HandBrake

Not really a bug, but more of a trap or "gotcha": I found that when using the HandBrake CLI to encode x264 MP4s, using --x264-preset veryslow it would produce files NOT compatible with iOS devices. Whereas slow and slower would work fine.

The main x264 option that seems to be the culprit:
ref=16
(8 or less seem to be OK)

When this is set, it somehow alters the format profile from Baseline@L2.1 to Baseline@L2.2 (or Main@L2.1 to Main@L2.2, etc.) and I believe this is what iOS doesn't like.

Is there a way this could be added to the wiki (especially the CLI page) so others don't get trapped by this in future? I couldn't seem to edit the wiki myself.

Simon.

There are literally hundreds of combinations of devices, operating systems and incompatible settings. It's not practical to maintain such a list.

We have presets that define compatible settings for specific devices. Outside that, it's up to you to experiment and learn the boundaries of each device if you want to push the limits. Which, on a related note have been known to change from OS version to OS version in some cases. For better and for worse.

--h264-level <level> will limit the parameters in order to respect the specified H.264 level (as long as the resolution and framerate are compatible, as it has no control over those).

Moved to General. Not a bug.

Oh OK, fair enough. You're right that the list would probably get too unwieldy to manage. Appreciate the reply though. Thanks so much for an excellent application.