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Building a dvd-ripped library......... that fits everything...

Z

zainjetha

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Hi guys

im new to the mac world..

heres my story/dilemma:

i have an 80gb ipod, macbook pro and am getting an appletv next week on my 17th birthday.. i have started to rip my dvd collection using handbrake...

these files which i rip normally to fit the ipod (ipod handbrake option) fit my ipod screen very well. to my great joy they also look amazing on the screen of my macbook pro.. will these also fit my appletv?

my assumptions are as follows:

iTunes Store resolution: 640 by 360........

these files are said to fit the appletv well...... these also look good on my macboook pro screen.

Handbrake rips resolution:

640 by 352..
these fit my ipod well and my pro screen well..

since itunes stuff said to fit appletv well is it likely that my dvdrips will aswell, since there is only an 8 pixel difference from 352 to 360. can that make a difference...

i also have a feeling that apple might start encoding stuff to fit the resolution of the ipod classic.. could this happen????????

i dont want to have duplicates to fit both devices. doesnt make sense... please reply vite......


please help so i can build my library.......
 
That 2nd to last sentence is key to the feedback you seek. If you feel that way, then ripping using the ipod preset (relevant to your ipod) is the way to go.

However, if you want maximum quality on the bigger screen tv via AppleTV, you can do much better (noticably better) than ipod resolution. If you want the movies to look very close to how they look when you play the DVD, you'll want to use the AppleTV preset, 2 pass, resulting in a file that won't play on your ipod (without downconverting it and thus creating a 2nd (for ipod) copy).

In my own situation, I have a big screen TV, and it is easy to see the quality shortcomings when playing a select group of videos I've coded for the ipod on that TV (through AppleTV). Basically, the simple rule is that the bigger the screen, the easier it is to notice compression artifacts. Things that look pristine on a tiny ipod screen, won't look nearly as good on a large TV screen.

I hope this is helpful. With big hard drives as cheap as they are, you might want to rethink that 2nd-to-last sentence.
 
hang on a second.......

so the stuff u get off the itunes store doesnt look perfect on appletv????

so lets take this a step further....

based on the assumptions that both itunes stuff and dvdrips look stunning on my macbook which is 15 inch, what are the chances of it looking good on appletv...

how come everyone says itunes store is the way to go for appletv..

and the resolution difference between my dvdrips and itunes....... this is my main question.. is it noticeable.. will it prevent it from looking good on appletv as it is 8pixels off??
is it likely itunes will re-encode their content to fit new ipod classic?

i have an ordinary ipod 80gb (predecessor to classic)

thanks alot
 
For my taste, I want the highest possible resolution via AppleTV, so I don't buy sub-DVD quality content from the iTunes store. There is a big difference between what the AppleTV can do vs. what is currently available from the iTunes store.

The very best video is HD, but I am currently only getting that from an HDV camcorder (home movies) and some of the HD video podcasts now available from the iTunes store. A step down from that level is ripping DVDs. Another step down is buying content from iTunes or using content ripped to look good in iPod.

Relative to the laptop screen vs. the TV screen, I easily see the difference between what looks good on my laptop screen vs. running the same video on my much bigger TV screen. Again, the smaller the screen size, the less noticeable the compression artifacts. If your TV screen is not much bigger than your laptop screen, you may be perfectly happy with the ipod/itunes quality video. My screen is 65 inches. At that size, I'm just barely happy with DVD rips at the highest resolution I can get out of them.

Does everyone say iTunes is the way to go with AppleTV? I see lots and lots and lots of gripes about iTunes needing HD video for AppleTV. I see even more gripes about the quality difference between iTunes video vs. SD (DVD). I'm personally in the camps that if iTunes had a movie rental model and HD movies to rent, I'd buy (rent) some stuff from iTunes to watch via AppleTV. But, I just can't justify even iTunes' relatively good prices for quality a notch below readily-available DVD.

What iTunes is great at is organizing all of the content and making it very simple to have all of your video available via AppleTV. And if iTunes would step up the video (and audio to 5.1), I could easily envision a scenario of some being able to jettison $100/month cable/satt fees, switching instead to favorite show subscriptions/rentals on iTunes.

Relative to "only 8 pixels", don't be fooled by the 640 x 352 vs. 640 x 360 numbers you are quoting. DVD's work at 720 x 480. Now that might look like "only 80 more pixels by only 120 more lines" but those extras can hold a lot of image quality. This is especially noticeable when viewing on a bigger screen.

Relative to "will it look good", "good" is really subjective. My comments are revolving around trying to get the best possible picture on the AppleTV. To me, that would be the definition of "good". But that also means that I would need 2 copies of the video: one to max out what the AppleTV can do, and the other for the iPod. That may not be what you want.

Relative to "is it likely Apple will re-encode", my guess is yes. Whatever ipod/iphone resolution is in the current crop of what they have for sale at any point in time, will likely be the standard to which they try to adapt video in iTunes. However, the content providers may have restrictions on the quality levels of what can be sold on iTunes (which is my guess why we don't already have HD versions of available content in iTunes). Content providers really want to (re)sell video collections to consumers again (this time on blue-ray or HD-DVD).

