HANDBRAKE Settings

Hi all. FIrstly let me say that I am quite aware that a Google search will produce about 200 million hits on what Handbrake settings to use when ripping Bluray disks. That is exactly my problem. I have read so many articles on what values to use for Anamorphic, what RF value to use, what Advanced parameter values to use, and every article/thread tends to contradict the last one I read. I recognize that there is probably not just one exact way to do it but I thought I would make a request in these forums for a good process that I can use to rip my bluray disks and create mkv’s that will look really good on my 73" HD TV.

I would say I am looking for a process that will produce files smaller than 1:1 versions of the movies but large enough that I don’t look at them and think 'they don’t even look as good as my Comcast HD channels of TV"

Here are some of the things I am trying to get a handle on before I spend weeks or months ripping disks just to eventually determine I really should have done it differently:

  1. How do you handle anamorphic (i.e. Loose or Strict)

  2. Do you use RF for quality, and if so what value do you use. Or do you use 2-pass with a bitrate instead?

  3. I have been keeping the highest level of audio available even though I realize that the WDTV Live can’t pass some of them and only uses the core. My thinking is that eventually that may not be true and I want to have archived the full audio capability in case that happens. Does that make any sense? Do you do that? Does it make my files considerably larger then just using the DTS core or AC3 5.1?

  4. I don’t get any chapters. I guess I should tell you what I’m using. I use AnyDVD HD to rip the disk. Then I use TXMuxer to mux the video and audio into an M2TS file. Then I use Handbrake on the M2TS file to create the MKV file. What do I need to do differently so that I have actual chapters? Should I bother worrying about that?

  5. What about subtitles? Does the WDTV Live (Gen 3) now support PGS subtitles embedded in an MKV container? Do I need to do any special processing with subtitles?

I would be so grateful to anyone willing to take a little time to address these questions. Or if you can point me to a thread or web article that defines a process that you actually use and can attest to its validity. Or even a killer Handbrake preset that you use for high quality bluray archiving that you could export and send me.

I don’t mind experimenting and I don’t mind completely doing over what I’ve done so far if it makes sense to do that. I’ve done about 20 movies so far but they just don’t look as good as playing the Bluray on my Oppo BDP-83. I have quite a large collection of bluray movies that I want to build into a great media library. I am about to buy a Synology DS-412+ and 4 WD Red drives (probably 2TB) and I want to do this right (and not over 6 times).

Thanks in advance to anyone willing to have some discussion regarding this topic.

Rob

Well first, the best place to find settings is in the Handbrake forum. https://forum.handbrake.fr/

With HB though, if you ask what the best settings are you will get 100 different answers as everyone tends to have settings that they prefer and some people have different settings for different types of movies.

However, with that said, my personal preference is to use the “High Profile” preset.  Then change the RF to 19, this always gives me a output file that is nealy as good of a quaility as the input.  I use this for both SD and BD movies.

I wouldn’t worry about any other settings except the RF and adding the Audio tracks you want and just use the preset settings for everything else.  I would also output as mkv as it is a more versitle container and you have more options when it comes to what audio tracks you can use.  The only real reason to use mp4 is if you have an iOS device.

Also, it’s been a while since I’ve used AnyDVD, but I don’t think there should be any reason why it would be necessary to use TSMuxer, and that may be why the chapters are not getting encoded into your mkv.  If your de-muxing the file then re-muxing it without adding the chapters, then HB will not add them.  You should be able to run the ripped file directly through HB, just select  the Source as “Open Folder” NOT “Open File” then just select the output folder where your movie is.

As for subtitles.  If you are only concernded with the Engilsh portion that is being spoken during foreign language parts, then I would suggest using a nightly build of HB.  Those will allow you to burn in those subs so that they are a part of the movie and you don’t have to turn subtitles on to see them.  You can see more about that here: http://community.wdc.com/t5/WD-TV-Live-Hub-General/Handbrake-PGS-burn-in-support/m-p/397575/highlight/true#M19246

This seems like the week to discuss Handbrake. 

I am not a Handbrake expert at all; there are others here who can lay claim to that. 

I recently started using it for one reason only:  To convert some of my (AnyDVD HD) ISO files to an iPad format.  Not only can these simpler movie files be put on an iPad for viewing on the next airplane flight, they also stream nicely to the iPad, either within the home network (via File Browser app) or outside the home (via the Pogoplug and it’s app.)  But when these iPad movies are seen on the HDTV, they understandably are lousy. 

