HandBrake Preset description site

General questions or discussion about HandBrake, Video and/or audio transcoding, trends etc.
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JohnO
Posts: 15
Joined: Tue Oct 05, 2010 1:30 pm

HandBrake Preset description site

Post by JohnO »

Hi,

I may be loosing it with old age :( but I could swear that at one time there was a site that contained detailed descriptions/comparisons of each of the HandBrake Presets. I'm not talking the current tutorial that simply tells you the specific settings but actually explained each one in 'plain english' :D

Am I just imagining this or did/does it exist? If it does, could someone point me to it?

Regards,

John
Deleted User 11865

Re: HandBrake Preset description site

Post by Deleted User 11865 »

JohnO
Posts: 15
Joined: Tue Oct 05, 2010 1:30 pm

Re: HandBrake Preset description site

Post by JohnO »

Rodeo,

Thanks for the reply, however, the site you listed is the standard tutorial one that I had already seen. I thought that I remembered another site that went into more 'general' explanations than that.

As an example, the tutorial says for High Profile: general-purpose preset for High Profile H.264 video, with all the bells and whistles.

I was looking for information as to what the 'Bells and whistles' were, what devices it would and would not play on, a comparison of file sizes, etc.

As I said, I may be dreaming this :D but I could swear that a year (or so) ago, I had found such a sight for us laymen. I have been searching the forums but was hoping to find one definitive site that did a comparison of the presets.

Regards,

John
Deleted User 11865

Re: HandBrake Preset description site

Post by Deleted User 11865 »

The speed and file size comparisons used to be there, but hadn't been updated in two years, so they're irrelevant now. Plus it largely depends on the source.

There no way to know exactly on what devices a given preset will work (though the Apple presets should work on the devices they're targeted at). But if you have a particular device in mind, we should be able to tell you which preset(s) will work with it (especially if it's a well-known device).
JohnO
Posts: 15
Joined: Tue Oct 05, 2010 1:30 pm

Re: HandBrake Preset description site

Post by JohnO »

Well, that makes me feel better that I'm not completely loosing it. :lol:

Since you asked :wink:

I have several devices but don't necessarily need one file to fit them all. Those devices are:

Primary and of most concern (going to stream from my Synology NAS on which I wish to build my movie library:)
-PS3
-Original Apple TV (to be replaced by either newer Apple TV 2, Roku, or WDTV Live)
-Will add an additional device listed above.

These will be displayed on either 40" or 58" HDTVs.

May do Blu-ray in the future but not of concern yet.
Conversion time is not of concern (I can start a batch overnight)
Smaller file size would be nice but not at the expense of video quality.

Secondary concern (would like to use same file as above if possible but not at the expense of video quality on the devices above)
-iPad

Of lesser concern and could do a dedicated conversion as necessary
-1st Gen iPod Touch
-iPhone 3GS

So, there you have it.

Regards,

John
IronHorse
Posts: 19
Joined: Wed Dec 29, 2010 7:23 pm

Re: HandBrake Preset description site

Post by IronHorse »

John... Thanks for asking this question. I too was/am confused by the selection of presets with no real explanation as to quality or use in a device. I want to feed my videos through a Gen1 ATV to my Mitsubishi 65" DLP with the media library on a remote USB drive either connected to my iMac in my basement, or to the ATV upstairs on the first floor. Future plans might include a ATV2 to replace this one if I think its worth the switch. But I have to assume that I should only use the "Apple" preset and not the Regular or High Profile selection... right?

Mike
JohnO
Posts: 15
Joined: Tue Oct 05, 2010 1:30 pm

Re: HandBrake Preset description site

Post by JohnO »

@Dave,

First, sorry if you see another response from me. I had typed up a rather lengthy reply and when I hit 'Submit', the forum choked and it dissapeared. :x

So, I will try again.

I was really hoping to find some type of comparison chart that would give information about what each preset would and would not work on, the advantages, disadvantages, etc. Something for us Newbies :) . I am not interested (at this time) about changing things like frame rates or 'RF' settings. The developers chose those presets for a reason an I would like to start by understanding why. Even a spreadsheet format would be great. Obviously the different presets have different advantages (device compatibility, video quality, conversion speed) or else the developers would have created a single 'Convert' preset.

With respect to your last sentence, I have been trying three presets for use by both my 1st gen Apple TV and my PS3, Apple Universal, Normal, and High Profile. All three presets appear to work on both the Apple TV and PS3, however, my 'quality' comparison efforts got sidelined by trying to fix severe stuttering during playback on the PS3. I originally thought the stuttering was due to the choice of conversion preset, however, I have since realized that it is due to the lousy wireless in the PS3.

