Quality of Converting A DVD Movie to work on AppleTV

Discuss encoding for devices and presets.
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SicMX
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Posts: 66
Joined: Thu Mar 22, 2007 11:31 pm

Post by SicMX »

Hehe, didn't know what "mulling" meant =)

I personally think the Handbrake interface is the best out there and always works. I've tried using VisualHub to rip DVDs but it seems to be much more unreliable plus the fact that HB has subtitles, anamorphic and chapters options makes it the best DVD to .mp4 converter available!

The GUI is really easy to use and very clear, i don't see how anyone can complain at that. What about putting more technical features in an advanced section which can be enabled for those who need it, but keep it out of sight for those who don't want it?
Sort of like OSX is, really simple on the outside yet powerful on the inside.

Keep up the good work, I really appreciate what you guys are doing!
realityking
Veteran User
Posts: 680
Joined: Tue Apr 24, 2007 12:36 pm

Post by realityking »

jbrjake wrote:
SicMX wrote: As I said, "it's something I've been mulling for awhile now."

The problem is that every time I add advanced features for better quality, I get yelled at by the users. So I'm losing any motivation to do so. The gist of a lot of those "Your interface sucks" threads seems to be that things like x264 options and alternate rate control methods are not welcome. Someone even registered on the forum just to say that my additions make the interface "useless" for those who don't understand anything technical. Encouraging people to use anamorphic caused "woe." I've been informed that no one who cares about this stuff uses the GUI. And someone else told me that if I care about this stuff I should just use Windows. Not exactly encouraging feedback.

Anotherwords, if I do apply the patch to HB's copy of x264, it will only be available in the options pass-thru, not as a widget in the main interface. I might not even bother -- anyone who cares can grab Haali's patch off the internets and build with it themselves: http://mirror05.x264.nl/Sharktooth/forc ... 5-634.diff
If thats the case I want to give you some positive Feedback:
I'm a Mac User and use HandBrake to encode some of my DVDs for use in FrontRow. and I do care about quality a lot so I use anamorphic und a few x264 encoder options that make the encoding process take forever so I am interested in having control about x264 without adding those Advanced options in the Preferences. So I would really like to see you adding the patch o HandBrake - with a widget - maybe there's room for an 'Advanced' tab for options like this.
Thanks for your work.
Anamonde
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Posts: 71
Joined: Fri Mar 16, 2007 11:11 pm

Post by Anamonde »

Can't agree more. You are doing a FANTASTIC job. Handbrake is the easiest DVD-MP4 program I have used by far. Bring on the advanced tab - if people don't want advanced option they should not play with an advanced tab.

I have been a handbrake user for 2 years. I can see the quality of the dvd's i rip getting better and better as you guys make quality changes and I really appreciate them. Thank you so much!
brianlees
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Posts: 63
Joined: Wed Mar 28, 2007 2:17 am

Post by brianlees »

Perhaps there is a different way we could look at the interface. The addition of presets has been great. Maybe with a few more, different, well described presets, it would encourage people to explore more. If you show people two or three different versions of a conversion, for example, they can see how the different settings change picture and audio quality.

Would it be possible to do the following: As you select different presets, the settings that change could temporarily change color (red, for example). That way, people would see the differences between a high quality and a low quality. Just a thought.

I like Handbrake. I will admit that I don't understand how all the settings change the quality. However, I like to explore because I'm an IT manager....it's in my blood. :)

Brian

PS - forgive me if this is a ramble. I have a 2.5 year old crawling on my lap!
realityking
Veteran User
Posts: 680
Joined: Tue Apr 24, 2007 12:36 pm

Post by realityking »

i've actually got several Ideas how to strem line the Interface and would be willing to help integrate it. I guess I could handle the Interface Designer but I just don't know anything about Objective-C...
syklab
Posts: 4
Joined: Tue Apr 03, 2007 8:48 am

Post by syklab »

I am from the windows environment and have try quite a few tools in converting DVD to X.264 for ipod and ATV. I feel that HB is one of the best available tool so far. I am using the window GUI for HB and don't think there is any problem with that. I give 100% support for any advance feature added.


Great job for HandBrake !

Thanks,
ringofire
Posts: 3
Joined: Sun Apr 01, 2007 4:32 pm

Post by ringofire »

The best quality ive seen is from popcorn, tried them all extensivley, and the best for quality is by far popcorn, though handbrake is amazing and for free, how could anyone complain, theres little in it
thx_for_nuthin
Posts: 7
Joined: Wed Mar 07, 2007 9:44 pm

Post by thx_for_nuthin »

jbrjake wrote:
SicMX wrote:
jbrjake wrote:
(there is something that can be done about the blocking -- applying Haali's adaptive quantizer patch -- and it's something I've been mulling for awhile now.)
Can this patch be applied to HB?
As I said, "it's something I've been mulling for awhile now."

The problem is that every time I add advanced features for better quality, I get yelled at by the users. So I'm losing any motivation to do so. The gist of a lot of those "Your interface sucks" threads seems to be that things like x264 options and alternate rate control methods are not welcome. Someone even registered on the forum just to say that my additions make the interface "useless" for those who don't understand anything technical. Encouraging people to use anamorphic caused "woe." I've been informed that no one who cares about this stuff uses the GUI. And someone else told me that if I care about this stuff I should just use Windows. Not exactly encouraging feedback.