I wrote about my Handbrake experiences just a short while ago in this thread:

http://community.wdc.com/t5/WD-TV-Live-Streaming-Discussions/Hand-Brake-How-Good-is-it/td-p/490786

As far as I know, you, (like me) have the best program for converting your discs for HDTV viewing:  AnyDVD HD.  I am not familiar with the program you use for making BD MKV files, but because of suggestions I saw in these forums, I purchased and use ByteCopy for that purpose.  It does a great job, it has presets for the WD players, it creates chapters, it works well and is simple to use.

What does Bytecopy do with subtitle tracks??

Rob

Bytecopy is just another pay program

Also, as the other poster is not familar with Handbrake they probably don’t know that it is the standard for encoding to mkv (for compressed encodes) and MKVmerge (MKVtoolnix) is the standard for 1:1 encodes.

As for Bytecopy, there is no reason to spend money on it, especially when there is a free program that is better and will do the exact same thing (MKVtoolnix), except rip the SD/BD, and you seem to already have something that will do that.

I’ve been going through the same process as goldberg96; trying to find the best options in Handbrake to rip BDs to MKV for viewing through the WD SMP.  My goal is the best quality on a large screen TV with the smallest file size (sound familiar?)

My findings so far:

First, if you have AnyDVD HD, you DON’T need to rip the BD to an ISO first; just load AnyDVD then open the BD in Handbrake.  AnyDVD will strip out the copy protection.

In Handbrake, I THINK I started with the High Profile preset, and set the RF to 10 or 12.  In Audio, I set it to pass-thru whatever encoding the BD has, usually DTS or AC3.  Also, I select to “Keep Aspect Ratio,” in the Video settings, although I’ve read conflicting comments on what that actually does.  I want theAspect Ratio to be identical to the original, and this setting seems to do that.

These settings give a pretty good picture quality on my  55" set.  Others have said this ripping can take several hours, but I’ve found it takes only 1 to 1.5 hours or so per disc.  Obviously, this will vary with your hardware.

I’ve tried Handbrake to rip DVDs to MKV also, but with mixed results.  I think I’d prefer to simply use AnyDVD to rip DVDs to ISO files.  This of course maintains the full original quality, as well as the DVD menus and chapters, and only takes around 20 minutes.  The output file size usually runs 4 - 8GB, and with hard drives cheaper than they’ve ever been, I can live with that.

My $.02 worth,

Jack

@CatusJack,

One reason to rip it to your HDD first is because if you don’t it will eventually ruin your optical drive.

Setting the RF to 10 or 12 is too high, the HB user manual only recommeds RF 22 +/-1.

x264 Recommended Quality RF Values

The Quality slider ranges from (Low Quality) 51 to 0 (High Quality) For good quality output at reasonable file sizes, the following values are recommended:

  • Standard Definition (e.g DVD’s)

Use an RF value of around 20 +/- 1
As an example using the AppleTV2 preset at RF20, with 20 different sources, the average size was 925MB per hour of video. (Min: 625MB/h Max:1,503MB/hr)

  • High Definition (e.g Blurays 720/1080)

Use an RF value of 22 +/- 1

 

You should note that the quality slider is not linear for x264. It is logarithmic (like the Richter or pH scales.) This means small movements in the numbers can have large results.

You can control the granularity of the slider in the preferences / options.

You can encode a few chapters of a source to experiment with different quality values if the above recommendations are not suitable. Encoding a 10minute sample in the middle of your source should give you a good idea of what to expect.

 

Also, “Keep Aspect Ratio” doesn’t do what I think you think it do and it should already be selected.   The only real thing you have to worry about is the Anamorphic settings.  With High Profile, Loose is fine.  And if it’s only taking you only 1 to 1.5 hrs to encode a BD, then you must have a really powerful PC, because even on a quad-core PC it can take 6 hrs or more to do a good encode, and that’s closing any and all non-essential programs.

Guys, I’m just going to say this, I’ve been working with HB for 3 yrs and I have encoded well over 1000 SD movies (I’ve actually lost count) & a few hundred BD movies.   It took me nearly 2 months of of trial and error, trying different settings to get the smallest output with the closest quality to the originals. 

