Comments on: H.264 is Pretty Cool

By: DVD audio extractor

DVD audio extractor — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 08:28:41 +0000

Absolutely with you it agree. It is excellent idea. It is ready to support you.

By: JL

JL — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 13:39:00 +0000

Constant quality of 100% is not what you think.
Read more in HandBrake’s wiki about Constant Quality:
http://trac.handbrake.fr/wiki/ConstantQuality
Also here is an interesting post to choose which Constant Quality setting to use:
http://forum.handbrake.fr/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=8596&start=0#p46980

By: Sean

Sean — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 19:36:25 +0000

eric, I agree with your file size results. The original poster was, at my best guess, using the Target Size option to limit the file size to 700MB. That’s not near 100% quality. Anyway, I’ve been wondering about 100% quality myself. I do know that the .avi format supports uncompressed audio but those files won’t play in QT. On the audio side, I know that DVD uses a Sample Rate of 48,000 Hz and a bitrate of roughly 448 kbps. 320 is our highest setting here in HB so that seems like a limitation. On the video side, I know that bitrates vary wildly all through a movie on DVD so setting a maximum seems like asking for more compression. It seems to me that the Constant Quality set to 100% is our closest option to getting an exact copy in HB. It’s a shame we all don’t have 2TB XServe RAIDs to hold these files (much less RIP them in the first place). If you’re only using the final files for viewing on your computer, you could try MacTheRipper which simply RIPs the DVD to your hard drive without any alteration or compression. Those files would then play in OSX’s DVD Player. You get a folder full of files, thouigh, not one nice clean one.

By: eric

eric — Fri, 01 Dec 2006 22:24:56 +0000

i currently use handbreak to rip my dvd’s to my harddrive, but i do have a question. i’m a stickler about getting 100% quality, and i havent been able to get a perfect copy of a dvd onto my mac. what are the settings you use when preforming the task? i’ve tried hitting constant quality 100%, but it becomes a 17gb file (i know, unbelievable) and will not even open in quicktime. thanks

By: devin

devin — Sat, 28 Jan 2006 07:07:46 +0000

well i dont know whats up with your 9 and 10 hour things, but on my pc i can rip and encode a full 140 minute dvd in 4 hours using handbrake. at highest quality settings etc, H.264 (x264) codec. thats with other things running…so 10 hours for a mac just doesnt sound right. are you sure you have your computers optimized or whatever? and yeah quicktime doesnt like the outputted files, but with some fiddling you can get them to play in just about anything. handbrake needs to be made to let the files be played in qt without the fiddling though. either way its an amazing tool and i have never found a better one. not to mention the files are supreme quality. also: its faster if you use dvddecryptor or something like that and get an exact copy of the dvd’s files on your hard drive first.

By: Wiley Wiggins

Wiley Wiggins — Sun, 26 Jun 2005 00:48:42 +0000

I transcoded a DVD to h.264 using handbrake and got it running off an ipod shuffle.

A whole 2 hour movie. And I can’t tell the difference between it and the dvd.

http://videothing.blogspot.com/2005/06/full-res-feature-length-film-playing.html

By: Michael_L

Michael_L — Sat, 25 Jun 2005 22:50:11 +0000

QT7 does not like to transcode mpeg2 – even with the official Apple mpeg2 plugin ($20) it will not transcode the audio track. If Handbrake will transcode from a DVD to H264, does this mean it transcodes both mpeg2 video + audio, unlike QT7?

Does anyone know what codecs QT7 transcodes fully from into H264? Has Apple posted this information somewhere?

By: Brian

Brian — Mon, 20 Jun 2005 03:55:43 +0000

How do you get h.264 support in Handbrake? Do you need to buy QT7 Pro?

By: Wiley Wiggins

Wiley Wiggins — Thu, 16 Jun 2005 21:37:37 +0000

aha… never mind… I had changed the suffix from mp4 to mov and that was enough to throw it off.

By: Wiley Wiggins

Wiley Wiggins — Thu, 16 Jun 2005 21:36:50 +0000

For some reason the H.264 mpeg4 files I create with handbrake will only play in VLC… Quicktime 7 says it’s not a file it understands…

By: Tom Redd

Tom Redd — Sat, 14 May 2005 09:21:54 +0000

Mexico? Man, wish I could be like you!

By: Nick Santilli

Nick Santilli — Thu, 12 May 2005 05:09:31 +0000

Kokopelli:
As my 3 year old son who’s a giant Incredibles fan would say, “You sir truly are mr incredible.”

Thanks for the details and info.

And everyone else – make sure to check out the update I posted to this piece… go check out this article:
http://www.shapeofdays.com/2005/05/a_demonstration.html. It’s terrific.

By: Kokopelli

Kokopelli — Thu, 12 May 2005 04:09:30 +0000

Stevew, handbrake uses libx264, the open source encoder. It may not have the bells and whistles but it can be used in a cross platform open source product more easily than the QT encoder.

For those who are compraing handbrake to Mac The Ripper, DVD2Onex, and Popcorn, they serve a different purpose from handbrake. If you are trying to copy a DVD onto another DVD (for backup or what have you) Handbrake is not the right tool. Handbrake on the other hand can encode a movie using H.264 with a much higher video quality to size ratio. This is good if you want to rip to your hard drive or CD and are not in a rush.

If you want a faster encode you can use constant quality. Decreasing the output resolution helps quite a bit as well. I prefer targeting size and 2 passes. For casual viewing on the road a 700MB rip is quite acceptable, though not DVD quality. Still much better than a comparable rip using popcorn though.

By: Stevew

Stevew — Wed, 11 May 2005 21:39:03 +0000

Some questions.

What codec H.264 is Handbrake using? The open source one or the Quicktime one?

If it’s the open source one doesn’t that lack some bells and whistles and multi-processor support?

By: Chris Holland

Chris Holland — Wed, 11 May 2005 20:13:37 +0000

wow. this HD stuff is really cool :D first thing i did upon installing Tiger was to buy the qt7 pro license.

By: John

John — Wed, 11 May 2005 19:11:54 +0000

Not to be too confusing, but Mac The Ripper is indeed excellent, however it doesn’t transcode to mpeg4 like Handbrake does.

The total time of 10 hours to transcode the movie sounds about right considering it was ripping and transcoding at the same time.

I personally prefer to rip and transcode in separate steps, using MTR to rip and Handbrake or ffMpegX to transcode. I don’t like hearing my optical drive grinding away the whole time I’m transcoding.