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OK, I'm having some serious issues ripping DVDs to good quality. No matter what I've tried, they keep coming out pixelated and the colors look washed out and not near as good as TV shows I've downloaded or even movies for that matter. A movie I downloaded at 700 mb looked better than my same version ripped from DVD that was like 1.5 gigs!
Does anyone have recommendations for ripping DVDs for standard def tv?
I've been using Handbrake and selecting the 'Normal' option, which encodes at 1500 bitrate, 2 pass encoding, h.264, and mp4 format.
My tv is standard def. I've used the Mac's video settings to make sure my contrast, color, etc is optimized for my tv.
All the tv shows I've downloaded look great (except for slight pixelation sometimes), and like I said some of the movies I've downloaded look great as well. It seems like whenever I encode something is when it looks bad on xbmc.
Thanks for any help.
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At 1500kbps, a H.264 encoded file should blow the doors off any Xvid/Divx at 700mb. Check your audio settings and make sure you are simply doing an AC-3 pass through.
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I use the 'deux six quatre' preset. It looks really good to me, only thing is that VLC hiccups on the audio (AC3), whereas XBMC handles it perfectly. Also, I can't skip ahead easily which is a bit odd.
Encoding the video can use the processor though, and coming from a guy with a Mac Pro that means something.
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petejo
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I've made my own profile on HandBrake using XVID/AC3 passthru.
I use strict anamorphic and 1250 kbps two pass FFMPEG XVID with de-interlace on slower and subtitles on Forced Only.....sucks when you forget them on movies like the Bourne trilogy....
Mine all seem pretty darn good but then I'm only viewing on a Panny 80" CRT !!
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I am thinking more and more that I have some setting incorrect within XBMC.
I re-encoded the movie with the same video settings as below, but changed to AC3 passthru per DeanM3's directions. While my file-size certainly increased (from 1.5 gig to 1.86 gig), I'm still getting some bad pixelation in dark areas and a little bit of washout of color. Scenes that take place in well-lit areas tend to look pretty good. In dark areas of the movie the pixelation is very noticeable.
Since I'm only running a standard def 640x480 desktop, I'm wondering if XBMC is doing something to the files when trying to play dvd resolution and having to fit the image on a 640x480 desktop.
It's frustrating because I used to have one of those dvd players hooked up to the tv that could play divx files, and most of the files i downloaded off the internet in divx/xvid format looked close to dvd quality!
I looked in the Video settings of XBMC, but I have no idea what to try and change to try and get better results.
Any ideas, given my SD setup, what settings I should have in XBMC as well as the Mac itself?
Thanks for any tips...
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I still think it's some setting in XBMC...
To test, I played some files that used to look perfect when played off my old divx dvd player, but now they look somewhat pixelated and the dark scenes have a slight washed out effect to them when played in XBMC.
I'm lost as to what changes to make...
