Handbrake questions

[dukebound85]

Hi, I have a question concerning handbrake. Is H.264 alot better quality than an avi at the same bit rate?

I typically have been doing about 1250kbps when creating an avi. How would this correspond to H.264 when doing 2 pass encoding?

 

[FleurDuMal]

Hi, I have a question concerning handbrake. Is H.264 alot better quality than an avi at the same bit rate?

I typically have been doing about 1250kbps when creating an avi. How would this correspond to H.264 when doing 2 pass encoding?

I encode at 1250Kbs using H.264. I find it perfectly adequate for my use. Given that your average 90-120 minute movie comes out at under 1GB, when the original file is usually around 6-7GB, it is really quite phenomenal what H.264 can do. The only time I can actually tell its a compressed movie is on dark scenes. For some reason H.264 struggles on dark areas - I don't know if that's common of all codecs though. If you have a particularly dark movie, you might want to up the average bit rate to 1500kbs, but it doesn't really bother me so I just leave it at 1250.

It also matters a big deal how big the the screen is that you'll be watching the movie on. I'm sure if you were watching the file on a 70" it would look pretty awful. But I watch mine on a 24" monitor and my files look fine.

 

[dukebound85]

I encode at 1250Kbs using H.264. I find it perfectly adequate for my use. Given that your average 90-120 minute movie comes out at under 1GB, when the original file is usually around 6-7GB, it is really quite phenomenal what H.264 can do. The only time I can actually tell its a compressed movie is on dark scenes. For some reason H.264 struggles on dark areas - I don't know if that's common of all codecs though. If you have a particularly dark movie, you might want to up the average bit rate to 1500kbs, but it doesn't really bother me so I just leave it at 1250.

It also matters a big deal how big the the screen is that you'll be watching the movie on. I'm sure if you were watching the file on a 70" it would look pretty awful. But I watch mine on a 24" monitor and my files look fine.

thanks. i have been using 1250 with avi. will h264 be alot better quality at this same bitrate?

 

[FleurDuMal]

thanks. i have been using 1250 with avi. will h264 be alot better quality at this same bitrate?

Yeah, alot better. But there is a trade off for this increase in quality. It's very slow to encode in H.264. Also, you need a decent computer to play back the files as its a very CPU-intesive codec.

 

[dukebound85]

Yeah, alot better. But there is a trade off for this increase in quality. It's very slow to encode in H.264. Also, you need a decent computer to play back the files as its a very CPU-intesive codec.

how does regular mp4 compare to avi and h264? I would imagine it being alot faster to encode but still better quality right?

thanks so far for your info

 

[mkrishnan]

Wait, am I missing something obvious? AVI is not a codec. It's just a file wrapper definition. What codec is being used to encode the AVI files now?

 

[Chundles]

Wait, am I missing something obvious? AVI is not a codec. It's just a file wrapper definition. What codec is being used to encode the AVI files now?

I second this question. What encoder are you using when you rip to avi? It is possible to use H.264 encoding for an avi container.

MPEG-4 is not as good as H.264 at the same bit rate if that's what you're asking.

 

[dukebound85]

shows how much i know lol. well i guess its the file format in handbrake that i am also in question about as well as the codec. are there any downsides to avi?

I am just confused on the differences of the first 2 drop downs on the right column of handbrake

 

[mkrishnan]

There's probably a very detailed answer about the AVI / MP4 question (both of them are really container / wrapper formats -- they each are amenable to multiple different video codecs, and I think also audio codecs, at least in the AVI case).

The shorter answer is that most specialized devices are specific about the container they want. I.E. if the aspiration is to play this on an Apple product such as an iPod or maybe an iTV in the future, stick with MP4 (and really, stick with H.264).

I think the only reason you would go away from H.264 to the standard MPEG4 video layer or to MPEG2, etc, is for speed of encoding. Microsoft / WMV have some equally nice codecs, but your software won't be able to convert into them. There are some other very nice open-source codecs, but most specialized devices won't play them.

So I'd say, if these files are going to live on Apple products, especially, stick with MP4 / H.264.

 

[MrPink1213]

Another Handbrake question. I read on here that I should use H.264, 1500-2000kbps, 2 pass for a good rip. What about the aspect ratio? It says the original is 720 X 554(?) and now it's going to 704X520 or something there abouts. Does this make a huge difference? Is it better to manually change the size if I'm planning on watching these on a TV?

Thanks!