Video Encoding - multiple formats help and best software/settings needed!

TheBigCheese

TheBigCheese

TheBigCheese

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6 Sep 2005
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Hi everyone

Oops, this is a long post - a brief summary:

I want software to recode DVD and Blu-Ray, shrinking the file size without losing image quality - DVD is more important than BR if that will cause a problem.

Would also like to add/stream it to an Asus eee Transformer so I'd like to know the best software/settings to use for that as well.


***Long post***

Sorry, I know this question has been asked a lot but I can't seem to find a definitive answer for what I'm wanting...

Firstly...
I've been backing up my DVD collection to HDD, stripping out the extras and recoding with DVD Shrink to make them a standard size (makes it easy to work out how many I can get on a drive!).

It's dawned on me that with new formats etc., I may be able to recode and shrink the films down from 4.35GB to a smaller file WITHOUT losing any further detail - that's the important bit I don't want to lose quality.

I currently do the same with Blu-ray - stripping it to the bare film using tsMuxer so I would be interested in recoding that.

Finally...I have recently bought an Asus eee Transformer tablet and I would like to be able to play/stream films to that so what software/settings would you recommend for recoding to that?

I tried using Handbrake and it played fine on the PC using VLC but was very blocky on the tablet. :(

I'm as interested in the settings you use as I am the software you use, I will make a hash of it if I've got to find all the settings, I always lose track of the best ones. :rolleyes:


Thanks in advance! :)
 
Handbreak > high profile. Optional: mkv container (mp4 is default) > audio, disable ac3 pass-through (that's the dvd audio uncompressed in addition to the aac version. Can save ~300MB if you don't need it) > subtitles, essential if there's a couple forgien lines. Set forced, default if so but never burn them in.

"Blockyness" tends to come from the display rather than the code. For example if I play some 1080p mkv on my plasma then it's silky smooth, but if I played the same thing ona 3 year old lcd it will be very blocky. I doubt that tablet had a top notch display to begin with so check with a 3rd screen, plasma if possible :)
 
Thanks for the posts guys

I'm trying one of two episodes on a disc using your method Azuse05, it's going to take over an hour to recode one of the episodes, and that's on a quad core! :eek:

I'll post an update when it's done.
 
Yes, you're really best with an i series quad for transcoding. This phenom takes ~50min to covert casino royal/collateral when an i5/7 would do it in half that time, probably less.

Just remember that you're limited by the source material and dvds, particularly newish ones, tend to use most of the 8.5Gig. You will almost certainly achieve better results from the 7GB file that came from the dvd than the compressed file dvd shrink spat out. I admit I'm not fully aware of what compression it uses, but it's 6 years old and transcoding from a compressed file is never a good thing. You loose quality and the end file can be larger than the input file (won't happen in this case).

Encoding the way I mentioned brings - assuming it's just the main movie - collateral down from a 6.5GB ripped file to 816MB mkv of the same quality, casino royal to 1.29GB, hot fuzz 1.17GB etc. so those 4.35GB files are quite bulky really.

On the plus side, once you find a balance you do like you can queue up encodes and run them overnight/while at work so the time taken isn't so bad really.
 
Aye agreed, it was because of video conversion results that I moved away from AMD (a long time fan) and moved back to Intel when the C2Ds came out, I'm on an i7 920 (stock) at the moment.

Thanks for the tip, I'm using DVD Shrink on it's 8.5GB setting, it's an easy way of seeing the extras etc., so I can take just the original film and make a new Video_TS folder without actually having to recode it (as far as I understand it anyway...it's certainly quicker than if it's being compressed to 4.35GB!).

That's amazing that you can reduce the file sizes by that amount, I'll have to look into the queuing options!

I tried your method and it certainly did shrink it down, a 3.5GB 90 minute episode of Taken shrunk down to 0.98GB and I couldn't notice a difference in quality. :)
 
High-profile x264 encoding is quite hardcore in terms of CPU usage, but it is much more efficient than the compression used on a DVD. Depending on the content, I find that you need about 800 - 1000MB per hour of video to get the same quality from an MKV as from a DVD.

