best setting to watch dvds on my apple tv?

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ph0ust
Posts: 3
Joined: Fri Dec 11, 2009 2:28 am

best setting to watch dvds on my apple tv?

Post by ph0ust »

this has *sort of* been asked, but not clearly. i don't want to modify default settings unless absolutely necessary. i don't know what any of this stuff does. i just want to rip my dvds onto my mac and watch them on my apple tv (in general) and sometimes my laptops. i want quality on par with the dvd itself, meaning i am not looking to make a tiny compressed file so i can have thousands of them. i want it to look and sound like the dvd on my tv. what setting do i use for that? i used the "normal" setting after the upgrade and it sucks. the video quality is terrible. i've read a few other threads on why that is, but my question is more pointed:

what setting should i use if i want dvd video/sound quality for my laptops and apple tv?

i tried "high profile", but haven't had a chance to watch the video yet.

thanks a million (in advance)
TedJ
Veteran User
Posts: 5388
Joined: Wed Feb 20, 2008 11:25 pm

Re: best setting to watch dvds on my apple tv?

Post by TedJ »

Um, is this a trick question? :)

If you're planning on playing your encodes on the Apple TV, why not use the tuned preset for it? Due to limitations in the hardware, neither the Normal or High Profile presets will work on the Apple TV anyway.
ph0ust
Posts: 3
Joined: Fri Dec 11, 2009 2:28 am

Re: best setting to watch dvds on my apple tv?

Post by ph0ust »

TedJ wrote:Um, is this a trick question? :)

If you're planning on playing your encodes on the Apple TV, why not use the tuned preset for it? Due to limitations in the hardware, neither the Normal or High Profile presets will work on the Apple TV anyway.
no, it's not a trick question. i thought my question was clear.... i don't want to watch things *only* on my apple tv. like i said, i want the highest quality setting that would *also* work on my apple tv. i used to use the normal setting (not atv normal) with minor tweaks and all was well. with the new version of handbrake, normal sucks. as i understand it, the apple tv setting optimizes for atv if that is all i use, but has trade-offs otherwise. i am wondering if there is a setting that maintains very high quality, works on atv, works on my laptops and won't require me to re-rip everything a year from now because i changed some specific piece of hardware.
Deleted User 11865

Re: best setting to watch dvds on my apple tv?

Post by Deleted User 11865 »

with the new version of handbrake, normal sucks.
No it doesn't. It's better than the previous Normal preset. It just doesn't work on the AppleTV.
ph0ust wrote:as i understand it, the apple tv setting optimizes for atv if that is all i use, but has trade-offs otherwise.
The preset is optimized for AppleTV playback. Which means that it uses the best possible settings while still maintaining AppleTV compatibility (it actually uses settings which aren't officially supported by Apple, but work).

The trade-offs you mention are only necessary to ensure compatibility (which you may break if you go beyond what the preset uses). There is one exception to that: resolution - the ATV preset downscales to 960 x whatever resolution. If your source's frame rate is under 25 fps, you may go up to 1280 x 720.

I should add that, aside from the lack of CABAC, the AppleTV preset uses more advanced x264 options than the Normal preset.
davey1107
Posts: 3
Joined: Thu Nov 19, 2009 5:14 pm

Re: best setting to watch dvds on my apple tv?

Post by davey1107 »

ph0ust,

I think I know what you're asking. You want to know the best settings to use both for viewing today on your Apple TV, and for use in later years (so you don't have to re-encode your entire library in 2 years). And you'd like the answer in language that doesn't require a PhD in Macology and Advanced Computer Genetics (and maybe one less snotty than the last). My friends and I use Handbrake heavily, but aren't engineers or anything. Maybe our recent tests help answer your question.

First issue: With Handbrake version 0.9.4, the normal setting DOES create horrible files for use with the Apple TV. There is massive blocking, occasionally on some shows and constantly on others. Resolution - regardless which preset you use, in the advanced tab you need to have weightp=0 in the advanced option string. We added this to our old settings, and the files came out fine. The Apple TV software may or may not be updated in the future so that this isn't an issue, but it is right now so we had to fix it.

