This is cross posted at the WDTV Forum, but i though that I could increase my chances of running into a 264 guru here as well. I had a buddy encode some blu rays for me (I don’t have a blu ray drive in my comp) and about half of them work fine, he used a slightly different command line in handbrake for the encodes, but I don’t know which breaks functionality. From mediainfo on the two files this is what I get:
Presumably it is the “pb_ratio” flag that is breaking it, but what does this mean? I have tried to search though some of the x264 documentation, but cannot find it anywhere. Of course my buddy doesn’t know either, he just pulled the line from the handbrake forum as a suggested encode method for blu ray movies.
If anyone can shed some light that would be fantastatic!
Here’s the suggested “light” – tell your buddy not to mess around with settings he doesn’t understand. In Handbrake it’s quite simple: use the High Profile preset and change the output type to MKV and passthrough either AC3 or DTS audio and you’ll have a *perfect* file for blu-ray encodes to play on the Live.
If he wants to play with things, he can adjust the RF (the default on High Profile is 20, which *can* be adjusted to 22 for most people. It will reduce size by about 25%, but I can notice some lesser quality on some movies and prefer to encode them all at 20. Regular DVDs should definitely be left at 20). That’s the only thing he should *ever* mess with.
If the CPU power of his computer isn’t very high he could use the Normal preset – this won’t result in as good a quality as the High Profile, but will work just fine and encode faster (quite a bit faster, in fact, but since I have a high power i7 machine and can encode overnight I prefer to use the best).
BTW, if he had asked on the Handbrake forum ANY of the regulars would have told him this. In general the presets (that were developed by the experts) are the only things you ever need to know about using Handbrake (unless you’re an expert yourself, which he obviously is not).
Just to back up what Mike is saying, I use the Handbrake High or Normal presets (running one of the Nightly Builds) and have no issues playing any files and they all look great. ;)
I did try lowering the RF to 22 on some DVD TV eps once and the quality dipped a bit too much. I went with 21 after that but really 20 (the Default) was better. I had to encode them fast so made the compromise.
Thanks for the replys so far. I am wondering if anyone has an answer to my question though? I do understand that changing settings without fully understanding them is not a good idea - especially for compatibility issues. But if I could go back in time I would… He has encoded these blu-rays for my HTPC which they work just fine on. Some do not work on my WDTV Live. He did just over 70 discs for me, and about 30 of them (as encoded above) do not work.
For the sake both of our education, I am wondering if anyone knows the answer - I understand that they will need to be re-encoded.
Not to get too off topic, but I have figured out my perosnal favourite settings for Handbrake for SD content through sampling of many scenes and have come up with this:
with a RF of 18.75. Anything higher RF and I started to get noticable artifacting in dark scenes.All with either DTS or AC3 pass thru. Encoding on my X3210 (Q6600 equiv) with a modest OC to 3.4Ghz runs anywhere between 20-35fps.
I have done about 2000 episodes of TV (mix of 1/2 hr and 1 hr episodes - 810GB) and about 200 movies (300GB) and they look great, and the space isn’t too bad IMO.
If you want to find out the answer, post on the Handbrake forum. The experts there will tell you in a hot New York minute (after they tell you to stop mucking about with settings you don’t understand :>)
Hi all, first time posting and need some advice. I’m having video stutter issues with HD football videos (HD content like movies, even 1080p work fine), and I’m not sure if it’s the media player or the TV that’s the cause of it. I’m using a Panasonic plasma 42’’ with an HDMI connection, external HDD usb source. The mediainfo below, appreciate any help at all
General
Complete name : 720p HDTV - GER-ENG DD5.1- MASSA.mkv
Format : Matroska
File size : 1.51 GiB
Duration : 57mn 8s
Overall bit rate : 3 772 Kbps
Writing application : Lavf52.62.0
Writing library : Lavf52.62.0
