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HandBrake Snapshot Build 3

Posted: Tue Sep 30, 2008 9:29 pm
by jbrjake
In case you didn't notice, there were a few bugs in HandBrake 0.9.2. This happenened because HandBrake has a rather small development team, and a rather smaller number of testers.

To prevent HandBrake 0.9.3 from sharing such an ignominious fate, we have decided to release periodic binary snapshots as it develops. They are windows into HandBrake 0.9.3's current state of development.

These executable snapshots are unsupported, but we are soliciting feedback. Be warned. This code is not ready for civilian use. While most of 0.9.2's bugs have been squashed, they have no doubt been succeeded by a newer, haler generation of arthropodic adversaries. It could easily crash on you. It could produce bad output. Some things might not work right. There are all sorts of new things, and there is no documentation for any of them.

If you do not fear living on the bleeding edge, and do not demand stability from your software, download a development snapshot of HandBrake now.

Here's an incomplete summary of the changes:

Snapshot2 -> Snapshot 3 (r1797)
Core Library:
- Universal input support, utilizing libavcodec from the FFmpeg project for decoding non-MPEG-2 video
- Newer, faster, better version of the x264 codec, including psychovisual optimizations
- Better AV sync through full compliance with the MPEG Standard Target Decoder timing model
- More accurate auto-cropping
- Support for New Zealand and Norwegian HDTV broadcasts (H.264 and AAC-LATM in MPEG-TS)
- Detelecine is now "VFR detelecine" by default, dropping some frames and extending others to make up lost time, old behavior of keeping duplicate frames is enabled by selecting a framerate besides "Same as source"
- Threaded deinterlacing in Slow and Slower modes
- Threaded and entirely rewritten decomb filter
- Better audio resampling interpolator
- Better gamma in QuickTime through the use of the COLR MP4 atom
- Better constant quality encoding when using FFmpeg
- Hopefully better cache and virtual memory performance by recycling buffers that were most recently used instead of least
- Fix for MP4s with "negative duration" errors.
- Set the detelecine filter to work better with PAL by using "loose" breaks
- Fix for missing initial H.264 NAL units, improves reliability of 8x8dct
- Fix for subtitle-scan with XviD encoding
- Fix for crash at the end of 2nd pass using x264
- Deblock filter works now
- Rewritten update system, so the core library can read a portion of Sparkle appcasts.
- Updates for libsamplerate, libogg, xvidcore, libtheora, libmpeg2, lame, faac, and of course ffmpeg and x264.

Mac GUI
- Entirely rewritten and far more flexible queue that can be saved between sessions, capable of preserving queued items after a crash
- Fix for 4x3 loose anamorphic to keep it from downscaling
- Countless other improvements

Windows GUI
- Resolution calculation
- Better preset bar
- Better queue (including queue recovery feature)
- Better activity log window
- Improved UI (layout changes, animated x264 options, DVD drive detection, duration displayed)
- More options - includes support for custom auto name format & starting the CLI minimized
- Countless other improvements

Linux GUI (GTK)
- It's alive!

Known Issues in Snapshot 3
- Possibility of a flickering line at the top or bottom of the frame after Slow or Slower deinterlacing or decombing
- Input bitrate display may be off by a factor of 100 for H.264-in-TS sources
- Constant Quality Rate preset probably needs a lower quality level (60% - 55%)
- With non-DVD sources that don't have AC3 audio, you can't encode 1 input audio track to multiple output audio tracks
- Slow and Slower deinterlacing and decombing are BROKEN in Windows
- QuickTime won't read Xvid-in-MP4 output, although VLC will
- Windows GUI does not detect all audio tracks from non-DVD sources

Snapshot 1 -> Snapshot 2 (r1477)
Core Library:
- Anamorphic PAR for the AVI container
- Allow constant frame rates when they different from the source's frame rate (otherwise pass through the variable MPEG-2 frame durations )
- Decomb filter (selectively deinterlaces when it sees interlacing in the frame)
- Filter bug fixed, that would skip any filters after detelecine, if VFR wasn't enabled
- Loose anamorphic + FFmpeg video bug fixed

Windows GUI:
- Title dropdown list bug fixed
- Missing log file bug fixed

CLI:
- Default audio samplerate changed to 48kHz, audio bitrate changed to 160kbps.
- Samplerate entry bug fixed

