Handbrake DTS in MP4 support, Blu-Ray's play in OS X now

In case anyone doesn't know (and I'm sure it may have been posted, so my apologies if so, just trying to help), Handbrake now supports DTS in M4P containers. Recent builds just added it, so no need for MKV for DTS.

I want to thank everyone for your help last year on DVD ripping, Handbrake, differing levels L3-5, learning about containers, and advanced settings in Handbrake, etc. With your help I mastered Handbrake, Subler, etc. and bought a Mac Mini last month to replace my aTV First Gen with a Crystal HD graphics card for 1080P (worked well, but I wanted a full home theatre center). Works amazingly, especially now that Blu-Ray's play on OS X with a new app, Mac Blu-Ray Player. Attached an LG 3D USB Blu-Ray drive to the Mini, most of my Blu-Ray rips play without issue from my NAS but the drive is great.

Replaced two Apple TV's (1st and 2nd gen) and an old Sony Blu-Ray player for a small Mac Mini and USB Blu-Ray drive. Fantastic with Plex!

Thanks again and hope this info helps some.

blueroom said:

The nightly build or regular version?

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I've been using the nightly builds:

https://build.handbrake.fr/view/Nightlies/job/Mac/

Hope this helps. Also, MKVtools 2 has been split into different applications with update 3:

AVItools

AVItools is the part of the VIDEOtoolbox Suite of Applications used for the creation and editing of AVI videos. It was primarily designed for processing videos files for use in DivX enabled DVD players, though the AVI videos it creates are also playable on hardware like the PS3 and Xbox 360. As the name might imply, AVItools is a graphical interface for a variety of tools useful for processing video files.

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MP4tools

MP4tools is the part of the VIDEOtoolbox Suite of Applications used for the creation and editing of MP4 videos. It was primarily designed for processing videos files for use in hardware capable of playing MP4 or M4V videos, such as the iPhone, iPad, Apple TV and PS3. As the name might imply, MP4tools is a graphical interface for a variety of tools useful for processing video files.

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SUBtools

SUBtools is a part of the VIDEOtoolbox Suite of Applications that converts SSA/ASS subtitles into proper SRT files. It finds timing conflicts that will prevent the subtitle from being read, and shows you them in graphical format. SUBtools can usually fix many of these conflicts automatically, and it offers easy to use tools to quickly fix other conflicts manually.

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dynaflash said:

DTS in mp4 is supported in the last public release of HB. 0.9.6. You don't need to use a nightly to have that support.

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Very true. You don't. I do just because they are improving it quite a bit, and with my 12-Core Mac Pro they're improving use of virtual cores which makes a big difference in DVD encoding. I have high settings in Handbrake, and encoding a Blu-Ray rip with multiple audio tracks (first track should be stereo as iDevices default to the first track), and the second track I passthru 5.1 or DTS sound. My advanced settings I have cranked up as much as possible as to be as lossless as I can for a transcode. A ~30GB Blu-Ray encode takes about 7-8 hours on my Mac Pro. I let it run over night. The output is incredible and plays without issue on my Mac Mini.

Here is the string for my Advanced Settings:

b-adapt=2:rc-lookahead=50: psy-rd=1.5,0.10:bframes=8:ref=8:me=umh:subq=10:trellis=2:analyse=all:merange=32:aq-strength=1.2

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Spent 3-6 months testing out various settings, those may be overkill for some but definitely produced the best movie.

EDIT: Again, this string is for my Blu-Ray encodes, at the time I used the MKV container as DTS was not supported in MP4, with the XBMC builds at the time and with Eden 11. My SD DVD encodes are much different.

TrackZ said:

In this workflow, I have some questions:

- what software do you use in the mini to present your library?

- are you passing through hd audio formats?

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1- Plex

2-Yup. As I stated above, in Handbrake I keep the first audio track downmixed to stereo, the second track is either 5.1, 7.1, Dolby or DTS passthru (always use passthru). I may include other tracks such as commentaries if they are available.

macrazee said:

8 reference frames? LOL. I guess for playing on a Mini but most other devices, not so much. I learned the hard way when Apple TV 2/3 won't play files encoded with 16 reference frames. PC/Mac plays them fine of course but ATV chokes right up, in fact it doesn't even attempt to play them just errors out.

You are really pushing the settings, IMHO a lot of wasted electricity and effort for very, very little gain. I understand wanting the best encode possible but 8 hours on a 12-core machine for one movie? That's nuts!

