[Cranial]

It looks like Star Trek IX would make a good test of all capabilities: lots of light to dark flashes, panning, etc.

I haven't got this DVD, not my thing really. By lots of frames arriving late do you mean dropped frames playing on the xbox?

*edit*

In Handbrake, can you go to Preferences -> Advanced and select "Log: Put individual encode logs in same location as movie"

Encode a chapter of Star Trek or whatever and then send me the log so I can see what's going on.

Thanks.

[DenverNEWBie]

OH wow,

I just looked at the directory size and its 11.2 Gb. That must mean this is a blu-ray version!

That just might explain things....

[Cranial]

OH wow,

I just looked at the directory size and its 11.2 Gb. That must mean this is a blu-ray version!

That just might explain things....

Well everybody hold your horses. With some great help on the Handbrake forums I've made some major changes to the preset.

I'll do some testing on more DVD's with different aspect ratios / sizes, fine tune, and then put it out there for public consumption.

Oh, and as a massive benefit, encoding times are approximately halved!

[DenverNEWBie]

I was wondering about the encoding times...glad to hear this!

[Cranial]

I'm getting more and more confused the further I go. But you get that.

The new method of encoding is producing good results. But the output bitrate changes a LOT depending on the source material. Older more grainy DVD's end up at a much higher bitrate (the encoders way of maintaining a constant quality) so the xbox will not play them, and you end up with a much larger file size.

So depending on the source you have to change the Constant Quality (RF) setting. An older grainy DVD will require something like 21.5 RF and a newer better source DVD to as high as 18 RF.

So as far as I have worked out you need to do a single chapter test encode and see if it will play on the xbox, then adjust RF accordingly. This is obviously not an ideal workflow and is very time consuming.

I'll continue to work on it, but for now the Handbrake preset release is on hold.

I'm sorry, but I just don't want to mess people around with a sub standard setting.

If anyone else has found better options for encoding on the OS X platform for the xbox please let me know.

Very frustrating.

I'm so close to just buying an ion and be done with it.....

[umirza85]

Oh, and as a massive benefit, encoding times are approximately halved!

Awesome good to hear. Im trying to rip my whole dvd collection but the process is taking longer than i expected. Just curious how you made such an improvement to the preset?

[Cranial]

Awesome good to hear. Im trying to rip my whole dvd collection but the process is taking longer than i expected. Just curious how you made such an improvement to the preset?

Basically used the Apple > Universal preset and changed a few things.

But read my previous post.

It's really not ideal at the moment. Grainy source material outputs very large/high bitrate files. (stutter on the xbox).

Good quality source material works fine, but for older/grainy DVD's you really need to raise the RF number (lower constant quality percentage) to bring the bitrate down and make the file playable on the xbox.

So as it stands it's still very much trial and error. I'm trying to figure out ways to cap the bitrate.

I should note that this is not the fault of Handbrake, it is performing as it is supposed to in Constant Quality mode. The lower quality the source, the higher the bitrate has to be to maintain quality.

I will continue to work on it, but I am leaning towards using the windows based encoding guide already on this forum. I think it is based around MeGUI.

But I would like to get a working solution on the Mac.

[DenverNEWBie]

Good quality source material works fine, but for older/grainy DVD's you really need to raise the RF number (lower constant quality percentage) to bring the bitrate down and make the file playable on the xbox.

So, if you think you have a good DVD, use the current settings. Otherwise, keep the same settings except lower the CQ percentage.

[Cranial]

So, if you think you have a good DVD, use the current settings. Otherwise, keep the same settings except lower the CQ percentage.

No no.

I'll be starting a new thread soon with instructions on what to do. It's not going to be the most time efficient workflow, but if you want to stick with Handbrake it seems to be the only way to get this working on the good old xbox.

For an example, I encoded (I, Robot) with the new settings and RF 18 and it came out brilliantly, about 1.3 GB including AC3 passthrough.

I encoded (Saving Private Ryan) and had to set RF 24 to get the bitrate low enough to play well on the xbox. The picture quality was still good, as compared to the source which is grainy to start with. The file size ended up about 2 GB with DTS passthrough (larger than AC3) and it is a very long movie.

[DenverNEWBie]

Anyone have somthing that works on windows that will cut/splice onto these mkv files? I see a lotta converters and I don't want to mess with that part of it.

[Cranial]

Anyone have somthing that works on windows that will cut/splice onto these mkv files? I see a lotta converters and I don't want to mess with that part of it.

Can you explain exactly what you want to do with the files?

[DenverNEWBie]

What I want to do is take one of my mkv files that I ripped, remove the credits from the beginning, then splice another mkv file from that same DVD onto the front of that file and create one mkv file. In essence, instead of having 4 episodes from one DVD, have one file with all 4 episodes.

[Cranial]

I've started a new guide regarding x264 encoding with Handbrake for the xbox here: Handbrake Guide

[nhouseman]

What I want to do is take one of my mkv files that I ripped, remove the credits from the beginning, then splice another mkv file from that same DVD onto the front of that file and create one mkv file. In essence, instead of having 4 episodes from one DVD, have one file with all 4 episodes.

I have had pretty descent luck using mkvtoolnix in linux and a program tsmuxer. They are good at demuxing and muxing mkv, but i have become fond of a windows program called YAMB. It specialises in mp4 but it can take mkv input i think and can cut scenes (not tested personally) and append multiple segments, and then could be remuxed into mkv.

good luck, I have tried many editors with results that just fell short a lot!