Handbrake Apple TV preset

[Skystar]

Hello everyone, first post here.

Does the Apple TV preset in Handbrake take care of the 6 Channel AAC surround sound? I know the ATV does not currently support it, but like others, I am hoping for support in the future. Also, is there anything else worth changing after selecting the ATV preset? I am fine with the 3000kbps bit rate, but I may have to lower it for longer movies to fit under 4gb. I just want to make sure before I start converting my DVD folders I have sitting in a NAS device. Thanks

 

[Cptmiek]

I posted about the TV preset in another thread the other day, but now that you've started this one, maybe the post would fit in better here.

The answer to your audio question is, no. You have to manually set the audio no matter what preset you use. In case you're curious, the 320kbps 6-channel audio works just fine on the TV. I haven't tried any higher, but it's still way better than the 160kbps that Apple quotes as the max.

From my earlier post:

If you're going straight from DVD, or TS folder (which I would recomend), the new Handbrake has a fine AppleTV preset. I personally change it to 2800kbps and add two pass encoding. Whatever your choice in settings, this tidbit of info should prove useful:

"You should be aware that by changing bitrate or adding 2 pass, your are effectively changing to a custom setting, which is fine, but removes the built in HB-AppleTV presets x264 advanced option string. which both improves video quality as well as reduces file size."

This is straight from the HB developers. According to them, if you want to change the preset options you want to create a new preset with the setting you want and then paste this line of code into the "x264 advanced option string text field"

bframes=3:ref=1:subme=5:me=umh:no-fast-pskip=1:no-dct-decimate=1:trellis=2

I've got movies from before and after I did this, always the same settings exept for the above string. The ones I've encoded after doing this, imo, look just like a DVD does on my TV.

 

[Skystar]

I posted about the TV preset in another thread the other day, but now that you've started this one, maybe the post would fit in better here.

The answer to your audio question is, no. You have to manually set the audio no matter what preset you use. In case you're curious, the 320kbps 6-channel audio works just fine on the TV. I haven't tried any higher, but it's still way better than the 160kbps that Apple quotes as the max.

From my earlier post:

If you're going straight from DVD, or TS folder (which I would recomend), the new Handbrake has a fine AppleTV preset. I personally change it to 2800kbps and add two pass encoding. Whatever your choice in settings, this tidbit of info should prove useful:

"You should be aware that by changing bitrate or adding 2 pass, your are effectively changing to a custom setting, which is fine, but removes the built in HB-AppleTV presets x264 advanced option string. which both improves video quality as well as reduces file size."

This is straight from the HB developers. According to them, if you want to change the preset options you want to create a new preset with the setting you want and then paste this line of code into the "x264 advanced option string text field"

bframes=3:ref=1:subme=5:me=umh:no-fast-pskip=1:no-dct-decimate=1:trellis=2

I've got movies from before and after I did this, always the same settings exept for the above string. The ones I've encoded after doing this, imo, look just like a DVD does on my TV.

Thanks for the reply, I saw your post about that earlier also. I am currently using the windows version of handbrake, which I think does not let me set my own presets. Am I okay with selecting the Apple TV preset, selecting the 6channel audio, and clicking encode? Since I am not changing the bitrate or 2pass, do I have to worry about the x264 string? Thanks again.

 

[Cptmiek]

Actually, no. If you won't be changing anything on the video side of the preset then the string is already there. The developer was just saying that if you change anything, the present stops being the preset. You should be fine as long as audio is all you are changing. Of course, I haven't used the Windows one yet. This post assumes that they are fundamentally the same across platforms.

 

[JonHimself]

In case you're curious, the 320kbps 6-channel audio works just fine on the TV. I haven't tried any higher, but it's still way better than the 160kbps that Apple quotes as the max.

It's worth adding (if I'm even correct) that the 160kbps max is based on two channels, so 80kbps per channel (because it's stereo). As I'm typing this I have no idea how to explain but just remember reading it on the handbrake forums. 320 kbps in 6 channel works out to just over 53 kbps per channel and is still under the Apple TV's minimum. I may have interpreted the thread wrong but the point was that there was no reason to encode higher than 160 kbps (in stero) because Apple TV (or maybe it was handbrake itself) just cut it down to 160 kbps anyways.
Sorry that I'm not entirely sure on the info.