Handbrake: The Glaciers are Melting Faster!

[IJ Reilly]

I tried my first converting effort last night. The goal was one, 90-minute movie using the iPhone/iPod touch presets. The result was only the first chapter of the movie (under three minutes of video!) which took about five hours to process.

I've read several of the other threads on Handbrake, and I still can't figure out why it runs so doggone slow on my Mac, which is a G4 1.7. I'm not going to try this again obviously if it's going to take several days to convert one movie (even assuming I could figure out how to make it convert an entire movie).

Isn't this supposed to be easy? That's what I keep hearing, anyhow!

 

[clevin]

no, its not normal, 5~7 hours maybe for the whole movie with H.264 settings, but for 3 minuts of video, there is something not right with either the app or the settings. It definitely was not working at normal conditions.

 

[eRondeau]

Something's not right. On my *slower* 1.0GHZ Book G4 (640MB) I can rip a 30-min TV episode in about 6-hrs using H.264. Using a legacy video codec is much faster, maybe 2-hrs.

 

[xUKHCx]

Perhaps post a screenshot of your settings

 

[ftaok]

Were you ripping the DVD directly or the VIDEO_TS folder after using MacTheRipper?

If you were ripping the DVD directly, perhaps the copy protection was messing things up. Bad sectors and such always makes my ripping times go up.

You might want to try an older, preferably non-Sony DVD to see if things are better.

 

[funkybrenner]

i had to do a lot of playing around in handbrake before i found the right settings. i have heard that using ffmpeg compression as opposed to h264 works better on PPCs... i'm not in front of a copy of handbrake now otherwise i'd be more specific. but using ffmpeg worked better for me (on a g5 imac).

 

[IJ Reilly]

Perhaps post a screenshot of your settings

I believe I was using the default iPhone/iPod touch settings. In some of the other threads I've read I hear of this process taking on the order of 12 hours or more on older Macs.

Also, how do I get it to convert the entire movie? I ended up with only Chapter 1.

 

[IJ Reilly]

Were you ripping the DVD directly or the VIDEO_TS folder after using MacTheRipper?

If you were ripping the DVD directly, perhaps the copy protection was messing things up. Bad sectors and such always makes my ripping times go up.

You might want to try an older, preferably non-Sony DVD to see if things are better.

I ripped directly from the DVD. From what I've read, pre-ripping with MacTheRipper doesn't necessarily speed up the process overall. The DVD isn't from Sony. It's "Wallace & Gromit and the Curse of the Were Rabbit" from Dreamworks, if you must know.

 

[GFLPraxis]

My MacBook can generally rip a 90 minute movie in 30 minutes with Handbrake- but I use MPEG-4. Much less CPU usage than H.264.

 

[twoodcc]

I ripped directly from the DVD. From what I've read, pre-ripping with MacTheRipper doesn't necessarily speed up the process overall. The DVD isn't from Sony. It's "Wallace & Gromit and the Curse of the Were Rabbit" from Dreamworks, if you must know.

that's weird. it's usually only Sony movies that mess up and only give you chapter 1.

one work-around is to leave out chapter 1, and it will hopefully give you the rest of the movie.

but you still lose part of it though.

 

[clevin]

My MacBook can generally rip a 90 minute movie in 30 minutes with Handbrake- but I use MPEG-4. Much less CPU usage than H.264.

well, its kinda difficult to believe tho. maybe you can test again and mention the bitrate you have been using?

H.264 might be 2~3x slower, but MPEG4 won't be 1000% faster....

I ripped directly from the DVD. From what I've read, pre-ripping with MacTheRipper doesn't necessarily speed up the process overall. The DVD isn't from Sony. It's "Wallace & Gromit and the Curse of the Were Rabbit" from Dreamworks, if you must know.

Kinda think its either your hanbrake is broken, or the DVD is encrypted in a newer way that handbrake can't handle.

 

[paddy]

I ripped directly from the DVD. From what I've read, pre-ripping with MacTheRipper doesn't necessarily speed up the process overall.

I can only speak for myself but MacTheRipper speeds up the process immeasurably, I wouldn't dream of converting directly from the disk. Would you try again using MacTheRipper?