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Hey, everyone has their own preferences. I noticed a big difference playing around with these settings. On my jailbroken Apple TV 1 with a Crystal HD graphics card, my 1080P mkv's with those settings played perfectly. What a difference from the crappy presets. Also, the 8 is mandatory for the other presets so I had little choice. The Apple TV 2 I had jailbroken with Seas0nPass and FireCore 1.5 plays DTS and 5.1 natively, also linked to my NAS, and those same encodes with those settings played without an issue (the ARM processor in the previous Apple TV 2 was underclocked for various reasons, jailbreaking it took it to the next level). However, with the Mac Mini, not an issue.

martinm0 said:

I've been adding DTS tracks to my M4V files for the last month or two, but the only downside is that nearly no video players support DTS and M4V containers. MPlayerX has been the only one that I've found that plays both.

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Plex supports it in OS X. XBMC as well, and so does FireCore's aTV Flash for 2nd and 3rd gen aTV (and first gen as well). Still need to jailbreak the device. Natively Apple only supports 5.1 (which is bs). VLC 2.0 can playback Blu-Ray's with DTS, I have the files for breaking the DRM or what have you. I also have about 3-4 Blu-Ray player apps for OS X, and ~5 Blu-Ray ripper apps as well. I can't believe the "Mac won't play Blu-Ray" crowd hasn't been mentioning it can now.

Richdmoore said:

Would you mind mentioning them, and how well they work? I am only familiar with a couple:

Ripper/Copy Software:
DvdFab Suite
Make MKV (Ripper only) will also rip HD-DVD for those who have legacy discs and xbox usb drive.

Player:
Mac Blu-Ray Player (Macgo)

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Blu-Ray Players OS X:

- Macgo Mac Blu-Ray Player

- Aurora Blu-ray Player for Mac

- VLC 2.0 - Can play Blu-Rays (Install a copy of libdvdcss.2.dylib in /usr/lib or /usr/local/lib for decryption)

Blu-Ray Rippers OS X:

- ********* Blu-Ray Ripper for Mac (allows preset conversions for popular Apple devices)

- Blu-ray Video Converter Mac

You can use this powerful Blu-ray Video Converter Mac to load the M2TS files in Blu-ray disc and convert to all
popular video and audio formats. Besides the comprehensive formats, there are also plentiful profiles for various digital
devices, so that you can get videos for iPod, iPhone, PSP, etc. directly. All professional codecs are built in, that ensures
the fastest conversion speed and high output quality.
Moreover, this multifunctional Blu-ray Video Converter Mac also enables you to trim video length, crop screen area, merge video clips, capture
pictures, and adjust effect to edit Blu-ray movies as you like.

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- DVDFab Blu-ray Ripper for Mac

DVDFab Blu-ray Ripper for Mac is a powerful all-in-one Blu-ray ripper works on Mac OS to decrypt your Blu-ray
movies and rip them to audio/video files for playback or streaming.
As the most powerful Mac Blu-ray Ripper for many popular media player devices, DVDFab Blu-ray Ripper for
Mac has preset profiles for many devices like iPod, iPhone, iPad and generic presets which can be customized
for special or unsupported applications. This Blu-ray ripper also supports batch conversion from within the GUI,
NTSC and PAL video formats and up to 7.1 channel audio output.

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- Mac Blu-Ray Ripper Pro

Mac BlurayRipper Pro allows you to extract Blurays to your hard disk

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- PavTube Blu-Ray Ripper

Blu-ray Ripper + Blu-ray 3D Ripper + DVD ripper.
Support NVIDIA CUDA and ATI Stream (AMD APP) acceleration technologies.
Convert/rip/shrink/copy the latest releases of Blu-ray movies.
Rip and convert Blu-ray 3D discs to 2D video files like MP4, AVI, MKV, MOV, WMV,
etc.
Rip BD/DVD to the New iPad 3, iPhone 4S, Kindle Fire, Nook Tablet, PlayBook, ASUS
Eee Pad Transformer Prime, Apple TV 3,PS Vita, Galaxy Tab, Galaxy Note….
Preserve the BD/DVD’s original file structure by using "Copy the entire disc".

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- SmartLabs tsMuxeR for Mac OS X v1.10.6

SmartLabs tsMuxeR the software utility to create TS and M2TS files for IP broadcasting as well as for
viewing at hardware video players (i.e., Dune HD Ultra, Sony Playstation3 and others).
Supported incoming formats:
TS
M2TS
Blu-ray
Demux option
Supported videocodecs:
H.264
Microsoft VC-1
MPEG-2
Supported audiocodecs:
AAC
AC3 / E-AC3(DD+)
Dolby True HD (for streams with AC3 core only)
DTS/ DTS-HD
Mpeg audio Layer 1/2/3
LPCM

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SD DVD Ripping Apps:

- Mac the Ripper 4.0

- RipIt (the BEST for reg DVD ripping)

- Mac DVD Ripper Pro

- Handbrake

- MakeMKV

Hope this helps, I included the descriptions to make it easier.

emt1 said:

I'm assuming you're using the "constant quality" option in Handbrake. If so, using those crazy settings won't affect the quality. It will always be the same. The only thing that will change is file size - slightly.

