I spent about 75 days with both of my MacBook Airs encoding video only to realize that I made a big mistake in defining my custom profile--I turned anamorphic off. A lot of my DVDs are home movies that I need to preserve the maximum degree of quality on so this new library of h.264 files will be the gold standard.
A few questions:
1. Is there such a thing as a perfect preset? I think the answer is no but I definitely don't want to export dual (or more files).
2. I would like to maintain maximum quality from my DVD source content
3. I would even like to include subtitles, and possibly additional audio tracks although these seem to get in the way more than anything.
4. I prefer including more than 128 or 160 Kbps audio streams because I am a lossless music type of person. So I'll set this to 250 Kbps, but then I'm not sure if this includes all 5.1 channels or just the stereo channels.
Can anyone guide me on how to devise my profile? I'm going to restart encoding all of my video. The worst part of my mistake is the curation and organization of all of my media--picking titles/chapters and naming. But I can't leave the output as it is so I need to properly research and select a profile and then begin.
Clear mistakes:
1. Anamorphic on (strict or loose?)
2. Bump RF quality to, perhaps 19 from the default of 20 (I think it is)
3. Include subtitles (do I need to use MKV files and will these work on iOS devices?)
4. 90% of my consumption is on Mac/iPhone/iPad/iOS devices.
Any tips or direction would be most helpful. Of course I have read a lot of guides but making the actual decisions is not the easiest.
Building my perfect preset
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Re: Building my perfect preset
1. Sure it's possible to have a preset that a user regards as perfect for their use.
2. Then you should not be using HB. Keep DVD rips for actual "maximum" quality. If you're open to some marginal reduction in quality in exchange for file size reduction or compatibility improvements, then HB may be the tool for you.
3. Given your playback device limitations, handling DVD subs will require some compromise.
4. You would have the choice of 5.1 or a stereo downmix. Given your playback constraints, you want the first track to be stereo AAC. You could keep or transcode the 5.1 track (AC3 or DTS) as AC3 for a second track.
I'd suggest starting with the Apple TV preset and making your desired quality, encoding speed, filtering, audio, and subtitle changes from that.
1. Strict for your case, loose is only when you need to resize.
2. 19 is a reasonable choice for DVD sources.
3. For DVD subs you can burn them into the video if you want mp4/m4v, or include them as soft subs with MKV. MKV would require non-default playback software on all of your listed devices.
2. Then you should not be using HB. Keep DVD rips for actual "maximum" quality. If you're open to some marginal reduction in quality in exchange for file size reduction or compatibility improvements, then HB may be the tool for you.
3. Given your playback device limitations, handling DVD subs will require some compromise.
4. You would have the choice of 5.1 or a stereo downmix. Given your playback constraints, you want the first track to be stereo AAC. You could keep or transcode the 5.1 track (AC3 or DTS) as AC3 for a second track.
I'd suggest starting with the Apple TV preset and making your desired quality, encoding speed, filtering, audio, and subtitle changes from that.
1. Strict for your case, loose is only when you need to resize.
2. 19 is a reasonable choice for DVD sources.
3. For DVD subs you can burn them into the video if you want mp4/m4v, or include them as soft subs with MKV. MKV would require non-default playback software on all of your listed devices.
Re: Building my perfect preset
Got it, thank you! I am using Synology DS video on my devices, which all of my video goes through--unless I just grab a file directly, which is rare--and I noted one mp4 that I obtained at one point had a subtitles button which showed subtitles nicely layered over the video. I wondered how this was done and why all the video that I have encoded couldn't have something so convenient. Is this because my playback software supports this (DS video) or something else? They were not baked into the video but layered via a nice black on white subtitle, rounded box.
Re: Building my perfect preset
Probably a text subtitles track instead of a bitmap.
Re: Building my perfect preset
Do DVDs not include text subtitles? Are they bitmap images? Yuck if so!
Re: Building my perfect preset
DVD subs are definitely bitmaps.
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Re: Building my perfect preset
sometimes the dvd will be nice enough to include a CC track, which handbrake can convert to text subs for mp4(or something, i don't exactly know how it works )