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dynaflash

macrumors 68020
Mar 27, 2003
2,119
8
How does it differ from just using the "High Profile" preset?

Well, paraphrasing what you can read in the commit notes, basically its faster (instead of decomb default it uses decomb fast *see the update to it which fixes what I borked in the first commit *) and it caps max framerate (via the pfr framerate) at 30 (which the Hi Profile preset doesn't do) so it complies with the published max of 30 fps for the appletv 3 for sources that my have higher framerates.
 

mic j

macrumors 68030
Mar 15, 2012
2,663
156
Well, paraphrasing what you can read in the commit notes, basically its faster (instead of decomb default it uses decomb fast *see the update to it which fixes what I borked in the first commit *) and it caps max framerate (via the pfr framerate) at 30 (which the Hi Profile preset doesn't do) so it complies with the published max of 30 fps for the appletv 3 for sources that my have higher framerates.

Should we still set anamorphic to "strict"?
 

dynaflash

macrumors 68020
Mar 27, 2003
2,119
8
Should we still set anamorphic to "strict"?

Well, if you have your own I would probably use it with strict. There are a couple bugs with some cropping and anamorphic loose mod 2 (which in theory is the current anamorphic strict) which still need to be fixed. The point is 99% of the time the presets Loose anamorphic with mod 2 will give you the same result. I will be fixing the corner cases where the two differ at some point at which time anamorphic strict will go away as in bye - bye (since it will be redundant).

Short answer: for now strict anamorphic is bulletproof. The presets Loose anamorphic with modulus 2 is 99%. Pick your poison ;)

Fwiw, the error we are talking about is about 2 pixels so its not seismic . That said personally ... I still use this exact same preset but strict. ymmv.
 

mic j

macrumors 68030
Mar 15, 2012
2,663
156
Well, if you have your own I would probably use it with strict. There are a couple bugs with some cropping and anamorphic loose mod 2 (which in theory is the current anamorphic strict) which still need to be fixed. The point is 99% of the time the presets Loose anamorphic with mod 2 will give you the same result. I will be fixing the corner cases where the two differ at some point at which time anamorphic strict will go away as in bye - bye (since it will be redundant).

Short answer: for now strict anamorphic is bulletproof. The presets Loose anamorphic with modulus 2 is 99%. Pick your poison ;)

Fwiw, the error we are talking about is about 2 pixels so its not seismic . That said personally ... I still use this exact same preset but strict. ymmv.

Thanks for the guidance. Frankly, I probably won't move to the HB preset until it is officially incorporated, as the current High Profile with mods that you have previously offered, has worked flawlessly for me. Seems like a little more encoding speed is the only benefit at the present time over my old preset. I expect the additional encoding speed from decomb fast vs decomb default to be slight. Let me know if I am wrong about that however.
 

HobeSoundDarryl

macrumors G5
...and it caps max framerate (via the pfr framerate) at 30 (which the Hi Profile preset doesn't do) so it complies with the published max of 30 fps for the appletv 3 for sources that my have higher framerates.

As always, thanks for the answer. Would any BD movie exceed 30fps? Just about every one I've seen appears to be 24fps.

I do shoot some 60fps video with a camcorder. Is that the kind of "source" you are envisioning? Or is there some BD title(s) that might exceed 30fps?
 

dynaflash

macrumors 68020
Mar 27, 2003
2,119
8
As always, thanks for the answer. Would any BD movie exceed 30fps? Just about every one I've seen appears to be 24fps.

I do shoot some 60fps video with a camcorder. Is that the kind of "source" you are envisioning? Or is there some BD title(s) that might exceed 30fps?

camcorder and sources like eyetv can get up to 60 fps. I have done some work with these on atv 3 to various levels of effectiveness. ymmv.

The built in preset will try to stick to stated specs and on 1080p30 I have to side with apple.
 

dynaflash

macrumors 68020
Mar 27, 2003
2,119
8
Frankly, I probably won't move to the HB preset until it is officially incorporated, as the current High Profile with mods that you have previously offered, has worked flawlessly for me.
Well once its in the svn ... it is pretty much *official* though as you saw is subject to modifications. ;) In general besides strict ana it pretty much is exactly what you are running if you followed my previous suggestions. So rock on!
Seems like a little more encoding speed is the only benefit at the present time over my old preset. I expect the additional encoding speed from decomb fast vs decomb default to be slight. Let me know if I am wrong about that however.

fast decomb vs. decomb default (known internally as decomb 2 and decomb 3) vary in terms of speed as to what machine you are using. Basically on a fully progressive (24 fps source) fast decomb has virtually no speed hit even on a 2006 mbp running a slow 2.16 c2d . Of course once it want to deinterlace it will then slow down. decomb default (decomb 3) uses a more exact scan of each frame which is more accurate in some cases but slows HB down even on fully progressive (24 fps) sources. So even if decomb 3 (default) never has to actually deinterlace or blend a frame, it has a speed hit just in trying to detect combing.