Second issue: The new release was a good opportunity to try some new settings to see how we wanted to encode future stuff. A couple of friends and I grabbed a couple of movies and some tv shows and ran them through to see what we thought. (FYI, we used the pilot of Stargate SG-1 for tv, Avatar the Last Airbender to test animation encoding, and 300 for a live action movie). We viewed the items on our 20" Samsung computer monitors, as well as my 60" Samsung LCD HDTV. When using the main tv we tried output both with our Apple TV and a new Western Digital WD HD Live Media Player we were setting up for a friend.

Mostly we wanted to explore video settings - the default audio settings under the 0.9.4 version Apple TV preset are more or less what we always used and seem to work great (we tend to bump the bitrate up to 192 kbps on the AAC, but this isn't really supported by anything other than it's how we always did it).

For video settings, we rely on the folks who engineered Handbrake to know more about the advanced settings, and leave these in place (with the exception that the weightp=0 needs to be present since my friends all have Apple TVs right now). When it comes to overall video quality, we played with the major features. We tried both single and dual pass encoding and found the results negligible when encoding with a Mac. On an older PC the dual pass seemed to help. We also played with using average bitrate of 2000 and 2500, and then constant quality at 60%, 65% and 70%. We wanted a file that looked good with playback on our Apple TV and 60" HDTV, files that are moderately manageable sizes, and files that would play on today's devices.

To make this as short as possible, we voted out using an average bitrate. It produces a file that is a predictable size, but like the Handbrake guide says, this sacrifices quality. The current Apple TV preset sets constant quality around 60%. We wanted to try both 65% and 70% to see if there was a notable difference. (We did not go any higher than 70% since the file sizes started to get too large and, as the guide says, there is no reason to). My friends felt that the quality should be bumped higher than 60%, although about an hour was spent looking at all three options and the distinction seemed VERY minor, both played on a computer, the Atv and a WD Media Player. For most users, 60% is probably fine. This produced a file around 600 meg for a 45-minute episode of television. My two friends determined that 65% and 70% CQ looked better than 60%, but almost identical to one another. They produced file sizes of approx 800 meg and 1.2 gig respectively.

We therefore decided to use the Apple TV preset, but alter it to bump up the constant quality. Whether or not this makes sense as far as visible quality, we took into consideration that we want to keep these files for years and that it's probably better to err on the side of better quality. We also considered that storage now costs approx $60 per terabyte of space, so the cost of storing one episode of television was about 3.4, 6.0 and 7.5 cents depending on our CQ settings. Since we expect storage costs to continue downward, it didn't seem that big a deal to use the higher CQ settings.

In terms of players, as expected the Apple TV or iTunes on the Mac Pro produces better output of the files than the Western Digital player, although the WD player did a good job playing all file types (and in fact did not have the blocking issue on the normal preset that the Atv did). We expect that unless some new and revolutionary file type comes along, the Atv preset will be a good option on today and tomorrow's players.

Hopefully that helps.
Deleted User 11865

Re: best setting to watch dvds on my apple tv?

Post by Deleted User 11865 »

davey1107 wrote:My two friends determined that 65% and 70% CQ looked better than 60%, but almost identical to one another.
Should be hard to distinguish 63% from 65% too (but 63% will be smaller).
baggss
Moderator
Posts: 886
Joined: Tue Jan 02, 2007 8:21 am

Re: best setting to watch dvds on my apple tv?

Post by baggss »

ph0ust wrote:
TedJ wrote:Um, is this a trick question? :)

If you're planning on playing your encodes on the Apple TV, why not use the tuned preset for it? Due to limitations in the hardware, neither the Normal or High Profile presets will work on the Apple TV anyway.
no, it's not a trick question. i thought my question was clear.... i don't want to watch things *only* on my apple tv. like i said, i want the highest quality setting that would *also* work on my apple tv. i used to use the normal setting (not atv normal) with minor tweaks and all was well. with the new version of handbrake, normal sucks. as i understand it, the apple tv setting optimizes for atv if that is all i use, but has trade-offs otherwise. i am wondering if there is a setting that maintains very high quality, works on atv, works on my laptops and won't require me to re-rip everything a year from now because i changed some specific piece of hardware.
It might help if you shared what other "things" you'd like to be able to watch your movies on. Being specific would be good.I have a few custom presets that I modified from the built in ones that I use for everything I rip, they only differ if the original media is a Movie or TV Show. This allows me to watch them on any of my video capable iPods (as old as my 5th Gen) to my Apple TV with good quality no matter device/screen they play on.
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