Planet Earth Blu Ray

Planet Earth Blu-ray is encoded with a weird version of VC-1. I used Handbrake to transcode with the Apple TV preset changing the video to 720p and setting 24fps and it plays perfectly fine on my Apple TV. I did the same for my 1080p Plex box (except at 1080p) and it looks fabulous. Both are h.264.

TxP said:

Has anyone made a good encode of the Blu Ray version of Planet Earth that plays smoothly on ATV? I'm getting some stuttering during the most complex scenes even with what I thought were the recommended settings (MakeMKV'd rip, Handbrake nightly, AppleTV preset w/ vbv-maxrate & vbv-bufsize adjustments) and a synced copy of the file. If so, care to share your settings?

My primary target is the AppleTV, compatibility with other devices is less important for me (for this series). Thanks.

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I also used HB to encode my Planet Earth blu-ray rips at 720p. Using TV preset, with vbv-maxrate and vbv-bufsize=9500 I found many of the encode's bitrates pushing the TV's limits so I dialed back the RF .5-1.0 (depending on the episode). All of the episode's bitrates are now around 5K and all look great with no stuttering.

TxP said:

The default RF on the ATV preset is 20, so just to clarify did you move it towards 21 or towards 19? It isn't clear to me what the RF value actually represents. Thanks.

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RF Values represent a quality much like golf scores represent how good you did. The higher the number the lower the quality and vice versa.

TxP said:

The default RF on the ATV preset is 20, so just to clarify did you move it towards 21 or towards 19? It isn't clear to me what the RF value actually represents. Thanks.

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dynaflash said:

RF Values represent a quality much like golf scores represent how good you did. The higher the number the lower the quality and vice versa.

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Sorry, should've been more clear. As dynaflash explained, to improve quality you actually lower the RF (constant quality % increases) and vice-versa to decrease quality. Because the TV preset was resulting in high bitrates, I raised the RF value to between 20.5 and 21, again depending on the results from my initial encode of any episode exceeding a bitrate of 5500.

If you are unsure how to check the bitrate of your encodes, open the video using Quicktime and then click Window > Show Movie Inspector.

VC-1 in and of itself isn't problematic for HB, but the BBC series all use some strange parameters because they behave similarly.

That would explain why I've been unable to rip my BD copy of the BBC documentary Yellowstone, which by the way I highly recommend for those who enjoyed the Planet Earth serries.