0.9.2 -> Snapshot 1 (r1457)
Core Library:
- New audio subsystem (no more AAC+AC3, control each track's codec and settings individually)
- Removed libdvdcss (HandBrake no longer decrypts DVDs on its own, will use VLC to do so if it's available)
- Added Theora encoder
- Fixed x264-in-avi and ffmpeg-in-avi
- Fixed xvid
- More accurate scaling
- Major sync improvements
- Major stream improvements
- AAC+AC3 support in MKV
- MKV seeking fixes
- Make sure subtitles get displayed long enough to read them
- Updated VBV 2-pass and VBV 1-pass patch for x264
- Adaptive Quantization for x264
- Recover from bad preview scans
- Recover from invalid PGNs
- Fixed vorbis bitrate control
- Snapshot builds

Mac:
- New audio interface
- Loads libdvdcss from VLC at runtime if it's present on the user's system
- No more general-purpose "Codecs" menu -- set video and audio codecs individually
- More robust preset system, in preparation for nested presets
- Made 64-bit MP4 file widget more prominent
- Only allow useful x264 options in the advanced tab
- Various fixes and improvements

Windows:
- New x264 tab
- New audio interface
- Various fixes and improvements

CLI:
- New audio interface

HandBrake 0.9.2 was based off revision 1304. A timeline of all those changes and what they entail can be found here: http://trac.handbrake.fr/log/?action=fo ... verbose=on

Re: HandBrake Snapshot Build 3

Posted: Tue Sep 30, 2008 9:56 pm
by vidjock
SWEET. So "Universal input support" means I can say... re-encode a file I encoded with a different version of Handbrake? Handbrake can now eat it's own tail?

Re: HandBrake Snapshot Build 3

Posted: Tue Sep 30, 2008 10:06 pm
by jbrjake
vidjock wrote:SWEET. So "Universal input support" means I can say... re-encode a file I encoded with a different version of Handbrake? Handbrake can now eat it's own tail?
Indeed.

Praise be to Van, for he has transformed HandBrake into the Ouroboros.

Re: HandBrake Snapshot Build 3

Posted: Tue Sep 30, 2008 10:57 pm
by eddyg
vidjock wrote:SWEET. So "Universal input support" means I can say... re-encode a file I encoded with a different version of Handbrake? Handbrake can now eat it's own tail?
You mean like - adding an extra menu item to iTunes to convert for iPod any movie in your collection (which may all be encoded in high quality for your ATV) for when you want to view it on your iPod?

Yep - it will now do that. Just add the menu yourself (using AppleScript) - don't forget to change the title to have a suffix of -iPod on it.

Feel free to make that AppleScript available for the rest of us :)

Cheers, Ed.

Re: HandBrake Snapshot Build 3

Posted: Tue Sep 30, 2008 11:33 pm
by vidjock
This just made Handbrake my number one encode tool period end of story. I must apologize in advance for the amount of bugs I am going to submit. :)

Compiling svn 1797 now on suse 10.3. Can't wait to start encoding, re-encoding and finding bugs.

Re: HandBrake Snapshot Build 3

Posted: Wed Oct 01, 2008 11:11 pm
by EQB
Hm... When updating from the previous development snapshot (svn1477 (2008053101)) to this one via the built-in updater DVD decryption is broken (says cannot create preview). Will try a manual update with a complete removal of the old version and re-install of the new. I'm running Leopard on an intel macbook and have version 0.8.6i of VLC.

Re: HandBrake Snapshot Build 3

Posted: Wed Oct 01, 2008 11:30 pm
by s55
VLC 0.8.6 will not work, Only the latest version of VLC does.

Re: HandBrake Snapshot Build 3

Posted: Wed Oct 01, 2008 11:32 pm
by EQB
Man, Handbrake has updated to support the latest VLC already? Awesome! From what I read it sounded like it might be a while. Alrighty, will update to new VLC.

Re: HandBrake Snapshot Build 3

Posted: Thu Oct 02, 2008 1:10 am
by Polygon
so....if the encode crashes do we not report it cause these builds are not supported?

