iPad 3 and Handbrake

Aidoneus said:

Use the Apple TV 2 preset, bump the resolution up to 1080 vertical lines, and the CQ slider to 18. That will get you video which is indistinguishable from the source.

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Alright I know how to change the Constant Quality but not seeing where I change output to 1080p, can somebody provide a screen shot? Or tell me what specific tab it's under?

How does one get the high quality of ITunes 1080p at the same small file size? A 45 min tv episode at 1080p from the itunes store is 1.7 gb. The files that come out of handbrake are always higher in size..

CIA said:

If your original format is less than 1080p (like 720p or 480p) then you really shouldn't blow it up to 1080p. Let the iPad handle the scaling. You don't gain anything by taking lower res footage and blowing it up. You only make large files that don't look all that great. The iPad scales small resolution files nicely, so leave them the resolution they are and get a nice small file size.

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I thought the resolution needed to be changed to fit the new iPad my fault, ok so the source of my video is 720x480 basically just use the AppleTV 2 default preset and everything is good (should I still lower Constant Quality to 18)?

And on topic of HD files I do have some 1080 mkv's does handbrake handle them as is or would I need to convert them in something like mkv2vob to mpg files and then convert those w/ the said settings in this thread?

My new iPad will arrive this Friday. I have a lot of DVD rips but I'm thinking about getting and ripping from blu-ray disc instead. Are there anything that I'd need to get other than a blu-ray disc player for my iMac and Handbrake?

I use Handbrake to rip my DVDs, but I never tried it with a Blu-ray disc. Someone mentioned that the file size is approximately 7-11GB, depending on the movie. But how long does it take to rip a 2 hour movie? Currently it takes me 30 minute to rip 1 DVD movie. Will any kind USB blu-ray disc player work? I think they are around $100-$150 on Newegg. Thank you for your help.

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The settings I posted earlier were increasing the high end h.264 settings from the Apple TV 2 preset. Handbrake has come back and said that the High Profile Preset with Web Optimization is all the settings required for the Apple TV 3 and the new iPad.

File sizes range from 5GB to 11GB depending on the content and length. The original Blu-Ray main movie was 20-40GB based on length content and audio.

Ripping with a USB Blu-Ray player takes approximately 20 - 60 minutes based on the protection and how much content you are ripping (full disc vs main movie). I like DVDfab for ripping and mkv.remux since the subs can be remuxed with mkvmerge. Then handbrake for encoding because it produces the best quality. I'm taking about 4 hours give or take a few minutes for any of the Quad-Core Intel i7 machines in my signature.

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I'm using the LaCie Slim Blu-Ray RW which is USB bus powered. Basically it was purchased for replacing a MBP super drive after doing an optibay conversion that never happened.

shortcut3d said:

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The settings I posted earlier were increasing the high end h.264 settings from the Apple TV 2 preset. Handbrake has come back and said that the High Profile Preset with Web Optimization is all the settings required for the Apple TV 3 and the new iPad.

File sizes range from 5GB to 11GB depending on the content and length. The original Blu-Ray main movie was 20-40GB based on length content and audio.

Ripping with a USB Blu-Ray player takes approximately 20 - 60 minutes based on the protection and how much content you are ripping (full disc vs main movie). I like DVDfab for ripping and mkv.remux since the subs can be remuxed with mkvmerge. Then handbrake for encoding because it produces the best quality. I'm taking about 4 hours give or take a few minutes for any of the Quad-Core Intel i7 machines in my signature.

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Or I can't just rip it straight from Handbrake?

I use MakeMKV to rip the bluray to the hard drive and then use Handbrake to reformat for the iPad. I have great results from both.

DVDfab disk copy is also always free and available for Mac. Their BD Ripper product has a good MKV.remux setting that creates a MKV and subtitles IDX and sup files. These can be remuxed with MKVtoolnix then be properly encoded with Handbrake. It saves a few steps. They are also a little faster at updating to work with the latest protection schemes. I personally do use them for encoding because Handbrake produces better results. I really wish Handbrake added Intel Quicksync support or that DVDfab got it right.

I'm new to the world of ripping, so I apologize ahead of time if I ask obvious questions....

I see there are a lot of "ripping software" mentioned in this thread.

What is the easiest one to use for Blu Rays with the best results? I just want to rip a few Blu Rays and DVDs I have so I can put them on my iPad.

I really don't need to stread the media or anything like that because I have the Blu Rays which I can watch anytime at home. I just want it to be good quality to enjoy the new iPad screen and not too large in size. I want to be able to put a few movies on the iPad.


Thanks for all your help.

Thank you for everyone's help. I think I'm going to upgrade to Blu-Ray ripping. It doesn't seem too bad. I was looking at the external blu-ray burners on Newegg. Do you have it's okay to get the bus powered burner instead of the one that requires power. The trade off is slower rate at 6x instead of 8-12x. Is there much of a difference? These are the ones that I'm thinking about:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827106373

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827136245

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827151251

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827162006

I'll be using this on the iMac. Which one do guys think it's good? Thanks again for all of your help.

thank you everyone

This is a great thread.

I finally downloaded Handbrake this morning. All of these settings posts are very helpful (I've been working with lesser ripping/conversion tools for years).

I will look into those additional threads too.

Many thanks folks!

It would be great if someone wrote a guide for converting to new iPad, in plain simple terms, e.g. step by step, for those of us who have never used handbrake and don't have any knowledge of video ripping/conversion, and then get it stickied

I agree, this thread is great.

