Tweaking ATV3 preset for ATV4

[Man-Machine]

Hi,

I'm going to start backing up all my DVDs to stream to my new Apple TV 4 but there's only an Apple TV 3 preset. Should I just use that preset or should I tweak it somehow to take advantage of the new hardware?

Suggestions?

[JohnAStebbins]

The main differences between 3rd and 4th gen appear to be support for h.264 level 4.2 vs. 4.0 in 3rd gen and 60fps vs 30fps in 3rd gen. The higher level support means it supports a higher peak bitrate in the video stream. For most content, you would not see a difference in quality since 4.0 already supports a sufficiently high bitrate.

The higher framerate support could be useful if you have 1080p 60fps content you want to encode. But about the only way you are going to obtain such video is if you shoot it yourself with a video camera that supports this framerate. I've never heard of this format being broadcast, nor have I heard of any blurays that use this format.

[JohnAStebbins]

Oh, one thing occurs to me. The current 30fps limit imposed by HandBrake's Apple TV 3 preset applies to *all* resolutions, including 720p. 720p 60 fps is a fairly common broadcast format. So if you are encoding captured 720p 60fps video, it would be advantageous for you to change the framerate setting to 60fps peak framerate.

[Man-Machine]

Thank you.

I'm only encoding my DVDs, so I'm just continue to use the ATV3 preset.

What about cartoons that might be TV interlaced, like old Hanna-Barbera? Should I change anything for ATV4?

[JohnAStebbins]

What about cartoons that might be TV interlaced, like old Hanna-Barbera? Should I change anything for ATV4?

The ATV3 preset has the decomb filter enabled. This filter automatically detects if a frame is interlaced, and deinterlaces it. So, in theory, you shouldn't need to change anything for interlaced content.

But the interlace detection is a little too permissive and lets some subtle interlacing slip through sometimes. It's something we plan to fix soon in the nightly builds (and some future release) by adjusting it's sensitivity. So if you notice interlace artefacts in your output, you can either change the decomb settings to the custom string "391:2:1:1:2" (which increases decomb detection sensitivity), or turn off decomb and turn on the deinterlace (a.k.a. yadif) filter.

[Man-Machine]

Thank you!!!

[nekton23]

Please would you add a preset for the AppleTV4 to the next version of Handbrake?