Something I found out through experimentation: on a lot of DVDs, the picture is quite 'noisy'. If you turn on the denoise feature in Handbrake and set it to weak or medium, you end up with a smaller file and one which is actually more watchable.

Another good idea is to experiment by using the preview function in Handbrake. It'll encode a 10-second sample, so you can see how good your settings are without having to wait for the whole thing to encode.
 
Ooh, I've just remembered you comment about the tablet, I wondered if it was the screen or not so tried playing some full HD film trailers on Youtube and they seem to play without a hitch, so I'm a bit stumped with that one.
*edit* Ah, I tell a lie, just been watching the Thor trailer and when it jumps from bright to dark scenes or vice versa it does go very blocky for half a second...that's disappointing. :(

What settings would you recommend for a screen that is good quality (it's an IPS panel) but only 10" with a resolution of 1280x800?
 
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Then the blocks are in the media you're feeding it. That res is also far higher than the res of a dvd anyway :)
 
Sorry to hijack, but I have been thinking about doing the same thing. I'm not particularly interested in significantly reducing the file size, and would be happy to trade larger file size for better quality. I have been using h.264 with the RF value in handbrake set to 10-ish (0 (lossless) doesn't always work) - this seems to give good quality, but I get the impression from this thread that an RF of 20 is sufficient for DVD rips - is it worth sticking with a higher RF?

Is there any advantage to using the .mkv container over .mp4?
 
Recommended RF is 20-22 +/-1 for sd/hd hence is defaulted to 20, although you're unlikely to notice the difference of 22 on a blu-ray, why bother removing fine detail when storage capacity is so cheap and cpus so fast?

Mp4? Ac3 pass through. For all intents and purposes they both do exactly the same thing, the problem is AC3 doesn't work out of the box with mp4 hence most of the internet videos are mkvs. Basically mkv supports everything and just works making it simpler for everyone. It's also free meaning no licensing fees paid to apple meaning an ever increasing number of devices support it. Still, plenty things don't, xbox, ps3 etc. comes down to how you use it really. If no AC3 then mp4 is probably more compatible with your devices, but it's six and half a dozen tbh.

This is a little outdated, but accurate in the basics https://trac.handbrake.fr/wiki/HandBrakeGuide, mkv/mp4 page here https://trac.handbrake.fr/wiki/Containers . Other useful one is https://trac.handbrake.fr/wiki/AnamorphicGuide which is why if you just use the default profile (normal) you should use loose anomorphic. It not only produces smaller files but tends to be faster.
 
I think it's all about what's acceptable for you and your viewing hardware. I find that I can notice the quality loss at 20 and that 18 or 19 looks considerably better. You might want to go further if you're viewing on a big screen. Then again, DVDs themselves don't exactly look great on a big TV any more - you can't preserve detail that's not there!

RF 10 sounds like the file could be almost as big as the original DVD. If you're really not bothered about disk space, you could always rip the DVD directly to an ISO (optionally cutting out menus, extra content, etc.) Definitely don't use 0 - the files will be much bigger than the DVD itself!
 
Thanks Azuse/Mattus - thats helped a lot. This may be a stupid question, but I assume h.264 is a better format to rip to than MPEG 2?

RF10 does produce files nearly as big as the original - not really a problem, but I will experiment with 18/19/20 to see if it makes a noticeable difference. I do have some (particularly region 1 dvds) ripped as ISOs - its just not very compatible (requires 3rd party mounting software etc). I'll hold onto them, but for day to day use having them in h.264 (or similar) is more useful.

Just to note, I did give RF 0 a try. File size wasn't massive, but the files don't play on anything - I only had the audio, no video stream. The author of handbrake knew what he was talking about when he put in the prompt warning against RF 0...
 
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I should stress that unless you know exactly what you'll be playing them on e.g. pc/specific medic box then you really want both Dolby and ac-3 audio tracks. It may not be very elegant having two 5.1 tracks, and will certainly increase space, but the pass through issue with mp4 means sometimes even devices that say they support can have issues. the xbox did at one point.

If in doubt simply select high profile, add any subtitles/foreign audio track you need and encode the mp4 knowing it will work on every media streamer you'll encounter.
 
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