That said and this not an official HB position but imo I have had fantastic luck using fast decomb on *everything*. yes, it might miss a frame or two but in general it rocks as fast as not decomb and I rarely see misses. Again as always .. ymmv.

Note: we are planning on optimizing decomb 3 ( decomb default) upon which in my commit notes it will be then default on *all* built in presets. Note upon note: I have always pushed for decomb fast to be in all built in's for at least three years. imo decomb fast is much better than no decomb even with its margin of error. But thats another story .... ;)
 

mic j

macrumors 68030
Mar 15, 2012
2,663
156
Well once its in the svn ... it is pretty much *official* though as you saw is subject to modifications. ;) In general besides strict ana it pretty much is exactly what you are running if you followed my previous suggestions. So rock on!


fast decomb vs. decomb default (known internally as decomb 2 and decomb 3) vary in terms of speed as to what machine you are using. Basically on a fully progressive (24 fps source) fast decomb has virtually no speed hit even on a 2006 mbp running a slow 2.16 c2d . Of course once it want to deinterlace it will then slow down. decomb default (decomb 3) uses a more exact scan of each frame which is more accurate in some cases but slows HB down even on fully progressive (24 fps) sources. So even if decomb 3 (default) never has to actually deinterlace or blend a frame, it has a speed hit just in trying to detect combing.

That said and this not an official HB position but imo I have had fantastic luck using fast decomb on *everything*. yes, it might miss a frame or two but in general it rocks as fast as not decomb and I rarely see misses. Again as always .. ymmv.

Note: we are planning on optimizing decomb 3 ( decomb default) upon which in my commit notes it will be then default on *all* built in presets. Note upon note: I have always pushed for decomb fast to be in all built in's for at least three years. imo decomb fast is much better than no decomb even with its margin of error. But thats another story .... ;)
As always, thanks for that insight. I'll give a shot...on your recommendation!!
 

Cobra611

macrumors regular
Jun 20, 2012
143
18
Beacon, NY
I'm fairly new to ATV, as I just purchased 2 devices within the last month. I too am using HB, but quite honestly, I really have no idea what a LOT of those settings actually control. I'm trying to gain some knowledge here, but my head is still spinning reading your through your posts. Essentially, I would just love to get the best picture possible, keeping the original aspect ration for whatever movie, and coming in at around a 4-8 GB finished. Any help you can give me is greatly appreciated. I've tried using the iPad, ATV and High Profile settings, while making a few adjustments. Mostly, changing the setting from 20, down to 14 or 15 on that sliding scale under the video tab (3rd or 4th from the left), I believe. And I just started checking the Large file box, as a few burns didn't play in iTunes.
 

ViperDesign

macrumors 6502a
Aug 7, 2007
650
516
Utah
Also note, I just fixed decomb for the AppleTV 3 preset. original one used custom decomb when it should have been using Fast Decomb.

https://trac.handbrake.fr/changeset/4785

Until the next nightlies are built, just use it as is but switch decomb to fast in Picture Settings > Filters.

how would I add this to handbrake? I am using the latest nightly, but I am still struggling with how to add a preset.

Thanks for any help
 

dynaflash

macrumors 68020
Mar 27, 2003
2,119
8
how would I add this to handbrake? I am using the latest nightly, but I am still struggling with how to add a preset.
Presets > Update Built in Presets will add the ATV 3 preset to the built in's if you have the latest nightlie and it doesn't automatically update.
 

mic j

macrumors 68030
Mar 15, 2012
2,663
156
Dynaflash...I installed the latest nightly build. It automatically updated my presets to include the aTV 3 preset. I transcoded an mkv with no problem. Now I open my 0.9.6 version of HB and the aTV 3 preset is there as well. Is that the way it should be?

One thing I did notice is that using the NB, a message in the activity log said it scan 10 frames and the movie appears to be interlaced and I should do something about that. Using the 0.9.6 build, there is nothing in the activity log like that. Just wanted to let you know.

I am transcoding the same movie twice with both versions to compare the encode times.

Update: And the winner is...a tie!!! High Profile 2h37m vs aTV3 2h42m. But the High Profile file is 0.09GB larger than the aTV3 file. In reference to the aTV3 preset appearing in the 0.9.6 version, it appears to be the same as the NB except the peak framerate is blank instead of 30.
 
