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Josephkyles

macrumors regular
Original poster
Sep 7, 2006
237
0
IU've been ripping my DVDs to my iMac using Handbrake. I've been setting the Ave Bit rate to 2500. Is this a good setting? Or, should I use the constant quality menu? Also, Mpeg4 or H.264? I'm looking for best quality for the smallest file size, but quality is first in my mind.
 
H.264 beats MPEG4. But it will take about twice as long to encode.

I'm no feinschmecker but I'm usually more than happy with a bitrate at about 1200-1300 on movies... so I guess H.264@2500 should be excellent...
 
I've found this formula to be pretty good for top quality without oversized files:

Use H.264 and 2-Pass

Resolution x .005 = Bit Rate

Example:
for 4:3 -- 640 x 480 x .005 = 1536 kbps
for 16:9 -- 720 x 304 x .005 = 1094 kbps

If you think this is too big, you can lower the constant from .005 down to about .0045 and not notice much of a difference in quality. For sound, I generally use 160 kbps. If it's a low quality documentary I lower it to 128. If it's very music intensive, like a high quality music video, I'll use 192.
 
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