Anotherwords, if I do apply the patch to HB's copy of x264, it will only be available in the options pass-thru, not as a widget in the main interface. I might not even bother -- anyone who cares can grab Haali's patch off the internets and build with it themselves: http://mirror05.x264.nl/Sharktooth/forc ... 5-634.diff
You guys make a great product. I'd be all for supporting more advanced features. I'm a developer and no matter how easy you make it, people will still complain. Then the people who complained it's confusing will end up complaining that they don't have enough power once they understand everything.
remyhelsinki
Posts: 23
Joined: Mon Apr 16, 2007 1:35 am

Post by remyhelsinki »

I find it a bit revealing about a person who comes to post stating that HB is terrible at encoding, terrible at x, terrible at y, etc. There are a lot of users that have used HB for a long time without the problems you are stating. Like many have said, you would get much better help if you would post examples of what you are talking about, and also if you would be polite in asking questions of what could be wrong instead of declaring definitive statements that HB is terrible.

Props go to the developers of HB. The new additions that have been added as well as those coming down the line and mentioned in the developer forum are exciting. I'm sure it is frustrating at times for all of you developers to get pestered by the new users complaining or not understanding something. HB has become increasingly popular lately and I guess those things are to be expected. There is a large group of us that are extremely grateful for all of your work and while we may not be as vocal as those that complain we are behind you 100%.

I do think an Advanced tab would be interesting and useful, but might cause too many problems. Maybe if there was a preference checkbox that would hide/show the advanced tab (hidden by default), questions would be minimized by the average user.

HB is great though. I read the review about "Roxio Crunch" today at Appleinsider and they mentioned HB numerous times. It also made me see how lame "Crunch" will be.
mrtaber
Posts: 20
Joined: Fri Jan 12, 2007 6:16 pm

Post by mrtaber »

I, for one, like HB's interface. I find it clean and to the point. You're never going to make it "idiot simple," because if you did..ba-da-boom...only idiots would want to use it. It wouldn't do what needed to be done.

Right now, current state of the industry, there is just no "click-a-button-and-magic-happens" solution for the problem(s) of ripping DVDs and encoding them. I'm still agonizing over the size vs. quality question myself. I've pretty much decided to encode TV shows using the iPod preset (very good quality, I must add)--just add deinterlacing when necessary. For movies...well...I must say that the iPod preset looks really good, even on my 34" CRT HDTV...so do I really need to spend the extra space for the AppleTV setting? I don't know. Haven't made up my mind.

I'm rambling (need to lay off the Twix at lunch!); thanks, HB developers, keep doing what you're doing.

My only recommendation would be to thicken up your skins a bit--you've got a successful open source project on your hands, so the number of whiners and casual-can't-be-bothered-to-read users is going to increase. So, in a sense, you're victims of the project's success.

And yes...more choice is good...if it's documented somewhere, or if you can point us simpler souls to the information.

Again, much thanks,
Mark

P.S. Forgot to give the developers a big thanks for anamorphic and Dolby Pro Logic II, too! Kudos!
fwhite
Posts: 14
Joined: Tue May 01, 2007 12:35 am

Post by fwhite »

I just tested the same DVD file (The Increadibles) with Streamclip, Quicktime, and HandBrake. Here is my conclusion.

Handbrake- picture quality is good with slightly less saturated color. Anything over 1500 kbs and alot of fast motion on the screen will cause the movie to slow down and audio to go out of sync. I averaged 2200 for this test.

Streamclip- picture quality is good with slightly lesser saturation than Handbrake. There is no slowdown at 5000 kbs on fast motion. I averaged 5190 kbs for this test.

Quicktime- picture quality is terrible with lines in the movie, even less saturation than Streamclip. I averaged 2200 for this test. Used the export to AppleTV. For some reason, the clip didn't show up on the AppleTV. I had to load the clip to the AppleTV harddrive.

Not sure if the encoding has anything to do with color saturation. From my test, it shows that it doesn't. All encoding was done using H.264. I don't have VisualHub to give you any details. I will try and use the demo and save the scenes that I was testing. I hope this helps. If you want any more detail I will be glade to give it to you. I would post picture, but I'm not sure how to do that right at this moment.
SicMX
Novice
Posts: 66
Joined: Thu Mar 22, 2007 11:31 pm

Post by SicMX »

fwhite wrote:Handbrake- picture quality is good with slightly less saturated color. Anything over 1500 kbs and alot of fast motion on the screen will cause the movie to slow down and audio to go out of sync. I averaged 2200 for this test.
I rip all my movies at min. 3000kbps (h.264 & anamorphic) and audio has never been out of sync. Did you set the Apple TV or iPod profile?
syklab
Posts: 4
Joined: Tue Apr 03, 2007 8:48 am

Post by syklab »

I have ripped DVDs from 1500 to 3500 without any audio sync problem.

Regards
fwhite
Posts: 14
Joined: Tue May 01, 2007 12:35 am

Post by fwhite »

Try to encode The Increadibles and watch the cat in the tree scene. Some of my DVDs looks good at the higher settings, but for some reason this animated flick hesitates and other high action scene in other movies slow down . I tried everything to get this to stop with no results. Some of the things I tried are:

1. Remove the audio
2. Turn 2 pass off. This helped some.
3. Use Mac the ripper file from firewire raid drive
4. Do a direct convert from DVD

No matter what I do it still had the problem. But when I use Streamclip at 5000 kbs, it didn't stutter at all. So that isolated a hardware problem. I heard that Visual Hub was capable of doing 5000 kbs but I didn't test it to verify it. I'll try it today.

My current setup is a dual G5 at 1.8 Ghz with an external firewire 800 raid system. It would be nice if someone can verify my problem. I don't want to start encoding all my DVDs until I have a good program and settings.
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