questions for first time huge project. long winded but formatted

[NoobageEncoder]

Feel free to shot me links or web pages, I have looked I may have over looked some stuff tho. My question are first, about me and my project are 2nd, you may not need any of the background info.

Questions:
Q1
Why is it that SD shows look fine blown up on the projector with the cheap 480p compared to the blocky blurred mess with 1080p lcd or 720p projector?

Q2
Why are recommend constant quality settings starting at the lower end (quality wise) with for bluray vs DVD? this seems backwards. The goal of bluray is better details, I have an idea why but want to know for sure.

Q3
Constant quality seems better vs avg bitrate. It let you have more bits where need, vs wasted ones. Is constant quality the best open unless you need the avg bitrate for streaming to non-local devices?

Q4
I was thinking of group shows based on tune, and type so I could do batch encodes, that was when I was thinking about using avg bitrate. Would this still apply to constant quality?

Q5
I know constant quality effects bitrate, and bitrate effects video quality, and you need less for slow shows like sitcoms and more for action show / high grain / dark. Is there a chart that groups show types for encode settings?

Q6
Presets, If I am using bluray source, 1080p presets make sense, what if I am using Dvd do I use 480p presets or because it may be viewed at 1080p do I need to use the 1080p presets?

Q7
Cropping and anamorphic settings:
I don’t want to crop parts of the show out, and I don’t want to distort the image, I want to view it as it is ment to be viewed.
I don’t fully understand what is going on here. I was following a guide but not sure what I was doing. The guide was hardcore about custom anamorphic settings. Short of it is DVD are at max 720x480. Ture 16:9 is 854x480. 4:3 should be 640x480.
If you change display width to 854 or 640, but the source is 720, it seems you add or remove rows of pixels. What is happing when you set this settings?
Is there a way to make sure you get true 16:9 or 4:3 Or the way the show was intended to be viewed without removing pixels(if that’s what happens)?


Q8
for cartoons, would using the grain vs animation give better looking output?

Q9
Filters, I am not sure what they all do, I want to set them so if they are needed they do there job and if not they do nothing, ex I know of is interlaced, it seems to fix the lines of my old dvd makes them look so much better.

Q10
denoise, This removes film grain, but does it destroy image? does it take long time? does it do anyting else? Should I use it or not?

Q11
Any tips or recommendations would be great for settings. I want to get this started, I have all my discs to the harddrive, just need to learn this app.

Thanks for your time.
------------------------------------------

About me and the reason for my project.
At some point in life, I lost most of my media. That is when I jumped on internet streaming. Then I got HT speakers and HD tv. I noticed surround sound was not working (web app streaming). When I got a bluray, I noticed the same “HD” from streaming was much better on Blu-ray. I only got select blurays. Now I have moved, have kids that like to loop shows, and have spotty slow internet and its capped bandwidth. So I made a trip to Ebay and been buying up shows we view or want to.

Project:
To make a streaming library for personal in home use, to overcome the internet setbacks, and to have better sound and better HD than streaming, or compromised the same video quality as internet streaming.

Goal:
To keep video quality indistinguishable from original (but x264 compressed), but still save space while making library.
To only have to do mass encodes one time.
To have quality high enough it will work for future equipment.

Known; I understand:
That viewing distance effects distinguishable.
(Ex: on my 40” 1080p, I can see a difference in a scene of a video when paused dvd vs bluray up close, Now if I back up to say 12 foot, where I sit for non surround videos, I cant pick them apart.)
That the Size of the screen matters. The bigger the screen the more the quality matter vs viewing distance.
We all have different levels of detail are eyes can see and settings that work for you may not work for me with same setup.

Compromises:
Willing to give up more space, if encoding time is greatly reduced and video quality is the same.
EX: (100-200 MB for a 20 min dvd tvs show (normally 1.04GB) so end file size is 400-500 vs 200-300, or an extra 1-4GB for a bluray 2hr show.
Willing to have more encoding time if video quality will be greatly improved. (would like to be able to do 1-2 full length movies over 8 hours max)
Based on how much the family cares about a video maybe willing to take a quality hit to save space.
If a show is just so good and of great quality, I can just put in the bluray and view it. The one example that keeps coming up is avatar. Seems they did an excellent job and used high end equipment to make it.

Encode Gear:
16gb (4x4) ddr3 1866, AMD fx-8320, ATI Rx 580 (if this can be used? Not sure if you can add video card endcoder)

Viewing gear:
40” 1080p lcd,
90-110’ blackout Projector screen (based on throw)
Old 720p projector, (hoping to upgrade to 1080p)
Cheap less than 480p ebay projector

Note :
I Have 2 viewing distance dvd + surround sound/ bluray 6ft, dvd no surround sound 12 foot.

Thanks again for your time.

[mduell]

Q1
Why is it that SD shows look fine blown up on the projector with the cheap 480p compared to the blocky blurred mess with 1080p lcd or 720p projector?

My guess would be it's smearing the hell out of them, avoiding the blocky look.

Q2
Why are recommend constant quality settings starting at the lower end (quality wise) with for bluray vs DVD? this seems backwards. The goal of bluray is better details, I have an idea why but want to know for sure.

The constant quality target is not total picture quality, it's something more like quality per pixel, so for the larger frame sizes viewed at the same distance you can get away with a lower quality target (higher RF value).

Q3
Constant quality seems better vs avg bitrate. It let you have more bits where need, vs wasted ones. Is constant quality the best open unless you need the avg bitrate for streaming to non-local devices?