So, you do not 'have' to use the Apple preset for the Apple TV, there are others that will work. I do know that the Apple Universal will 'dumb down' the conversion to a point that the resulting file can be played on less capable devices like the early iPods. So, by using the Apple Universal you gain multiple device compatibility by giving up other things (I don't know what all you give up but horizontal resolution is one thing).

I was hoping that Rodeo would chime back in after his offer of help. Maybe he can set me on the right path :wink:

Anyway, I hope I have not confused you too much.

Regards,

John
IronHorse
Posts: 19
Joined: Wed Dec 29, 2010 7:23 pm

Re: HandBrake Preset description site

Post by IronHorse »

Hey John...

Confused? Me? LOL!!! [Censored]' Senior citizen trying to figure all this stuff out... I _AM_ confused, but slowly seeing the light. My ATV is up and running and I'm using Boxee mostly. As far as quality goes, Handbrake seems to be reducing the quality somewhat on the movies I had ripped with AnyDVD. Dark scenes get darker and lose detail, but daylight or well-lit portions are fine. I'm using the latest build, and the nightly one at that. Using the ATV preset. A typical movie sitting on my HDD is 4.69GB, and converted by handbrake its 3.1GB. I don't know if theres a way to go 1:1 so I can see if its getting screwed up by the ATV processing or if my quality settings are not optimized. I still don't know what the slider bar does... is a higher number better quality or a lower number? And if the slider does anything, does it change other things? I was also wondering if there was another way to convert a Video_TS rip to a Boxee-happy format and what other formats will actually play without only playing a section of the movie then stopping and asking you if you want to play the next file.

I'm the one who should be asking you if I'm confusing you LOL. BTW, I didn't even bother setting it up wireless although I bench-tested wireless and it works. I ran an ethernet (Cat5 junker) to be sure. I will replace that with a Cat6a asap.

The best...

MIke
JohnO
Posts: 15
Joined: Tue Oct 05, 2010 1:30 pm

Re: HandBrake Preset description site

Post by JohnO »

Mike,

As far as the reduction in quality, I believe that that is to be expected based on the fact that it is doing data compression on the file. Now, the extend of the reduction in quality could be anywhere from huge to unnoticeable depending on your settings. That is where I start getting lost :-). I do know one thing from reading the posts. The lower the number on the RF slide bar, the 'Better' the quality. It seems that the consensus around here seems to be that anything lower than 18 or 19 is not worth using as you won't see the difference. However, I have read one or two post that have disagreed. Unfortunately, I can not tell you exactly what the slider is doing

Have you played around with the Normal and/or High Profile format to see how they look on you ATV? Just a thought.

As far as other programs to convert Video_TS folders, I have not really looked. Maybe someone else can chime in here.

Good luck. If I run into any flashes of inspiration (or a good source for explanations on the different presets), I'll let you know.

Regards,

John
IronHorse
Posts: 19
Joined: Wed Dec 29, 2010 7:23 pm

Re: HandBrake Preset description site

Post by IronHorse »

JohnO wrote:Mike,

As far as the reduction in quality, I believe that that is to be expected based on the fact that it is doing data compression on the file. Now, the extend of the reduction in quality could be anywhere from huge to unnoticeable depending on your settings. That is where I start getting lost :-). I do know one thing from reading the posts. The lower the number on the RF slide bar, the 'Better' the quality. It seems that the consensus around here seems to be that anything lower than 18 or 19 is not worth using as you won't see the difference. However, I have read one or two post that have disagreed. Unfortunately, I can not tell you exactly what the slider is doing

Have you played around with the Normal and/or High Profile format to see how they look on you ATV? Just a thought.

As far as other programs to convert Video_TS folders, I have not really looked. Maybe someone else can chime in here.

Good luck. If I run into any flashes of inspiration (or a good source for explanations on the different presets), I'll let you know.

Regards,

John
Hey John...

Well... the issue is that if you have already ripped a (cough-cough) archive copy, most programs that do that compress it as they expect to be burned to a DVD. So a 6GB movie is already compressed to fit on a 4GB DVD. IOW, quality has given way to size. Handbrake is essentially a compression tool that lets you take a file and make a compressed copy so now you have two stages of quality that are lost. Ideally... if you could simply set up Handbrake to make a 1:1 copy of your file (i.e. no compression), I could live with that. And theoretically, since we're talking about a conversion rather than a compression, I would expect that the start-finish time would be reduced significantly. I also confess that I don't know enough about Handbrake to tell you that there is a 1:1 setting or something reasonably close. So far, I think the "High Quality" preset with "all the bells and whistles" (whatever that means) gives you the best conversion from a Video_TS to a MP4. Of course, one of the geniuses here will probably tell us that there is a program or option or whatever that does that LOL!

Keep at it!

