Same quality settings for all films, or adjust per title?

General questions or discussion about HandBrake, Video and/or audio transcoding, trends etc.
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steady_eddy91
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Joined: Mon Aug 07, 2017 11:52 pm

Same quality settings for all films, or adjust per title?

Post by steady_eddy91 »

Over the past months, I have been ripping my blu-ray collection and then encoding with Handbrake. I watch on 130" projector, and want to maintain a 'transparent' encode. I don't mind a big file size, but I also want to avoid unnecessarily large file sizes, hence why I still encode instead of just keeping the remux.

My settings are as follows:
Constant Quality
RF: 18
Speed: Very Slow
Tune: Film
Audio: usually just passthrough of the DTS track

Is it fine to just use the same settings for every live action movie, or would you change RF for specific titles? If so, what reasons?
I have notice dark films/films with minimal colour pallet seem to come up much smaller than I expected. I would say the average encode size I get for most feature length film with these settings is 10-15GB. However I got the following results with these films:

The Revenant (156mins): ~8GB (down from ~37GB)
Arrival (116mins): ~5GB (down from ~25GB)
Lion (118mins): 5GB (down from ~25GB)
Anomoilsa (90mins): ~3GB (down from ~25GB)

Would I likely see any improvement dropping down RF to 17 or 16 with darker titles such as this? Or do those file sizes seem appropriate. I guess I am feeling uncomfortable with a 2.5HR movie being only 8GB haha, or is h.264 really that good?

Would love to hear from others with similar encoding goals to me.
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BradleyS
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Re: Same quality settings for all films, or adjust per title?

Post by BradleyS »

Seems about right to me for 1080p. Noise/grain, picture complexity, and motion are major factors in file size.

I'm not sure the resolution of your projector, but my hunch is that if things look fine at 130" then they probably are fine.
Bjomesphat
Posts: 45
Joined: Thu Sep 03, 2015 12:00 am

Re: Same quality settings for all films, or adjust per title?

Post by Bjomesphat »

Do you have any other settings? Those filesizes seem very suspect for x264 at 18 RF and passthrough audio, even with very slow. I use the same settings for a lot of films, but at 19 RF, and never get 5gb for a 2 hour movie. And 8GB for a movie like The Revenant seems crazy. I don't remember how grainy it was, but there was definitely a lot of motion.
steady_eddy91
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Joined: Mon Aug 07, 2017 11:52 pm

Re: Same quality settings for all films, or adjust per title?

Post by steady_eddy91 »

H.264
Framerate: Same as source
Encoder Preset:Very Slow
Encoder Tune: Film
Encoder Profile: Main
Encoder Level: 4.0

The film was shot digitally (all the one listed were shot digitally) so no grain. You're right. A lot of motion in The Revenant.

I very rarely get 5GB for a movie with these settings. Usually only CGI animated films (eg. Pixar).

I might do some A/B with the Blu-Ray when I get the chance. Still getting a hang of the variety of file sizes I can get with these settings. They vary a lot. Obviously much higher for grainy film stuff.
nhyone
Bright Spark User
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Joined: Fri Jul 24, 2015 4:13 am

Re: Same quality settings for all films, or adjust per title?

Post by nhyone »

Use aq-mode 3 and/or tune grain?

It is my belief that x264 tends to "over-compress" dark film, as it thinks the details are too dark and can't be seen anyway.
Bjomesphat
Posts: 45
Joined: Thu Sep 03, 2015 12:00 am

Re: Same quality settings for all films, or adjust per title?

Post by Bjomesphat »

steady_eddy91 wrote: Tue Aug 08, 2017 11:24 am H.264
Framerate: Same as source
Encoder Preset:Very Slow
Encoder Tune: Film
Encoder Profile: Main
Encoder Level: 4.0

The film was shot digitally (all the one listed were shot digitally) so no grain. You're right. A lot of motion in The Revenant.

I very rarely get 5GB for a movie with these settings. Usually only CGI animated films (eg. Pixar).

I might do some A/B with the Blu-Ray when I get the chance. Still getting a hang of the variety of file sizes I can get with these settings. They vary a lot. Obviously much higher for grainy film stuff.
Yeah I was going to say, I really only get those sizes from animated films. But there's definitely been a few where I was surprised how low the filesize got.

But to answer your original question, you're doing exactly what I do. And from what I understand that's best practice. The majority of my movies use the Film tune. If it's digital animation I will use the Animation tune. If it's really grainy I will use the grain tune and raise the RF value a bit. Otherwise, you start getting really close to the size of the source, in which case it's pretty pointless. Aliens was one of the worst. Long movie, really grainy, lots of motion. As for dark scenes, I haven't really done anything to compensate so I can't help you there.
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