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rollins215 · 2009-12-13, 15:13

I agree with Cranial, this thread contains numerous perfectly working solutions using Handbrake with as good or better results than using xvid in the older version of Handbrake.

Cranial, I forgot to mention that I did download and try your preset. However, I kind of missed the point of the number of pixels not exceeding a certain number and did an reencode to the original resolution of 1280x720, so it didn't work for me. However, I can see using that for DVD rips to maintain as much of the original as possible. Thanks!

I'm going to give your suggested setting from yesterday (CQ method) a try today, I'll let you know how it turns out.

rollins215 · 2009-12-13, 20:39

Well, I tried the CQ method out today. It looks very good and produced a file almost half of the original's size which is also great. The details in the video is not quite as good as what I'm getting with ABR of 3250 but they are close and for the improved file size could be worth the sacrifice. I noticed, too, that the CPU generally runs 10% less with the CQ encoded file. For fun I also tried CQ at 100% and ended up with a file size similar to the ABR version. It had slightly improved fine detail in the image, but still not quite as good as the ABR version.

Cranial · 2009-12-14, 03:20

rollins215 Wrote:Well, I tried the CQ method out today. It looks very good and produced a file almost half of the original's size which is also great. The details in the video is not quite as good as what I'm getting with ABR of 3250 but they are close and for the improved file size could be worth the sacrifice. I noticed, too, that the CPU generally runs 10% less with the CQ encoded file. For fun I also tried CQ at 100% and ended up with a file size similar to the ABR version. It had slightly improved fine detail in the image, but still not quite as good as the ABR version.

Glad it's working okay. I have noticed a bit of dark area blocking, but not too bad.

But hey, lets face it, we are using a prehistoric device.....

rollins215 · 2009-12-14, 14:45

Cranial Wrote:But hey, lets face it, we are using a prehistoric device.....

LOL, that's true! We should be pretty pleased with ourselves that we're watching 720p at all with these things! Smile

Cranial · 2009-12-15, 05:20

rollins215 Wrote:LOL, that's true! We should be pretty pleased with ourselves that we're watching 720p at all with these things!

Well I'm getting pretty consistent results with the previous settings I posted in this thread (x264 & also the 720p encode), so that will stay as my current settings until I find time to fine tune further.

Unless of course someone actually gives some feedback / bugs and I'll investigate.

Geeba · 2009-12-16, 18:02

Testing now Cranial - one thing I have noticed is how slooooow handbrake is on single core machines.... I usually use my server to do these sort of tasks but one move took 16hrs to encode Sad

my Quad hammered it out in 2hrs! Big Grin

DenverNEWBie · 2009-12-16, 18:19

Changed the container from your preset from mp4 to mkv but the result is as large as the original. I'd like it to be about 30% of the original. Any ideas?

Geeba · 2009-12-16, 20:30

Hmmmm first encode is grey screen and the xbox crashes.... trying another

sion28 · 2009-12-16, 20:41

burog Wrote:sion28, I suggest you to read the whole thread before writing this kind of things.
Or maybe you could just take a look at Handbrake, and you will see that there is an "mp4" encoding option that is different from the H264 one.

With that you can still have 720p files on Xbox, as explained by rollins215 in this thread. The quality is obviously not the one you will get with H264 on a Dual Core machine, but it's acceptable.

I missed rollins' post... actually skimmed it and thought it was for SD material like Cranial's.

I'll give rollins215's method a shot... maybe next week some time. Does the new handbrake support DTS passthrough? I prefer DTS when available.

Thanks...

rollins215 · 2009-12-16, 20:46

sion28, it does support DTS. I discovered that this past weekend, reencoded a 720p DTS encode of a movie using my settings but changed it to DTS passthru and it worked beautifully. Smile

Cranial · 2009-12-17, 02:13

DenverNEWBie Wrote:Changed the container from your preset from mp4 to mkv but the result is as large as the original. I'd like it to be about 30% of the original. Any ideas?

The preset should already have the container set as MKV? Odd. I'll look into that.

The original is a dvd image?

The resulting file should come out between 900mb to 1.4gig (the AC3 audio is about 400 meg itself.

Cranial · 2009-12-17, 02:16

Geeba Wrote:Hmmmm first encode is grey screen and the xbox crashes.... trying another

Is this with the x264 for SD? Or the HD one?

If it's the HD one, are you using the latest xbmc nightly build?

DVDPlayer is now set as the default player, and it seems to require more RAM to start up.

Try playing the file with MPlayer instead?

DenverNEWBie · 2009-12-17, 20:57

Cranial Wrote:The preset should already have the container set as MKV? Odd. I'll look into that.

The original is a dvd image?

The resulting file should come out between 900mb to 1.4gig (the AC3 audio is about 400 meg itself.

D'OH. The original IS an mkv container. Dunno how or why it changed on me. I am trying it again now.

rollins215 · 2009-12-17, 21:01

I'm going to have to go back on my settings for converting 720p x264 to 720p mp4. While watching "Big Bang Theory" last night, I noticed during the intro when they have all the images of historical things flying by that it choked mightily and dropped hundreds of frames.

So I tried reencoding it at 1500 and that segment was perfect, 0 dropped frames. I steadily increased it by 50 and at 1750 it was still perfect, but 1800 dropped 20 frames. So I'm officially changing my average bit rate to 1750. Smile

Cranial · 2009-12-17, 22:58

rollins215 Wrote:I'm going to have to go back on my settings for converting 720p x264 to 720p mp4. While watching "Big Bang Theory" last night, I noticed during the intro when they have all the images of historical things flying by that it choked mightily and dropped hundreds of frames.

So I tried reencoding it at 1500 and that segment was perfect, 0 dropped frames. I steadily increased it by 50 and at 1750 it was still perfect, but 1800 dropped 20 frames. So I'm officially changing my average bit rate to 1750.

Funny you say that. I just made the same discovery watching Firefly.

The problem is that handbrake doesn't really have a total max bitrate option for mpeg4. I might stick to ripping with Staxrip on a Windows VM for 720p material.