I have that same iPod Video. I would say it is only a matter of time for both of us until the iTunes store video is no longer standardized for our iPods.

I hope this is helpful.
 
Rip your DVD's for your TV not for an ipod. If you really need to watch something on the road, then use a laptop and VLC. Ripping can be time consuming and I wouldn't want to due it twice or do it for an iPod. I would also suggest that you look into other media adapter options that provide more flexibility. A good source is here

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/forumdisplay.php?f=39
 
I actually just wrote up a long post about what I do...

My friend and I have spent a very long time experimenting with different settings in Handbrake to determine what we consider the best possible format (for our uses at least). We wanted a single video file that would both work on iPods, look good on larger screens (we've tried up to 50" plasma and 113" projector), and a fairly small file size. Using these parameters and a lot of small test videos, I have come up with presets that work extremely well.

Keep in mind, I work mainly with TV shows, but the widescreen settings should work fine for movies.

For widescreen live-action TV shows:
x264 (h.264 iPod) encoder
Average bitrate: 1500
2-pass encoding with Turbo first pass
Output size: 640 width
Deinterlace: Slow
Detelecine: Yes, if applicable (I have found it eliminates choppy playback on Scrubs and Friends)
Advanced Settings (all but the following set to default):
Motion Estimation Method: Uneven Multi-Hexagon

For 4:3 live-action TV shows:
Same as above, but frame size can be left at full 640x480

For animated TV shows:
Same as live-action, but Denoise can be set up to medium (This helps to eliminate some macroblocking)

These settings work extremely well for all of the uses I've tried. The resulting files are around 250MB for 1/2hr TV shows, 500MB for 1hr TV shows. Like I said before, I've watched them before on very large screens and they look pretty good, and I routinely watch them on my 20" monitor and they look just as good as DVDs played with DVD Player.
 
Guys Apple Did open up the Spec on the Ipod Classics somewhat that why I bought an 80gig, now you can do Profile 3 H264 encodes up to 2.5 mipps, Ipod Baseline Encodes are still limited to 1.5mipps. So Now all the encodes I do with the Turbo264 using the Apple TV format play on the Ipod. Even the widescreen movies that the turbo encodes using the Anamorphic Resolution of 854x whatever play.
 
ok...

im going to tell u that on my 15inch MBP, the itunes videos and my dvdrips at normal settings for iPod video look extremely good and a pleasure to watch... i would not know that they are encoded for iPod if i wasnt told...

my plasma tv is roughly 32 inches or perhaps smaller.... if these files look sexy on my macbook pro is it likely that they wil look good on my plasma, bearing in mind it is only twice the size of the macbook pro...

harddisk space is not a problem for me as i have two 1TB harddisk drives...
i rip a lot of Season DVDs from friends and then tag them the exact way i see them on the iTunes store.. i also am an extremely heavy purchaser from the iTunes store and consume £100 pounds in two months on it...

thanks
 
Since I know very little about this I was hoping someone could answer this:

I recently ripped a good portion of my DVDs. I wanted them to look good on my 20" iMac as well as my iPhone, so I tried to increase the size of the files (since I've got plenty of HDD space). Is there a point to where increasing the size of the file (while leaving it in dimensions that can play on the iPhone/iPod) DOESNT' increase the quality? I guess I assumed that the larger the "target size" in Handbrake, the better the quality. Am I wrong in that assumption? Is there a better way to rip without using a ton of space? Is there a cut off point to where increased size doesn't matter?

(insert obvious joke here)
 
i rip in handbrake using the iPod Hi-Rez pre-set and it looks awesome on my appletv and just as awesome on my iPod.....and there is only one file. it's perfect, i couldnt cope having two files of everything!
 
thanks nlivo u rock my stripey socks.. boghog u r another one with an attitude problem.. i dont come here to waste my time with smartasses posting jokes.. i come here to learn how to do something then i go away and do it...
 
I too just use the iPod preset on Handbrake. That way I can play my movies on my iPod, iPhone and AppleTV. I'm using a 32 inch Toshiba HDTV and have to say I was surprised by the quality of these 640 x XXX rips 😀
 
zainjetha said:
my plasma tv is roughly 32 inches or perhaps smaller.... if these files look sexy on my macbook pro is it likely that they wil look good on my plasma, bearing in mind it is only twice the size of the macbook pro...
Click to expand...

Actually 32" diagonal is more than 4 times as big as 15" diagonal...because area = width x height.
 
AliensAreFuzzy, just to say a quick thanks for posting those settings. I've encoded my first dvd in preparation for purchasing a classic. I don't have an ipod video or apple tv to watch them on but the quality looks fantastic on my imac. Thanks!
 
Resolution = quality = wrong

You left out the compression scheme.

Lots of pixels...720 or 640 or what ever with a ton of compression on top will look terrible on any screen.

And don't forget the Frames Per Second. Some videos look good down to 15 FPS. I've even seen some at 12 FPS that were usable.


And zainjetha, your thread was not being hi-jacked, someone with another question on the same topic was asking for advice with out starting a new thread on the same topic.

Your response to JW008 was RUDE!
 
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