If you have questions though, try the manual: https://trac.handbrake.fr/wiki/HandBrakeGuide

  1. Always keep the highest level, you might wanna use that rip with another player in the future that supports it.

  2. You shouldn’t have to demux. Rip the BD to HDD with DVDfab or AnyDVD so you don’t kill your drive

  3. Hardcoded subs are OVER. They degrade quality and **bleep** in general and it’s no biggy to switch them on with the remote during playback (WD ignores the forced flag for the time being). To display PGS subs, they have to be compressed with zlib which is done automatically in MKVMerge. Don’t know if HB already does it.

Techflaws wrote:

  1. Hardcoded subs are OVER. They degrade quality and **bleep** in general and it’s no biggy to switch them on with the remote during playback (WD ignores the forced flag for the time being). To display PGS subs, they have to be compressed with zlib which is done automatically in MKVMerge. Don’t know if HB already does it.

Really??  Explain this Lucy.:smileyvery-happy:

The Avengers HB encoded mkv (1080p) with burned in (hardcoded) subs

Looks prettys good on my 32", 47" and 60" 1080p LED’s.  The pic is a screen shot off my PC, which doesn’t look as good as it does on my TV’s.

For comparison, a SD version of the same image.

Tinwarble - Thanks for the suggestions!  Knowing next to nothing about video encoding and converting, I was going by the “the less compression the better quality” theory, and was trying to compromise.  Do you find that BDs ripped with those settings look good on very large screens?

Don’t know that I would agree that ripping will ruin your optical drive.  A little more wear on it perhaps, but certainly no more than watching a two-hour movie would cause.  Now if you’re ripping hundreds of discs one after another, maybe, but with optical drive prices so low, I for one would not be concerned about it.

I’m going to try your suggested settings to rip a “recent” BD and time how long it actually takes to complete.

Jack

Yes, setting RF to 19 gives an output that compaired to the original is nearly the same.

As for the optical drive, ripping is much worse on the drive than just playing.  It’s your choice of course, if you don’t mind replacing the drive sooner than necessary.  But I still recommend ripping to a HDD first, and it’s been a while, but I believe that this is also the recommendation of HB devs.

Tinwarble - I found the suggestion to rip a disc to the hard drive before encoding, although it does not say WHY they suggest this.  Here’s the text in the section about Sources:

“Unencrypted DVD (or DVD Images. e.g .ISO files) or Bluray discs (but not images). HandBrake can not read copy protected discs.
It is recommended that you copy any discs to the local hard drive first before encoding.”

Interesting that it says HB can’t use BD images.  I thought that I’d done this, the reason being to compare file size to a HB encoded MKV file, but I may be remembering wrong.

Jack

Yeah, but that’s not what I was refering.  I believe that’s in the Wiki, I cant really remember were I have read it.  But the point is mute anyway if you don’t feel you want to do that.

And no you can’t encoded images with HB only the video file.  I think, but don’t take this to the bank, that you can with MKVmerge though as it allow you to add attachments to the encode.

OK guys, getting back to Handbrake and WDTV Live, I have read what was posted earlier:

“As for subtitles.  If you are only concernded with the Engilsh portion that is being spoken during foreign language parts, then I would suggest using a nightly build of HB.  Those will allow you to burn in those subs so that they are a part of the movie and you don’t have to turn subtitles on to see them.  You can see more about that here: http://community.wdc.com/t5/WD-TV-Live-Hub-General/Handbrake-PGS-burn-in-support/m-p/397575/highlig…

But I am still confused about the handling of subtitles. I have done what was said with regards to video and audio (open ripped folder, use RF 19, leave all other parameters unmodified). I have gotten good results. And I am using the latest nightly build of HB.  But what if I want to actually have the full English subtitles in addition to any forced subtitles that might go along with foreign audio? I am not sure how to do that. I tried with Handbrake, putting in the full English subtitle track and while it played well on my PC, I did not have any subtitles playing from the WDTV Live.

Can you explain to me a little more about how to get standard subtitles into the MKV that work with the WDTV Live? I think I understand how to get forced subtitles and burn them in but what about the rest?

Thanks … Rob

For the rest, the SMP doesn’t read PGS subs.  So one thing that you can do is to change the sub type.

You can use Clown_BD to demux the PGS subs out of the file, then use  BDSup2Sub to convert the PGS (Sup) subtitles to Sub, then mux those subtitles back into the mkv using MKVmerge (MKVtoolnix).