Re: HandBrake Snapshot Build 3

Posted: Thu Oct 02, 2008 2:22 am
by eddyg
Polygon wrote:so....if the encode crashes do we not report it cause these builds are not supported?
From where you downloaded the snapshot from:
Found a bug?: Please post in the "bugs" section of the forum with "[SVN 1797]" in the subject line.
Please provide an Activity Log and a Crash Log (If one is available) .
These are required in order to debug problems. Any post without these will be locked.

Re: HandBrake Snapshot Build 3

Posted: Thu Oct 02, 2008 3:43 am
by mikecool493
Wow, I am seeing a very noticeable difference on my test material. About 7-8 fps faster with this version than with 0.9.2. Keep up the great work, guys!

Re: HandBrake Snapshot Build 3

Posted: Thu Oct 02, 2008 1:27 pm
by Paparika
I just tried convertig H264-mkv to MP4-Container, but i miss an option to select the subtitles i wan't to use. I can choose the audio stream i want to keep, but it won't recognize, that there are 2 subtitle-streams.

Re: HandBrake Snapshot Build 3

Posted: Thu Oct 02, 2008 1:42 pm
by nightstrm
Paparika wrote:I just tried convertig H264-mkv to MP4-Container, but i miss an option to select the subtitles i wan't to use. I can choose the audio stream i want to keep, but it won't recognize, that there are 2 subtitle-streams.
Use the info at the top of the snapshot download page and create a thread in the Bugs forum (including the necessary information); the announcement thread is not the place for this.

Re: HandBrake Snapshot Build 3

Posted: Thu Oct 02, 2008 3:16 pm
by hawthorn
Note: I experienced crashing also at first. I also was still using VLC 0.86i. When I did a clean install of VLC 0.9.3-intel and Handbrake svn1797 x86, the crashes went away and it seems to be working smoothly.

I suggest when this goes to release, that a positive check for VLC version be added if possible. It will eliminate a lot of trouble tickets.

Thanks for the great, great work as always. This is what software development is supposed to be.

AC3-5.1 Stream HandBrake Snapshot Build 3

Posted: Mon Oct 06, 2008 3:12 pm
by flapp3rs
Hopefully it's ok to post my results here? Did not really find out how to give feedback on this snapshot. Anyway:

Handbrake seams to be on the way to the one tool that does it all. Keep up!

I've testet last weekend and so far this what i've found out:
(Windowx XP with latest Snapshot)

Sometimes when i queue a movie to encode, the source and dest is not visible in the "Show queue" dialog. Did not find out in which case or how to provoke that. The endocing works, only the source and dest file are not showed in the dialog.

If i encode an mpeg2 with AC3-5.1 audio to MP4 container with x264 and AC3 audio i get AC3-2.0 as audio stream. I expected a dumb copy of the given 5.1 AC3 stream.

Thats all for the moment :)

Re: AC3-5.1 Stream HandBrake Snapshot Build 3

Posted: Mon Oct 06, 2008 3:40 pm
by rhester
flapp3rs wrote:If i encode an mpeg2 with AC3-5.1 audio to MP4 container with x264 and AC3 audio i get AC3-2.0 as audio stream. I expected a dumb copy of the given 5.1 AC3 stream.
The AC3 is a pass-through copy - the stereo indication is misreported based on the header. We have no AC3 encoder in HandBrake. :)

Rodney

Re: HandBrake Snapshot Build 3

Posted: Mon Oct 06, 2008 11:41 pm
by jbellanca
Just curious - no pressure or anything - but how often will you guys put up new snapshot builds for us all to try out some of the changes? Thanks everyone!

Re: HandBrake Snapshot Build 3

Posted: Tue Oct 07, 2008 3:22 am
by dynaflash
jbellanca wrote:Just curious - no pressure or anything - but how often will you guys put up new snapshot builds for us all to try out some of the changes? Thanks everyone!
We have no clue. Depends how the project is going and if there is anything worth releasing tbh.