I ripped the first Blu-ray of the LOTR extended trilogy with makemkv on Windows, transferred it to the Mac, and tried to remux it into m4v with MP4Tools and also Subler. In both cases the output file was unplayable. Subler's output was not seen as a valid video file at all, by Finder, Quicktime or VLC, and MP4Tools's output had audio but black video (at the right size). I was sure to transcode the audio to AAC, but I passed the video through unchanged in both cases. I verified with VLC that the mkv is using H.264, so I don't know what to try next besides transcoding with Handbrake (which I did do and which looks terrific, but I am not giving up the lossless approach yet).

Blu-ray rips look extraordinary on the iPad 3. Just amazing.

Here is my thinking:

All I want is to watch a movie once (while I'm on a plane, or somewhere on the road), a movie I haven't seen before, and I'm not even sure I will like. Therefore, I'm not willing to wait a whole day (especially while not being able to use my computer for anything else) for this whole process. It's just not worth it. Plus, I may want to load multiple movies ahead of my trip.

On the other hand, I want to enjoy a high enough quality. After all, I just bought a device that's supposed to kick ass in that area. I want at least some bang for my buck.

So, having the above two constraints in mind, I gave this a shot, and here is what I found. With "High", it started out very slow and it didn't look like the size is going to be cut down enough. I'm looking at a 29G MKV of a 2h:35m movie. If I'm going to have a couple of those, they are going to need to be compressed a bit better.

So, I went with Normal (1920, of course), checked "Web" and also that 8x8 box in advanced (as someone said that's a worthy thing that iPad 3 can handle, and iPad 2 can't). I used 3 of my 4 cores (I didn't want to risk the machine locking up and crashing). It took 2 hours and produced a 3.7G file. That to me is quite reasonable.

The quality looked pretty good on my iPad 3. I'd definitely call it "high def": it's better than iPad 2, better than a DVD, just not the same as BD, of course. As long as you are not "pixel peeping" you can sit back and enjoy, and not find yourself wishing.

Now, having said that, I'm still looking for anything I could improve in my settings, but still: I'm not interested in anything that takes (a lot) more than twice the length of the movie to get done, and I'm not interested in file-sizes greater than 5-7G or so (especially not for movies less than 3 hours long).

In short: what could I do to get to some sweet spot between "Normal" and "High"?

Thank you!

Is there any way that I can convert the video codec only on handbreak? And also, how can I convert a movie for the iPad fast and not have it take like 2 hours to convert?

felixroqu3 said:

Is there any way that I can convert the video codec only on handbreak? And also, how can I convert a movie for the iPad fast and not have it take like 2 hours to convert?

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https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1345771/

Lines in videos

I am using the setting you guys suggested but I am getting scan lines in some videos. Is there a way to stop that?

And you guys don't use two pass?

I wanted to clarify some things that have been discussed here with regards to size and speed of creating m4v's for the iPad.

Some have discussed using something other than Handbrake to convert mkv files to m4v because Handbrake takes so long. Here's the thing...if you rip a blu-ray to 1080p mkv, you're going to wind up with a gigantic file...somewhere between 20-40GB or more, depending on movie length. If you use a converter (like Subler) that quickly converts a mkv to m4v, you wind up with a gigantic m4v, roughly the same size as the mkv. No one has the space to keep those size files on their iPad 3.

In order to get the file size down to something manageable, you need to transcode them (with the likes of Handbrake) and that process takes lots of computing power and TIME. For me with a quad core i7 and a decently long movie, it can take up to 4 hours for Handbrake to convert a giant mkv blu-ray rip to a much smaller m4v.

So, those people that claim they can convert an mkv to m4v in a matter of minutes are starting with a much smaller mkv. It's either not 1080p, or it's just a short 15 minute clip...I'm not sure.

If someone can explain how to start out with a feature film length mkv in 1080p and have it be just a few gigabytes, I'd like to hear. Programs like Subler are fast, but require you start out with a small mkv to have a manageable m4v.

Is everything ok with my settings?

dmylrea said:

I wanted to clarify some things that have been discussed here with regards to size and speed of creating m4v's for the iPad.

Some have discussed using something other than Handbrake to convert mkv files to m4v because Handbrake takes so long. Here's the thing...if you rip a blu-ray to 1080p mkv, you're going to wind up with a gigantic file...somewhere between 20-40GB or more, depending on movie length. If you use a converter (like Subler) that quickly converts a mkv to m4v, you wind up with a gigantic m4v, roughly the same size as the mkv. No one has the space to keep those size files on their iPad 3.

In order to get the file size down to something manageable, you need to transcode them (with the likes of Handbrake) and that process takes lots of computing power and TIME. For me with a quad core i7 and a decently long movie, it can take up to 4 hours for Handbrake to convert a giant mkv blu-ray rip to a much smaller m4v.

So, those people that claim they can convert an mkv to m4v in a matter of minutes are starting with a much smaller mkv. It's either not 1080p, or it's just a short 15 minute clip...I'm not sure.

If someone can explain how to start out with a feature film length mkv in 1080p and have it be just a few gigabytes, I'd like to hear. Programs like Subler are fast, but require you start out with a small mkv to have a manageable m4v.

Click to expand...

There's a difference between compressed and non-compressed video. Blu-Ray video has several different sizes: single layer: 25GB, dual-layer: 50GB, triple-layer:100GB, quadruple-layer:128GB. Most movies fall under the single layer range and total uncompressed size of a single movie would be 25GB at maximum. When you rip from a Blu ray, you will end up converting uncompressed video to compressed video. This will take time. If you start with a compressed video file already using H.264 1080p resolution MKV video, you can remux the video to an m4v or mp4 in a matter of minutes. It just depends on if you're converting or remuxing. You've got to do your math and then you'll see how long things take to convert/remux and also how much space they will take up.