Last edited:

mic j

macrumors 68030
Mar 15, 2012
2,663
156
I'm fairly new to ATV, as I just purchased 2 devices within the last month. I too am using HB, but quite honestly, I really have no idea what a LOT of those settings actually control. I'm trying to gain some knowledge here, but my head is still spinning reading your through your posts. Essentially, I would just love to get the best picture possible, keeping the original aspect ration for whatever movie, and coming in at around a 4-8 GB finished. Any help you can give me is greatly appreciated. I've tried using the iPad, ATV and High Profile settings, while making a few adjustments. Mostly, changing the setting from 20, down to 14 or 15 on that sliding scale under the video tab (3rd or 4th from the left), I believe. And I just started checking the Large file box, as a few burns didn't play in iTunes.
First download the HB Nightly Build mentioned here and use the new aTV 3 preset for highest quality/smallest file size. I also suggest selecting "Web Optimize". It doesn't hurt anything and my experience has been faster loading on the aTV when using it. You're really not gaining much of anything going lower than 20, maybe 19 if you're eyes are really good. Finally, if you suspect forced subtitles in a BR, select "Foreign Audio Search" on the Subtitles tab. Make sure "Forced Only" and "Burned In" are checked. You might want to do this every time, even if you don't suspect forced subtitles. Bummer to have to retranscode later because you found out the movie actually had forced subs that you didn't know about. You will pay the price of a few minutes additional transcoding time as it scans your file for forced subtitles.

With these settings, the quality has been excellent and the file sizes for a 2 hour BR are around 5GB (of course that will vary depending upon your source).
 

pdyebrasil

macrumors newbie
Aug 3, 2010
22
0
Apple TV 2?

How well would a movie encoded using the ATV3 preset play on an ATV2?

I would like to encode movies in the ATV3 preset so I don't have to redo it when I upgrade to the newer hardware... But I'll already have to do that on quite a few blu-rays anyway.
 

hipnetic

macrumors 65816
Oct 5, 2010
1,266
562
Well, if you have your own I would probably use it with strict. There are a couple bugs with some cropping and anamorphic loose mod 2 (which in theory is the current anamorphic strict) which still need to be fixed. The point is 99% of the time the presets Loose anamorphic with mod 2 will give you the same result. I will be fixing the corner cases where the two differ at some point at which time anamorphic strict will go away as in bye - bye (since it will be redundant).

Short answer: for now strict anamorphic is bulletproof. The presets Loose anamorphic with modulus 2 is 99%. Pick your poison ;)

Fwiw, the error we are talking about is about 2 pixels so its not seismic . That said personally ... I still use this exact same preset but strict. ymmv.
Quick question: Are human beings supposed to understand this?

Let me try this another way...

I have some Blu-ray .MKV rips and I want to convert them to .m4v 1080p files in super-high quality. What do you recommend?
 

mic j

macrumors 68030
Mar 15, 2012
2,663
156
Quick question: Are human beings supposed to understand this?

Let me try this another way...

I have some Blu-ray .MKV rips and I want to convert them to .m4v 1080p files in super-high quality. What do you recommend?
See post 18 above for my recommendation. That pretty much summarizes it.
 

Cobra611

macrumors regular
Jun 20, 2012
143
18
Beacon, NY
First download the HB Nightly Build mentioned here and use the new aTV 3 preset for highest quality/smallest file size. I also suggest selecting "Web Optimize". It doesn't hurt anything and my experience has been faster loading on the aTV when using it. You're really not gaining much of anything going lower than 20, maybe 19 if you're eyes are really good. Finally, if you suspect forced subtitles in a BR, select "Foreign Audio Search" on the Subtitles tab. Make sure "Forced Only" and "Burned In" are checked. You might want to do this every time, even if you don't suspect forced subtitles. Bummer to have to retranscode later because you found out the movie actually had forced subs that you didn't know about. You will pay the price of a few minutes additional transcoding time as it scans your file for forced subtitles.

With these settings, the quality has been excellent and the file sizes for a 2 hour BR are around 5GB (of course that will vary depending upon your source).

Perhaps I should have mentioned, I'm currently running Windows 7:-(
 

GarrettL1979

macrumors 6502
Feb 15, 2012
330
0
Short answer: for now strict anamorphic is bulletproof. The presets Loose anamorphic with modulus 2 is 99%. Pick your poison ;)

I'm still a bit confused by strict vs. loose anamorphic. It sounds like strict is the best option, but the presets all include loose instead?? What is the advantage of using loose?
 

mic j

macrumors 68030
Mar 15, 2012
2,663
156
Perhaps I should have mentioned, I'm currently running Windows 7:-(

Well, that makes things a little more complicated but not much.
Handbrake
Preset: High Profile
Video Tab
Web Optimize: checked
Picture Settings
Size Tab: Anamorphic: Strict
Filters Tab: Decomb: Default (everything else: off)
Subtitles Tab
Track: Foreign Audio Search (if there are forced Subtitles or aren't sure); Forced Only: checked
Burn In: checked

Couple of notes: 1) if it's a foreign film with a subtitle track that you want burned in: Track: English Bitmap 2) if you want soft subtitles that's a whole other process (search threads by me for how I do them) 3) is should automatically select and format your audio tracks.
 
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