You can take a look at this post here to get you started: https://forum.handbrake.fr/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=16784&hilit=HOWTO%3ABlu+ray+Forced+Subtitles+Avatar%2C+District+9%2C+etc

It’s not exactly the step you need to take, but it will help you with some of the steps.

A couple of things though, when using Clown_BD, you only need to de-mux  the PGS subs you need, you don’t need to select the audio or video tracks.

Then all you have to do is add the mkv you already have to mkvmerge and the extracted subs, then start muxing.  The remux shouldn’t take more than about 10 - 15 mins to do.

Tinwarble wrote:

Really??  Explain this Lucy.

Lucy? Anyway, first of all: judging compression of a movie by still images is kinda pointless. Second of all, I was referring to reencoding the video just to add hardcoded subs which will degrade video quality since it’s another lossy process. However, even if you’re talking of only 1 encode, the codec will waste bitrate on the hard edges of the subs that would be better spent on the overall picture. Any encoding guide will tell you that these edges, like the transition from black bars above and below the actual picture are pretty taxing for any encoder. Also, if the OP wants regular subs as well, he can’t hardcode because he needs more than one track to display.

Tinwarble wrote:

For the rest, the SMP doesn’t read PGS subs.

Of course it does! As I wrote in this very thread, it only does so when the subs are compressed with zlib. So if Handbrake does not do it which appears to be the case, remux the enocded mkv in mkvtoolnix which will automatically apply compression to the subs. No need for Clown_BD or VobSubs.

Techflaws wrote:


Tinwarble wrote:

Really??  Explain this Lucy.


Lucy? Anyway, first of all: judging compression of a movie by still images is kinda pointless. Second of all, I was referring to reencoding the video just to add hardcoded subs which will degrade video quality since it’s another lossy process. However, even if you’re talking of only 1 encode, the codec will waste bitrate on the hard edges of the subs that would be better spent on the overall picture. Any encoding guide will tell you that these edges, like the transition from black bars above and below the actual picture are pretty taxing for any encoder. Also, if the OP wants regular subs as well, he can’t hardcode because he needs more than one track to display.

 


“Explain this Lucy” (as in what Ricky Ricardo, I Love Lucy, would say.  I guess though you aren’t old enough to know the reference)  It was  joke!!

However, hardcoding (burning-in) subs is not adding compression, it is actually image merging.  In this case treating the subs as an image layer and merging to the frame of the movie.

_ Hard Burn: This means the subtitles are written on top of the image permanently. _

Layer merging doesn’t require any other compression than what is already applied by HB.  And although a static image does not tell the whole story (yes a static image isn’t the same a video, but you cann’t post a video), the point is that my videos don’t suffer any quailty issue with hardcoded subs and it does’t affect the bitrate as hardcoded subs become a part of the frame.   And comparing the black bars to hardcoded subs isn’t the same either, these are completely 2 totally differnent issues for an encoder to handle.  And whether hardcoding is more taxing on an encoder I can’t say as the encode time is the same whether I have selected to hardcode the subs or not.  So if it does tax it more, it is not much more than encoding without hardcoding.   

I think you are confusing 2 diffenent things, hardcoding which has no real effect on picture quaility and re-encoding to a compressed format add the hardcoded subs, which is what most encoding guides are refering to when adding hardcoded subs.   After all you can get BD’s that already have hardcoded subs that were add by the studio, as not all movies have subs are in a seperate PGS file. 

Also the OP didn’t specify in the original post what their subtitle needs were.

Well, you were all right about one thing: No one agrees on the process :slight_smile:

goldberg96 wrote:

Well, you were all right about one thing: No one agrees on the process :slight_smile:

 

 

Isn’t it the truth though.:wink:

Tinwarble wrote:
It was  joke!!

I get that. What I didn’t get was the reference.

Tinwarble wrote:
After all you can get BD’s that already have hardcoded subs that were add by the studio, as not all movies have subs are in a seperate PGS file.

Which use far more bitrate than one would on an average HB encode. Doesn’t change the fact that hardcoded subs pose more of a challenge to the encoder than a video without them. Of course you still can get good video quality.

Tinwarble wrote:
Also the OP didn’t specify in the original post what their subtitle needs were.

In his original post the OP asked about PGS subs which you said weren’t supported by the SMP which is wrong as I wrote in my initial reply. Hence, I’m still suggesting to not use hardcoded subs (ever).