 

[IJ Reilly]

I can only speak for myself but MacTheRipper speeds up the process immeasurably, I wouldn't dream of converting directly from the disk. Would you try again using MacTheRipper?

Yes, I'll give this a try when I get an opportunity.

But I'm still wondering about two other issues. First, how do you get Handbrake to convert the entire DVD? Second, what is the real-world difference between MPEG-4 and H.264 conversion?

 

[xUKHCx]

I don't think MTR would speed up the proces as the bottle neck is clearly elsewhere rather than disk read speed. Although it may clear up the issue bout first chapter only

MPEG4 vs H264

H264 takes much longer to convert however it results in better picture quality at the same bit rate.

Deinterlace + level thereof can have a huge effect on the speed of the encode.

 

[mechler]

I don't think MTR would speed up the proces as the bottle neck is clearly elsewhere rather than disk read speed.

It will if there is encryption that Handbrake can't handle and MTR can. BTW, some PC programs that I use for ripping are updated every 1-2 weeks to deal with new encryption schemes. It's entirely likely that Handbrake just ran into something it can't handle.

One nice thing about ripping separately is that it makes it easier to diagnose when something goes wrong!

 

[iTeen]

i have had this problem with a couple dvd's i have ripped, it usually take about 45min to rip full resolution. Possibly some different/tougher encryption that causes it to go the speed of smell???
wierd.

 

[IJ Reilly]

I don't think MTR would speed up the proces as the bottle neck is clearly elsewhere rather than disk read speed. Although it may clear up the issue bout first chapter only

MPEG4 vs H264

H264 takes much longer to convert however it results in better picture quality at the same bit rate.

Deinterlace + level thereof can have a huge effect on the speed of the encode.

Thanks. But does it matter which file on the DVD I select to start the process?

 

[mechler]

iTeen, what program are you using? The two biggest speed factors I have found are:

1. DVD drive speed
2. Size of the DVD (obviously a 3Gb movie will take less time than a 7Gb one)

I'm not sure about how encryption or processor speed effect things.

 

[iTeen]

iTeen, what program are you using? The two biggest speed factors I have found are:

1. DVD drive speed
2. Size of the DVD (obviously a 3Gb movie will take less time than a 7Gb one)

I'm not sure about how encryption or processor speed effect things.

i am using Handbrake, as i said, i usually have no problems and ripping takes less then 50min. One one or two dvd's i have tried, same resolution and same length, says ripping will take around 10-20 hours.

 

[mechler]

It sounds like an encryption issue. Try ripping the dvd first with a different program (mac the ripper, etc) and see if it makes a difference...

 

[cuestakid]

may i ask what dvd it is? Some recent dvds will do this and the only fix is to either skip the first chapter or in some cases, use a different version of the movie. By different version i mean that some movies, like the simpsons may have two different versions of the film-the differences are in the length of the film so i would check that as well

 

[IJ Reilly]

I named the DVD in post no. 8 above. I've asked a couple of times what is the correct file to start the ripping process but no one has answered this question.

 

[cuestakid]

ok-can you post the drop down menu from the source? If we can see it we may be able to figure it out. The way to tell if there are two versions is in the drop down menu-there should be two files that are in a form similar to

01hr50m12s

and if there is a second one it may be

0135m34s

or

02hr56m9s


keep in mind these are random numbers-the point is that the two files will have differenting lengths

 

[Cromulent]

Thanks. But does it matter which file on the DVD I select to start the process?

Well obviously you want to select the main film file. In the drop down menu it will give you a list of titles, select the one which is the same length as the film and then just click go. You want to make sure it rips all the chapters in that title too.

Use Mac The Ripper, it really is a far superiour ripper.

 

[IJ Reilly]

Well obviously you want to select the main film file. In the drop down menu it will give you a list of titles, select the one which is the same length as the film and then just click go. You want to make sure it rips all the chapters in that title too.

Use Mac The Ripper, it really is a far superiour ripper.

Sorry for being so dense, but this is less than obvious to me. I saw a long list of files in the Open... menu of Handbrake. None of them looked obviously like the main film file, to me anyway.