Poor Quality on Apple TV

[jsunnb]

I just updated my handbrake to the 9.4 build (32bit) and copied two new dvds to my itunes on my imac. They play completely fine on my imac, exact quality as I would expect. But when streaming them to my apple tv via itunes the video quality is extremely poor. The video keeps breaking up into huge pixels, the color goes off and on, and whats weird is I'm only experiencing this problem with the two videos I ripped after updating handbrake, and only on the apple tv. I used the apple tv legacy setting without any changes like always. Does anybody have any clue as to what might be different or settings that many need to be changed? I'm currently trying to copy the movies so that they are stored on the apple tv to see if it makes any difference, but that space is limited and I'd like to be able to stream them as before I updated handbrake.

[Deleted User 11865]

AppleTV Legacy preset has not been updated for 0.9.4. Use the AppleTV preset instead.

[jsunnb]

AppleTV Legacy preset has not been updated for 0.9.4. Use the AppleTV preset instead.

I'll try that out and report on my findings. Also, I tried copying the video to the apple tv's hard drive and still experience the poor video quality.

[Deleted User 11865]

AppleTV Legacy preset has not been updated for 0.9.4. Use the AppleTV preset instead.

I'll try that out and report on my findings. Also, I tried copying the video to the apple tv's hard drive and still experience the poor video quality.

AppleTV Legacy preset is broken on ATV. Whether you sync or stream has no effect.

[jsunnb]

This is correct, the Legacy did not work, but the regular Apple TV preset still works fine

[TedJ]

If you simply must use the aTV Legacy preset, add "weightp=0" to the string on the x264 advanced options tab.

Personally, I don't think it's worth the effort - the legacy preset is a holdover from the 0.9.3 release and was only included as a sop for those users who were still uncomfortable with the concept of CQ encoding.

[jmerrick]

I watch my ripped movies on iMac, AppleTV and my iPhone 3G. I have to admit that the 0.9.4 is much easier to understand, thanks for slimming it down. My question is this: When I choose Apple Universal, it presets the constant quality to 60.78%. I don't have a hard drive problem and I'd like the highest quality I can use and still play on my 16GB iPhone, so I've up'd that slider over to say 75%. On Star Trek, this results in a file size of around 4GB, no problem... but iTunes won't bring it in. I've tried several different quality settings, but the only one that works is by leaving at the default setting. When I try to copy the .m4v file to the iTunes library, it just kind of ignores it.

Any suggestions? Thanks.

[Deleted User 11865]

You must use the "Large file size" option if the output file may exceed 4 GB in size (otherwise, you'll end up with a corrupt, unplayable file). Note that this option is AppleTV-compatible, but breaks compatibility with some iPods (don't know about the iPhone 3G).

Also, 75% quality is way too much. From a DVD source, anything above 63% will be hardly noticeable (but will increase the bitrate unnecessarily).

[jmerrick]

Rodeo: Thanks for the prompt response. If 63% is the break even, why preset on 60.78?

[Deleted User 11865]

Rodeo: Thanks for the prompt response. If 63% is the break even, why preset on 60.78?

Because RF 20 (i.e. 60.78%) is good enough for most people.

I personally use RF 21 (~59%).

[jsunnb]

AppleTV Legacy preset is broken on ATV. Whether you sync or stream has no effect.

Is there a place on the website that will show when the presets have been updated?

[s55]

They only get updated for each new release. There is no preset download/update feature in HandBrake.
The update built-in presets only refreshes the presets from the inbuilt code.

No eta on any new releases.

[jpx]

What I don't get is why HB reduces the picture size with the ATV preset?!
I load a HD file with 1280x544 picture size, and when I select the ATV preset (not the legacy one, that would not change the size), HB reduces the size to 960x400.
Why?

[nightstrm]

What I don't get is why HB reduces the picture size with the ATV preset?!
I load a HD file with 1280x544 picture size, and when I select the ATV preset (not the legacy one, that would not change the size), HB reduces the size to 960x400.
Why?

Because it works with all sources 30fps or lower... if you know the framerate of a 1280x720p source is no higher than 25fps, you can safely bump it up. I do this all the time with my HDDVD and Bluray encodes.