Ok, here is the text posted as HTML. Not sure why I encoded 2 audio tracks, will have to work on this. One is only 2 channels. I noticed that with a Disney short Blue Ray that it showed 2 channel on XBMC. Where the kids usually watch is on a regular tv with the WDTV live hub, so the audio does not matter that much. However, in the movie room I do need more than 2 channels.
I checked some of my other bd encodes done the same way and none were over 1080. I looked up some more handbrake settings and tried turning anamorphic off. The source does show 1920 by 1080. Well see if this works. I will post back the results, but it may take a couple of days.
E
I reran the bd thru make mkv. Then I ran the Mkv thru handbrake again, but turned the anamorphic off. Sent the file to the wdtv and it works fine. I’ll run media view on it when I get a chance so we can compare it to the original mp4.
E
I hope you are running the MKV through Handbrake for a reason other than to play the movie on the WDTV, because the WD will play the mkv. The reason I run an MKV thru Handbrake is to make a m4v for using on the iPad. If not needed as an m4v, I don’t send files thru Handbrake.
These are all movies for my kids, so all cartoons. The original file size is about 20gb for a typical bluray. At an rf of 22, recommended for bluray, handbrake will output a file that is between 2 and 3.5 gb. A little large for the ipad, but small enough to move around thou my gb network. Except to the hub which maxes out at about 9mb/s write. Hard drives are getting so cheap that I really should just use the original Mkv, but I honestly cannot tell the difference on the 40" LCD that the hub is connected to or on my epson 5010 which is fed by xbmc onto a 110" screen. For the ipad ill usually just use the DVD to get a file that is about 1gb, although I have compressed a few movies even more.
E
OK, I see; they are for the kids and you want to save disk space. Makes sense.
Well, I can see why someone with an iPad or other tablet of 16 GB or less would not want to put even a single 2GB movie on it, but we don’t have to put any movies on an iPad; even on a 64 GB model. No need to. Around the house with a fast network, the movies can be streamed to the iPad from hard drives around the house via Twonky Beam. On a trip, or any time away from home, the m4v movies can be streamed to the iPad via a wireless hard drive made for this purpose, e.g. the Seagate GoFlex Satellite, or the upgraded model of it.
Same can be said for music. I have no music or videos installed on my iPad or smaller Kindle HD, but I have over 13,000 song tracks I can stream to them, as well as a few dozen iPad movies I’ve made so far, using the above methods. Since I have Comcast, I can even download some of their movies with their app and install their movies onto the devices for use on an airplane trip. Any movies I do put on my devices are only there temporarily and can be deleted once watched.
Gotta disagree about no visual difference between MKVs and m4v’s of same movies. Even with my bad vision, I see a big difference when either is viewed on my 54" Plasma screen. MKV files are perfect, whereas the m4v files made for the iPad when seen on TV have less clarity, and some jitter compared to the original MKV. A m4v video viewed on the iPad that is less demanding and more forgiving than a TV, looks really good. You might want to compare them a little closer!
Joey nailed it on the format profile part. Not sure how turning off anamorphic fixed this (isn’t that for taking a compressed image and then stretching it through an anamorhic lens on your projector?), but the AVC High@L4.2 profile is for 1920x1080p60 which as Joey pointed out is out of the range of resolution that WD supports.
Stick with the format profiles listed above in your initial rip from Blu-Ray to MTS and it should save you a lot of time.
For kids movies like shrek the resolution is fine. Ill experiment with the full mkv file especially for xbmc and the projector. I can send files to my nas at 50mb/s. I sometimes use iTunes sharing to stream movies to the iPads but will look at twonky beam.
E
I will try that for my next encode. Probably hard for me to tell if the video is smooth when cars is on for the 50th time. I just sent a few full bd MKVs to my NAS to replace some mp4 rips. I will have to read the handbrake guide regarding anamorphic settings a couple of more times. https://trac.handbrake.fr/wiki/AnamorphicGuide
OK, got it Joey. Thanks. Yes, whenever I run across a setting for frame rate to adjust, I always select same as original and don’t select VFR unless that was the original setting. I seem to recall most all are a constant rate.
As for the m4v files I make with Handbrake for the iPad (and now a 7" Kindle Fire HD, too) I use the prefab (default) setting in Handbrake for iPad. I know others here tweak Handbrake, but the defaults work fine for me (I figure the geeks who set it up know more about it than I do) and my m4v files are all just fine for what I want to use them for.