A houseful of aTV & iDevices - One Preset to rule them all?

Discuss encoding for devices and presets.
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RicardoP
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A houseful of aTV & iDevices - One Preset to rule them all?

Post by RicardoP »

Like many I have a house full of iDevices and AppleTV's of varying vintages:

AppleTV & AppleTV 2
iPhone 4 & 4s
iPad (2010)

To date for simplicity I have been using the "Universal" preset to rip my catalog of DVD's and it will give me files that play on any of the devices. To date my TV's have only been 720p so I wasn't concerned there either.

But now I have upgraded to a fancy new 1080p TV and ordered a new iPad (2012) and new AppleTV (2012)

Should I continue to rip my catalog DVD's using the Universal pre-set to give me usable files for all devices, or am I going to be sacrificing too much quality on the new devices?

Or does it even matter for SD DVD's (I suspect not...) but only matters if I'm ripping Blu-Ray or other HD sources?

I want to try and keep it simple and not end up with multiple rips for different devices or multiple catalogs (have to keep the wife in mind!), but I will be migrating off the AppleTV (2007) for the foreseeable future so that may simplify things too.
mduell
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Re: A houseful of aTV & iDevices - One Preset to rule them a

Post by mduell »

Universal supports all Apple devices back to the early braindead iPod Video.

Throw away your tv (1st gen) and it becomes quite easy... use the tv 2 preset in HB. It matters for the size/quality of SD encodes, and even more for HD.
RicardoP
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Re: A houseful of aTV & iDevices - One Preset to rule them a

Post by RicardoP »

Thanks @mduell

At one level input media quality should I switch over to an "tv 3" pre-set (e.g. Blu-Rays for sure) assuming one exists soon?

I recall reading that the tv 2 can take 1080 input and will output 720p to the TV so would it be bad to switch over when it launches?

Obviously Handbrake isn't going to improve the quality of the source video but it won't make massive files and will keep the source settings and there is no downside, right?
Deleted User 11865

Re: A houseful of aTV & iDevices - One Preset to rule them a

Post by Deleted User 11865 »

mduell wrote:Universal supports all Apple devices back to the early braindead iPod Video.
For the iPod 5/5.5G, you need to use the iPod Legacy preset, actually. Universal should work on the video-capable iPod nano as well as the iPod classic (6G) (unless the resolution exceeds 720x480), as well as with the iPhone and iPod touch (up to 720x576).
Deleted User 11865

Re: A houseful of aTV & iDevices - One Preset to rule them a

Post by Deleted User 11865 »

Use the AppleTV preset, or if you discard your 1st gen. AppleTV, the AppleTV 2 preset. Universal is overkill (none of your devices requires such restrictive settings).
mduell
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Re: A houseful of aTV & iDevices - One Preset to rule them a

Post by mduell »

RicardoP wrote:At one level input media quality should I switch over to an "tv 3" pre-set (e.g. Blu-Rays for sure) assuming one exists soon?
Sure, if you want to fart around on the bleeding edge, running into vbv limits or something.
RicardoP wrote:I recall reading that the tv 2 can take 1080 input and will output 720p to the TV so would it be bad to switch over when it launches?
Probably not, until you find the limitation and have to encode a bunch of files again...
RicardoP wrote:Obviously Handbrake isn't going to improve the quality of the source video but it won't make massive files and will keep the source settings and there is no downside, right?
1080 encodes will be bigger than 720 encodes... how much does that matter on your storage-limited devices?
I don't know what "[keeping] the source settings" means to you, but it probably won't do that.
RicardoP
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Re: A houseful of aTV & iDevices - One Preset to rule them a

Post by RicardoP »

mduell wrote:
RicardoP wrote:At one level input media quality should I switch over to an "tv 3" pre-set (e.g. Blu-Rays for sure) assuming one exists soon?
Sure, if you want to fart around on the bleeding edge, running into vbv limits or something.
Not really! - right now backwards compatibility is more important to me than bleeding edge. I don't want to get to a situation where a bunch of rips can't play in both the tv 2 and new tv.
mduell wrote:
RicardoP wrote:I recall reading that the tv 2 can take 1080 input and will output 720p to the TV so would it be bad to switch over when it launches?
Probably not, until you find the limitation and have to encode a bunch of files again...
Nope - rather not!
mduell wrote:
RicardoP wrote:Obviously Handbrake isn't going to improve the quality of the source video but it won't make massive files and will keep the source settings and there is no downside, right?
1080 encodes will be bigger than 720 encodes... how much does that matter on your storage-limited devices?
I don't know what "[keeping] the source settings" means to you, but it probably won't do that.
Understood that encodes will be larger between SD/720/1080, and "keeping the source settings" to me means that Handbrake won't try to make video bigger than the source.

e.g. - an SD video with 720x480 won't be blown up to 1280x720, but a 720p DiVX source or other source will keep it's 1280x720 resolution and not be down sized, and the same for a 1080 source.

For my standard DVD backups I'll continue to use the tv 2 profile and have to experiment with some larger source materials when the new tv profile comes out

Thanks for the advice
TedJ
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Re: A houseful of aTV & iDevices - One Preset to rule them a

Post by TedJ »

You are correct, HandBrake will never upscale a source as it wastes space and offers no improvement in quality compared to upscaling on playback.
mduell
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Re: A houseful of aTV & iDevices - One Preset to rule them a

Post by mduell »

Just keep using the tv 2 preset for everything. There's no guarantee any new tv preset will work with a tv 2 for all encodes; that's the farting around on the bleeding edge part.

The GUI prevents you from upscaling video.
RicardoP
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Re: A houseful of aTV & iDevices - One Preset to rule them a

Post by RicardoP »

Thanks All - I think I'm done with the tv (original) just keeping the tv 2 and tv (new)
Ripping Jack
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Re: A houseful of aTV & iDevices - One Preset to rule them a

Post by Ripping Jack »

Personally I'm happy to continue using Universal for all SD rips, and High Profile for HD (as per the latest advice from the devs).
RicardoP
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Re: A houseful of aTV & iDevices - One Preset to rule them a

Post by RicardoP »

Morning / Afternoon / Evening!

So I've been diligently continuing by DVD backup process using the tv 2 preset and on a whim looked in and saw the following sticky from the dev's:
HandBrake wrote:You have a couple of options:

For the New iPad
  • iPad - Up to 720p. This preset will still work great on the new iPad. It will produce up to 720p content and keep filesizes down and thus is more suited for the limited space on this device.
  • High Profile - Up to 1080p. It'll take a long time to encode, but that is the trade off you need to make to keep file sizes in check for the limited space of the iPad.
For the AppleTV3
  • Normal - Up to 1080p. This preset is much faster than High Profile, but can produce larger file sizes. This may cause problems for weak wireless connected devices. Quality may be slightly less than High Profile
  • High Profile - Up to 1080p. Encodes will take a long time, but the quality is excellent and filesizes will be more reasonable than the Normal preset.
How does this impact my "one present to rule them all" question?

My gut says tv 2 preset will still be the best for SD DVD backups to include the older devices (I'm going to be abandoning the original tv as part of a move) through the newer - but with all the options and presets I know that my gut is probably wrong...
mduell
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Re: A houseful of aTV & iDevices - One Preset to rule them a

Post by mduell »

You're better off with the tv 2 preset, adjusted for resolution. If the default is too fast/slow, use the x264 presets for slower/faster.
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