Perian plugin, I believe, but it has to load the entire file before it will start playing, which can be a real inconvenience.

VLC is much better for mkv and advanced x254 options, so I recommend it over Quicktime whenever possible. However, it still couldn't handle pyramidal b-frames and didn't like mkv on my (admittedly old) macs, so...

A high constant bitrate is what you want (as high as you're comfortable with filesize), except there's no point going beyond 59%. The codec is designed to produce a quality-transparent encoding at 59% and any higher is simply a waste of bits. NEVER go 100%, even though it may seem like a good idea. It's not.

[dynaflash]

A couple points of clarification:

IIRC, that preset doesn't affect the resolution of the file (i.e., no down-rezzing), but that might be something to confirm on your own, just to be safe.

The atv preset will downscale anything above 540p as that is the max resolution the device can handle at 29.967 fps.

Some things you definitely want to avoid are too many B-frames (Quicktime can only handle around 5 max), no pyramidal B-frames, and watch out for 8x8DCT and no-DCT-decimate, as those can sometimes be problematic in my experience.

I use 8x8DCT on all of my atv encodes and they work fine. since the atv uses qt on a very minimal system, I would be surprised if qt on a mac would have issues.

A high constant bitrate is what you want (as high as you're comfortable with filesize), except there's no point going beyond 59%. The codec is designed to produce a quality-transparent encoding at 59% and any higher is simply a waste of bits. NEVER go 100%, even though it may seem like a good idea. It's not.

True, however for accuracy sake by definition constant quality is not a constant bitrate. it is variable and only allocates the bitrate required to achieve a given perceived quality. From heavy testing it appears 62% is the tranparency ceiling for sd dvd's. while the preset 59% is extremely close at a lower bitrate/file size. some comparison there to see if the extra bitrate is worth the quality would be worth it for the individual user.

[Deleted User 11865]

Also, I use b-pyramid in all my encodes and it doesn't seem to affect QuickTime playback at all, as far as I can see.

[hunterk]

Dynaflash, thanks for the clarification on the down-rezzing.

Yeah, it's very possible some things have changed since I last tested (1+ yr ago), and my macs were pretty old (1.5ghz powerbook and first-gen macbook) so it's not really surprising that they would have had decoding problems that newer models don't. This would also make sense regarding my experience with pyramidal b-frames in VLC However, if the apple tv can handle pyramidal b-frames, maybe something else was afoot...

The one thing to learn from my posts: YMMV

[bryancy]

allright, some great responses. This is the type of comparative and dense info one doesn't get by reading the faq's, only by pain and suffering and experience. Thanks for sharing. Now If I can only out what the heck 8x8 dct is!

Bryan

[dynaflash]

However, if the apple tv can handle pyramidal b-frames, maybe something else was afoot...

The Atv cannot handle b-pyramid afaik.

[samj]

Dynaflash, thanks for your responses. Much appreciated.

Regarding your current advanced string for ATV:

ref=3:mixed-refs=1:bframes=3:me=umh:subq=7:b-adapt=2:8x8dct=1
62% crf
ATV preset, then paste the above string
decomb - on
detelecine - on


You mentioned something about using the dev snapshot:
Is it necessary to use the dev snapshot of Handbrake or can I still use 0.9.3 with this string?

If it's better to use the dev snapshot - any tips on finding it?

You also mentioned to turn on decomb and detelecine? - Under decomb there is default and custom - which do you prefer?

You also said to turn on decomb since I'm converting TV Show DVD's - would you leave this on for movie DVD's too?

Just trying to find a general 'go to' setting that I can reliably use for my ATV.

Thanks again.

[TedJ]

You can certainly use those settings with 0.9.3 if you want to, but I do recommend using the snapshot - the current versions of libx264 (responsible for H264 encoding) have received many quality and performance tweaks since the version bundled with HB 0.9.3 last November. My own testing using similar advanced settings suggests the current code is ~15% faster than the last release. As to finding it, there's an announcement for the snapshot at the top of each forum page, or you can download it here.

Regarding decomb, while you can spend time tweaking it for your own requirements, I find the default settings give good results with the vast majority of sources I've tried it with over the last 12 months. I would happily leave both detelecine and decomb on for all encodes - they're rather smart and shouldn't modify any frames they don't need to.

[samj]

Thanks so much for the info - I'll give it a try and report back.

[samj]

Quick question -

Using the Dev snapshot - when setting the constant quality to 62 - do you prefer 62.25 or 61.76?

In this version, you can't just select 62 even.

Thanks,

Sam

[TedJ]

Either should be good.

We're hoping to get people away from the percentage scale since it was a little misleading - the RF factor is the important value...

[samj]

Do you have optimal settings you've found for the iPhone?

How about for the Sony PSP?

Thanks!