ATV Advanced Settings (DVD Source)

Discuss encoding for devices and presets.
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Scott R
Experienced
Posts: 94
Joined: Wed Nov 07, 2007 5:03 am

Post by Scott R »

dynaflash wrote:Cav, maybe I misinterpreted the question. he quoted your post which had your cli command, but then talked about the gui text box. So, I guess I assumed he just meant the x264 opt string part of your cli line.

In any event, correct, you *cannot* paste the entire cli line into the x264 text box. It is only for the x264 opt portion of that string.
FWIW, I'm using the Windows version of Handbrake. My sequence of events has been as follows:
1) Start up Handbrake for Windows.
2) Click "Show Presets" and select "AppleTV"
3) Click the "Browse" button next to "Source" and select the directory that contains my movie VOB files (which I ripped using DVDFab HD Decrypter).
4) Click the "Browse" button next to "Destination" and select a destination folder/filename (which I give the .m4v affix).
5) Click the tab labeled "H.264." When you click on that tab, there's a heading labeled "Advanced H.264 Options." I pasted the text I quoted in previous post into that box.

Other than that, I don't change any other settings. I'm not sure how the Mac version works, but with my version, if I change various settings (under the "Picture Settings" tab, for example) the command line options under the "H.264" tab, don't change. FWIW, the default settings (when I select the AppleTV preset) are listed as:
bframes=3:ref=1:subme=5:me=umh:no-fast-pskip=1:trellis=2
So my question remains as follows: If I simply copy/paste the text into the "H.264" tab's text box, is that enough or are there any other settings, checkboxes, etc. under any of the other tabs that I should be altering?

Finally...I tried changing the "-q 0.65" setting to "-q 0.70" but still saw macroblocking. Then I tried upping it to 0.99 but when I tried to encode it failed right away, so I tried 0.90, but I've still got the macroblocking there (and I don't know if 0.90 works with an AppleTV - right now I'm playing these on a Vista Media Center computer). FYI, the file sizes were as follows:
0.65: 1,393,522 KB
0.70: 1,944,833 KB
0.90: 3,563,900 KB

The video looks great (even at 0.65) in most scenes. The problem is apparent when I have a large section of black (with minor gray variations). On the original VOB files, the transition of gray-to-black is much smoother, whereas with the .m4v files, there is blockiness. If I was only going to watch these on my 42" plasma or 37" LCD, I'd probably be perfectly content (even with the 0.65 setting), but I want to watch these on my 720p LCD projector, and I'm concerned that if I watched my movies projected on an 80"x45" screen, the blockiness would be much more apparent/bothersome.

Any other suggestions?
Cavalicious
Moderator
Posts: 1804
Joined: Mon Mar 26, 2007 12:07 am

Post by Cavalicious »

This is the only part that goes in the text box:

keyint=240:keyint-min=24:bframes=6:ref=3:mixed-refs=1:subq=5:me=umh:no-fast-pskip=1:trellis=0:no-dct-decimate=1:vbv-maxrate=4900:vbv-bufsize=3000

BTW, you are doing something wrong, because there is no way a .90 crf is going to give you that small of a file.
Scott R
Experienced
Posts: 94
Joined: Wed Nov 07, 2007 5:03 am

Post by Scott R »

Thanks. But can you tell me, then, should I also select/un-select other settings/checkboxes on the other tabs? As for the size of my 0.90 file. I should have mentioned that my source VOB files totaled to about 5.5GB.
Cavalicious
Moderator
Posts: 1804
Joined: Mon Mar 26, 2007 12:07 am

Post by Cavalicious »

I don't use the Window's GUI. You may want to seek help in that forum.
robertbroussard
Posts: 22
Joined: Tue Nov 06, 2007 1:03 am

Any consensus yet???

Post by robertbroussard »

With all of this discussion and testing there should be a consensus on the best settings (better video quality and/or smaller file sizes compared to the default AppleTV preset)...

Well, what settings are consistently better than the standard preset?

I need to rip a bunch of content and I don't want to do it more than once.

Thanks,

RObert
Cavalicious
Moderator
Posts: 1804
Joined: Mon Mar 26, 2007 12:07 am

Post by Cavalicious »

Do a search for "Best Settings", my latest are there.
robertbroussard
Posts: 22
Joined: Tue Nov 06, 2007 1:03 am

Post by robertbroussard »

I'm getting 1,066 matches on "Best Settings". Please send a link to the post you are referring to.

Thanks,

Robert
Cavalicious
Moderator
Posts: 1804
Joined: Mon Mar 26, 2007 12:07 am

Post by Cavalicious »

Its a Sticky in General
dynaflash
Veteran User
Posts: 3820
Joined: Thu Nov 02, 2006 8:19 pm

Re: Any consensus yet???

Post by dynaflash »

robertbroussard wrote:With all of this discussion and testing there should be a consensus on the best settings (better video quality and/or smaller file sizes compared to the default AppleTV preset)...

Well, what settings are consistently better than the standard preset?

I need to rip a bunch of content and I don't want to do it more than once.

Thanks,

RObert
Robert, in this thread and in your other thread regarding the AppleTV, you are trying to pin us down on the definitive answer for the perfect settings for the appleTV. But surely by now, you have must have gotten the message that there is no such thing. Several people, myself included, have suggested you try the AppleTV Preset and go from there. Ultimately, only you can be the judge of what looks best to you vs. file size and encoding time. Please, spend some due diligence and try some test encodes (typically a chapter is enough to get an idea) and see how they look and perform. From there, you can ask questions based on the results of your tests. Between the two threads, you can surely get a pretty good idea of where to start.

Have fun and dont be so worried. You can always re-encode if you dont like it ;)
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