Mike
mduell
Veteran User
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Re: HandBrake Preset description site

Post by mduell »

IronHorse wrote:Well... the issue is that if you have already ripped a (cough-cough) archive copy, most programs that do that compress it as they expect to be burned to a DVD. So a 6GB movie is already compressed to fit on a 4GB DVD. IOW, quality has given way to size. Handbrake is essentially a compression tool that lets you take a file and make a compressed copy so now you have two stages of quality that are lost. Ideally... if you could simply set up Handbrake to make a 1:1 copy of your file (i.e. no compression), I could live with that. And theoretically, since we're talking about a conversion rather than a compression, I would expect that the start-finish time would be reduced significantly. I also confess that I don't know enough about Handbrake to tell you that there is a 1:1 setting or something reasonably close. So far, I think the "High Quality" preset with "all the bells and whistles" (whatever that means) gives you the best conversion from a Video_TS to a MP4. Of course, one of the geniuses here will probably tell us that there is a program or option or whatever that does that LOL!
Keeping the same number of bits has nothing to do with keeping the same quality and doesn't make any sense. You could set up two encodes with HB that are the same size and wildly different quality. It's not unreasonable to have the output be larger than the input if the input was encoded with more efficient settings (high profile and lots of analysis) and the output is encoded with lower efficiency settings (say baseline profile for playback compatibility, and less analysis for encoding speed).

Using a constant rate factor (20ish) is the reasonable way to go; depending on your encoding constraints and the complexity of the material the output could be larger or smaller than the input, but it will look about the same.
JohnO
Posts: 15
Joined: Tue Oct 05, 2010 1:30 pm

Re: HandBrake Preset description site

Post by JohnO »

@ Mike,

I hear you about the 'double compression'. I don't believe that the one I use, MactheRipper, does any compression. Just compared the size of a couple of my disks to the ISO rips I did and they match within a few bits. On their forums they usually say that if you want to burn to a DVD, then you have to run their RIP through another application.

I have been pretty pleased with the standard High Profile setting on both my Apple TV 1st gen and my PS3. However, I still have one artifact that I would like to get fixed. Originally I thought it was what people were calling Macro Blocking. However, after doing some investigating, that does not appear to be the issue. Macro Blocking reminds me of the old low resolution bitmapped fonts that looked jagged. The issue I have is more like displaying a picture with a lot of color variations on a 256 color monitor. There are areas that you know should have several shades, however, they all appear to be reduced to one or two shades. The effect is subtle and does not happen constantly. Maybe I can figure out a solution eventually.

Anyway, our quest for video conversion nirvana continues. :D
Deleted User 11865

Re: HandBrake Preset description site

Post by Deleted User 11865 »

JohnO wrote:I have been pretty pleased with the standard High Profile setting on both my Apple TV 1st gen and my PS3.
I'm unsure how you get the High Profile to work on your 1st gen. ATV, given how that preset has b-pyramid and weightp enabled, and the AppleTV 1 supports neither.
JohnO
Posts: 15
Joined: Tue Oct 05, 2010 1:30 pm

Re: HandBrake Preset description site

Post by JohnO »

Rodeo,

Hey, your back.

Well, I certainly don't know anything about 'b-pyramid' or 'weightp enabled', however, I play the files through Boxee installed on my 1st Gen Apple TV. That may take care of the issues you mention. I don't know. Way outside my area of expertise ;-).

Regards,

John
Deleted User 11865

Re: HandBrake Preset description site

Post by Deleted User 11865 »

Indeed. But running a different OS on your AppleTV makes it a bit non-AppleTV ;-)
JohnO
Posts: 15
Joined: Tue Oct 05, 2010 1:30 pm

Re: HandBrake Preset description site

Post by JohnO »

I did not realize that the process used to get Boxee on an Apple TV included installing a different OS. :shock:

I thought it was just installing an application on the existing OS. Anyway, I will see if I can play the HP videos directly from iTunes. You may be correct in that they may not play that way but I have not tried yet.

Regards,


John
Deleted User 11865

Re: HandBrake Preset description site

Post by Deleted User 11865 »

JohnO wrote:I did not realize that the process used to get Boxee on an Apple TV included installing a different OS. :shock:

I thought it was just installing an application on the existing OS.
Technically you're correct. My point is that Boxee handles all aspects of decoding, and so is unaffected by the limitations of the AppleTV's original decoding software (an ATV-specific build of QuickTime + hardware acceleration).

Also, AFAIK, Boxee has no access to the AppleTV's hardware-accelerated decoding capabilities, and so you can forget about HD in Boxee.
JohnO wrote:Anyway, I will see if I can play the HP videos directly from iTunes. You may be correct in that they may not play that way but I have not tried yet.
Mac OS X's QuickTime build and its H.264 decoder are not the same as what's used on the 1st gen. AppleTV. It supports b-pyramid and weightp.
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