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Nope, big differences. Worked with Handbrake developers, tons of people familiar with encoding, etc. Definitely makes a difference, plus I've saved ~4-5GB's a file in size, compressing it to mid-high teens as lossless as possible. I use different settings than I posted for SD encodes, the string I posted is for my Blu-Ray encodes. SD encodes take me 30-35 minutes. Trust me, it may be overkill, but it definitely produces an excellent result that is as close to the original source. Newer settings such as Adaptive Quantization, Psychovisual Distortion and Trellis, MER and Adaptive B-Frames make a huge difference.

Trust me, I spent months tweaking all kinds of settings, comparing encodes, working with many people on here and in film that have been extremely helpful. I wouldn't be wasting my time otherwise

dynaflash said:

Oh ? Which ones ? I'd be suprised if those settings were recommended tbh by any hb devs.

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It was so long ago I cannot recall, but for my BD encodes those were recommended, aside from two or three I implemented (mostly psychovisual settings). Deblocking had no effect, tried 1, -1, etc., left it alone).

I use much different setting for SD 480P encodes. With my Blu-Rays, I want to get them as perfect as possible.

dynaflash said:

XBMC Eden 11.0 does not support dts in mp4. Davilla just got it committed to their trunk repo after he was made aware of it. XBMC 11.0 has too old of an ffmpeg to play it back.

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I am aware of Eden 11.0's build with DTS in MP4, however on my aTV 1 with the Crystal HD card my MKV's played DTS through my Pioneer Elite VSX-33 AVR. No issue there. At that time DTS was not supported in MP4 encodes, thus MKV was implemented.

Everyone has their own preferences. I spent quite a bit of time encoding mkv's (this was well before Handbrake supported DTS in MP4 containers), compared my encodes to the actual Blu-Ray on my 60" Pioneer Elite plasma, and found these settings make a big difference. Noticeable differences included blacks/ghosting/blocking/Grain in some cases. Yes, might be overkill, but as I tossed my DVD's (although also kept the DVD rips alongside my encodes), I wanted to get as lossless as possible (although I am aware there is always loss in encodes). As well, those settings for my BD encodes saved about 4-5GB's per encode, so why not make use of a 12-Core Mac Pro 5,1 with 10GB's RAM and a SSD drive? I'd rather be safe than sorry, and the time is well worth it.

As for video settings (this is for BD, not SD):

- Now use MP4 instead of MKV as it supports DTS, which plays through Plex on my Mac Mini, I do not use any Apple TV's for my media

- Codec: H.264 (x264)

FPS: Variable

Constant Quality: 18 (experimented with 22-16, found 18 for BD's to be excellent)

Picture Size: 1920x1080 (of course )
I always use Anamorphic Loose with Modulus 8 to keep the ratio while allowing proper scaling

Filters: Detelecine (Default) - Decomb (Default)

Don't use subtitles

That's it. Hope this helps/clarifies a bit.

heliocentric said:

you say you dont bother with subtitles...but how do you go about making sure the forced subs are implemented in your encodes?

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You can, if their is an srt file, attach it to Handbrake before encoding and select the forced option. Otherwise, you can use Subler and other apps to remux subtitles, audio/video tracks, and chapters. I use MetaX for most of my tagging, but that doesn't handle remuxing.

dynaflash said:

With HB beware the detelecine filter, it can munge some content we found after we added it to the presets. HB is dropping it from built in presets due to it being A. inefficient (single threaded) and B. Can have adverse effects on some pal content and others.

I might suggest Anamorphic Strict for blu ray. Loose Anamorphic can get wonky on sources where auto cropping picks up side cropping.

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Hmmm, I don't crop my encodes, and modulus 8 with loose anamorphic plays well on my plasma (modulus 16 loose for SD encodes), Mac Pro displays, and other tv's.

Thanks for the heads-up re: detelecine. I kept it at default, didn't think much about it tbh. Thankfully it hasn't negatively impaired my encodes. I also notice that my 12-Cores (24 virtual), are all cranked to 100% (use iStat) when encoding my Blu-Rays, so it seems to be making use of all my cores.