Handbrake quality is better than Premiere CS5 output!!!

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flat_be
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Joined: Tue Sep 28, 2010 7:31 pm

Handbrake quality is better than Premiere CS5 output!!!

Post by flat_be »

Hello

I'm very impressed with the quality which Handbrake delivers. I'm using handbrake for a long time and it's a very easy program to produce high-quality MP4's.

For my work I'm using Premiere CS5 since last month. I have a lot of movieclips which show the company logo in the right corner. When I output the clips to MP4 using the builtin codec H.264 (from Mainconcept), the result is quite good.

As an experiment, I exported some clips from Premiere to Uncompressed avi (HB doesn't support Lagarith / Huffyuv) to process them with HB (default: Normal) profile.
WOW, the company logo in the right corner looks much sharper!!! (not the fuzzy, bleed-like edge with the Premiere export)

How is this possible?
I've spent quite some time to try almost every H.264 parameter in Premiere but I can't get the static logo in the corner to look as sharp as the export from HB.

Anyone can tell me which magic parameter Handbrake has under the hood?

Regards.
mduell
Veteran User
Posts: 8187
Joined: Sat Apr 21, 2007 8:54 pm

Re: Handbrake quality is better than Premiere CS5 output!!!

Post by mduell »

It's no parameter, it's an entirely different encoder (x264 vs MainConcept).

Try the High Profile preset for even better (quality per bit) compression.
creamyhorror
Enlightened
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Joined: Mon Jan 04, 2010 2:00 pm

Re: Handbrake quality is better than Premiere CS5 output!!!

Post by creamyhorror »

The stripped-down version of Mainconcept in Premiere simply can't match x264's quality or compression efficiency. Mainconcept's advanced encoders can, but they're not commonly available in consumer video applications.

x264 is the leading commonly available encoder, and can easily match even specialized multi-thousand-dollar studio encoders at the bitrates most people encode at. But it doesn't get included in the more established consumer video apps, possibly because it's open source and licensing issues are involved (?).
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JohnAStebbins
HandBrake Team
Posts: 5712
Joined: Sat Feb 09, 2008 7:21 pm

Re: Handbrake quality is better than Premiere CS5 output!!!

Post by JohnAStebbins »

... possibly because it's open source and licensing issues are involved (?).
Hopefully that will change ...
http://mailman.videolan.org/pipermail/x ... 07508.html
flat_be
Posts: 2
Joined: Tue Sep 28, 2010 7:31 pm

Re: Handbrake quality is better than Premiere CS5 output!!!

Post by flat_be »

Thanks for the info!

It's unbelievable that this free encoder/codec is superior to commercial encoders. I even tried Broadcast Suite from Maincincept and couldn't get the sharpness of text which Handbrake (x264) delivers...I'm very impressed....

Any advice what's the best way to encode my Premiere clips with HB?
I now export them as Uncompressed AVI files and process them with Handbrake because HB doesn't support Huffyuv or Lagarith. Are there other intermediate codecs I can use to import the lossless clips into Handbrake?

Regards.
tlindgren
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Re: Handbrake quality is better than Premiere CS5 output!!!

Post by tlindgren »

flat_be wrote:Any advice what's the best way to encode my Premiere clips with HB?
I now export them as Uncompressed AVI files and process them with Handbrake because HB doesn't support Huffyuv or Lagarith
Handbrake uses ffmpeg for decoding input and it appears ffmpeg claims to support Huffyuv but I've not tested it myself and the devil is always in the details, it may not handle ALL cases.

You've not mentioned what version of Handbrake you use, if it's 0.9.4 it's probably worthwhile to check the latest nightly to see if it can read your Huffyuv files, see the top of all forums for instructions and download link. It has a much newer ffmpeg (which may have added Huffyuv), improved h264 encoder and many bugfixes.
Deleted User 13735

Re: Handbrake quality is better than Premiere CS5 output!!!

Post by Deleted User 13735 »

flat_be wrote:Anyone can tell me which magic parameter Handbrake has under the hood?
x264 + some amazing developers.

But "Shhhhh," don't tell anyone, its a secret. :roll:
TedJ
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Joined: Wed Feb 20, 2008 11:25 pm

Re: Handbrake quality is better than Premiere CS5 output!!!

Post by TedJ »

tlindgren wrote:You've not mentioned what version of Handbrake you use, if it's 0.9.4 it's probably worthwhile to check the latest nightly to see if it can read your Huffyuv files, see the top of all forums for instructions and download link.
+1

It's entirely possible that the issues you're having with HuffyYUV is due to a bug related to some ffmpeg decoders that was fixed last April.

http://trac.handbrake.fr/changeset/3262
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