Re: AC3-5.1 Stream HandBrake Snapshot Build 3

Posted: Tue Oct 07, 2008 7:11 am
by flapp3rs
rhester wrote:
flapp3rs wrote:If i encode an mpeg2 with AC3-5.1 audio to MP4 container with x264 and AC3 audio i get AC3-2.0 as audio stream. I expected a dumb copy of the given 5.1 AC3 stream.
The AC3 is a pass-through copy - the stereo indication is misreported based on the header. We have no AC3 encoder in HandBrake. :)

Rodney
Hmmm. This may reflects my results. I've made another attempt and Mediainfo showed me not only that the AC3 Track is 2.0 instead of 5.1 i have also an AAC 2.0 track in the outfile, which was definitve not choosen. I'll will retry that again later this week, but i'am really sure.

ZoomPlayer can't play that outfile from handbrake. An outfile from Nero recode with AC3-51 and h.264 in MP4 works.

A dump copy of the AC-3 5.1 track along with an x264 encodeing in an mp4 container would be the best result :D :D If this is really copied, than we have a bug in the header creation as you wrote.

Anyway, i've found the information, that AC3 is now part of the MP4 spec which means it will be standard compilant. Maybe its of interessest. Read more here: http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p ... ost1168961

Re: HandBrake Snapshot Build 3

Posted: Tue Oct 07, 2008 11:22 am
by Ritsuka
mediainfo does not read the right information for ac3 in mp4…
Nero ac-3 in mp4 is totally out of specs.

Re: HandBrake Snapshot Build 3

Posted: Tue Oct 07, 2008 3:12 pm
by jbrjake
Eddyg copied the Apple-style AC-3 MP4 atom right out of the AppleTV intro movie that plays when it's booted for the first time. It is a 5.1 AC3 track, and the AC-3 atom says it is 2-channel. This makes perfect sense if you think about it, because as far as the AppleTV handling the audio cares, it *is* 2-channel. It's stereo PCM. The individual discrete channels aren't visible outside the AC3 decoder in your surround receiver. The AppleTV is just shunting a stereo PCM data stream out its optical port.

Moving to the new AC3 atom will happen when someone decides it's worth their time, which is a hard sell when the current method already works.

Re: HandBrake Snapshot Build 3

Posted: Tue Oct 07, 2008 3:20 pm
by Ritsuka
No, actually the dac3 atom we use says it is 5.1 channels.
MediaInfo reads the channels number from the sample description, but that's a fixed number (2) in the mp4 file format.

Re: HandBrake Snapshot Build 3

Posted: Tue Oct 07, 2008 3:23 pm
by jbrjake
Wait, where is the right value specified? I thought that in the info we give to libmp4v2, there's nothing about the channel count, just the static 2 in the hex fields Ed copied.

Re: HandBrake Snapshot Build 3

Posted: Tue Oct 07, 2008 4:39 pm
by van
jbrjake wrote:Wait, where is the right value specified? I thought that in the info we give to libmp4v2, there's nothing about the channel count, just the static 2 in the hex fields Ed copied.
There's a lot of confusion about AC3-in-MP4 that's basically due to a design botch on Apple's part. The v1 Sound atom simply isn't capable of describing AC3 so what Apple decided to do is lie - the generic description part of the atom, the AudioSampleEntry box, *always* says 2 channels, 16 bits & 48KHz and these values are *required* to be ignored (see ETSI TS-102-366 v1.2.1 (2008) sec. F.3). The actual audio format is carried in a special AC3-specific extension (the dac3 atom Ritsuka mentioned). This is interpreted by low-level drivers that know how interpret AC3 frames (the dac3 atom just contains a copy of the 4 bytes of bit stream description that follows the sync pattern in an AC3 frame) but high level tools like QT players & MediaInfo just report what's in the generic header which is fixed by the standard & unrelated to the actual bitstream.

Gbooker suggested a while ago that we switch to the v2 Sound atom since it is capable of describing AC3 in the generic header so QT player / MediaInfo / etc. would give info about the actual bitstream. There's also a serious Apple bug in interpreting the channel layout that makes HB AC3 passthrough not work for many people (I have to diddle the channel layout to get it to work on my 10.5.5 Mac Pro). Gbooker has said that moving to a v2 Sound atom would work around this bug. In my spare time I've been trying to find enough info about the v2 Sound atom to make the changes but the info is hard to find & I have no spare time.

Re: HandBrake Snapshot Build 3

Posted: Tue Oct 07, 2008 9:19 pm
by Anonimozzo
any luck with subtitles (.srt format) encoding mkv to mp4 ?? (ipod touch preset)