Yes... or no depending on how you look at the question. Constant quality is always a better choice for use cases like yours, even including streaming to non-local device. You can (ab)use the VBV settings to cap bitrate spikes for non-local streaming (and on lousy networks, local streaming) Avg bitrate is only really useful when you have no downside to filling an oversized storage media, like encoding for Blu-ray disks.

Q4
I was thinking of group shows based on tune, and type so I could do batch encodes, that was when I was thinking about using avg bitrate. Would this still apply to constant quality?

You may find you have different RF preferences for different types of content if you're using tunes; you may not.

Q5
I know constant quality effects bitrate, and bitrate effects video quality, and you need less for slow shows like sitcoms and more for action show / high grain / dark. Is there a chart that groups show types for encode settings?

Constant quality handles the bitrate variation for you. https://superuser.com/questions/564402/ ... -x264-tune provides some reasonable explanation of what type of content each tune is for.

Q6
Presets, If I am using bluray source, 1080p presets make sense, what if I am using Dvd do I use 480p presets or because it may be viewed at 1080p do I need to use the 1080p presets?

The preset that matches the source makes sense for your purpose.

Q7
Cropping and anamorphic settings:
I don’t want to crop parts of the show out, and I don’t want to distort the image, I want to view it as it is ment to be viewed.
I don’t fully understand what is going on here. I was following a guide but not sure what I was doing. The guide was hardcore about custom anamorphic settings. Short of it is DVD are at max 720x480. Ture 16:9 is 854x480. 4:3 should be 640x480.
If you change display width to 854 or 640, but the source is 720, it seems you add or remove rows of pixels. What is happing when you set this settings?
Is there a way to make sure you get true 16:9 or 4:3 Or the way the show was intended to be viewed without removing pixels(if that’s what happens)?

Generally you're fine to use autocrop, although I recommend increasing the number of samples in the settings to 30. With non-disc sources, it's quite fast (DVD and BR are slow at seeking).

If you have any anamorphic sources, which all DVDs are, you should leave anamorphic on.
For non-anamorphic sources, like every every commercial Blu-ray I've ever heard of, it doesn't matter if you have anamorphic off or on. The only exception is if your playback environment is some crap piece of [Censored] hardware that doesn't support anamorphic.

Q8
for cartoons, would using the grain vs animation give better looking output?

If you're dealing with clean modern cartoons, or trying to clean up old cartoons with filtering, tune animation makes sense. If you're trying to preserve the grain in old dirty cartoons, tune grain makes sense.

Q9
Filters, I am not sure what they all do, I want to set them so if they are needed they do there job and if not they do nothing, ex I know of is interlaced, it seems to fix the lines of my old dvd makes them look so much better.

I'd stick to what's in the HQ 480p and HQ 1080p presets as a starting point, and only make changes after you have a lot more experience with and knowledge about encoding.

Q10
denoise, This removes film grain, but does it destroy image? does it take long time? does it do anyting else? Should I use it or not?

It removes grain in part by smearing out fine details; results vary based on your preferences both for output appearance and tolerance for encode time. hq3dn isn't too slow, nlmeans is exceptionally slow.

Q11
Any tips or recommendations would be great for settings. I want to get this started, I have all my discs to the harddrive, just need to learn this app.

Use the presets, change things where you know you want something different, don't change settings you don't understand. And sure as hell don't follow any advice found on a blog or youtube.

(Ex: on my 40” 1080p, I can see a difference in a scene of a video when paused dvd vs bluray up close, Now if I back up to say 12 foot, where I sit for non surround videos, I pick them apart.)

Is pausing how you normally enjoy videos? If not, it's a bad way to compare them.

[NoobageEncoder]

Thanks for the feedback, Yea I get that still images are not the best, when in motion stuff may look better or worse. It just seemed like a quick way to compare two different outputs With side by side images of a complex sense. I was thinking at 1/2 the size if I could see a difference at my viewing point It would require further investigation, If not It may be good to go.

[mduell]

Yea I get that still images are not the best, when in motion stuff may look better or worse.

Which is why it is utterly pointless to compare stills when stills aren't how you're going to enjoy the movie.

[BradleyS]

mduell's comments are spot on. Just a few additions and clarifications...

The main difference between the 480p and 1080p presets is the H.264 level is slightly different to limit bandwidth and make videos more compatible with older devices only supporting SD. Also the quality is tweaked slightly higher because blowing up SD over an HD screen (the most common case) tends to magnify imperfections. So, you can use the 1080p presets with SD content but there is a slight benefit to choosing a 480p preset for 480p content, etc.

HandBrake will preserve the storage pixels and adjust the display pixels for the proper aspect ratio accordingly. Leave anamorphic on Auto and you should see something like 720x480 (possibly cropped smaller) storage with 640x480 or 853x480 display resolution. No pixels are added or removed; this is just an indicator to the playback device/software how to unstretch or unsqueeze the stored pixels. Exactly how DVD does it.

If you don't want to automatically crop black bars, set cropping on each side to 0 (zero).

hqdn3d denoise is a low pass that disposes of fine detail and can look smeary at stronger settings. NLMeans is more intelligent and averages similar areas together to cancel out the noise. The latter typically looks a ton better but comes with a greater speed cost.

Check out the documentation. This article and the few that follow detail how to open a source, select a preset, adjust quality, etc. https://handbrake.fr/docs/en/1.1.0/work ... ource.html

Once you've made changes that you want to keep for other encodes, save a new preset for yourself.

[NoobageEncoder]

Thanks doing good. about to start batch encodes.