Handbrake/Visual Hub - Picture Quality

[docjoe]

So, yesterday I had enough time, to compare the
picture quality between 2 encodes of the same movie.


I used the ATV preset in Handbrake with 2pass/turbo1pass.
Average Bitrate 2500. AC3 + AAC .

In VH I used the ATV/go nuts preset.

Although VH only puts the AC3-sound into the file,
I had a filesize of 3,5GB compared to the 2,2GB Handbrake file.

Watching the clips on my 50' FullHD-Plasma, I couldn't find
any difference at all.

Strange, isn't it?

 

[dynaflash]

Not really. HandBrake uses some advanced encoding options for h.264 that VH doesn't which create higher quality at a smaller file size. You can see them in the advanced tab of the HandBrake macgui.However encoding time may be greater, personally I have never compared it.

 

[speakerwizard]

Handbrake is also a LOT quicker if you have multiple processors. (from my experience.)

 

[slapppy]

So, yesterday I had enough time, to compare the
picture quality between 2 encodes of the same movie.


I used the ATV preset in Handbrake with 2pass/turbo1pass.
Average Bitrate 2500. AC3 + AAC .

In VH I used the ATV/go nuts preset.

Although VH only puts the AC3-sound into the file,
I had a filesize of 3,5GB compared to the 2,2GB Handbrake file.

Watching the clips on my 50' FullHD-Plasma, I couldn't find
any difference at all.

Strange, isn't it?

Not at all. I find Handbrake at 2 Pass produces amazing results. Try a chapter at 2000 AVB and compare it with your 2500 AVB file.

 

[docjoe]

I did some more comparisons last night.

By now I can tell that HB produces (at my settings)
a little more sharpness than VH. It's closer to the
original DVD, although most people wouldn't notice
the differende at all.

So I decided to use HB most of the time and keep VH
for movies HB doesn't handle correctly.

Maybe I'll change the average bitrate in HB to 3000
and check again.

 

[slapppy]

I did some more comparisons last night.

By now I can tell that HB produces (at my settings)
a little more sharpness than VH. It's closer to the
original DVD, although most people wouldn't notice
the differende at all.

So I decided to use HB most of the time and keep VH
for movies HB doesn't handle correctly.

Maybe I'll change the average bitrate in HB to 3000
and check again.

With a 42" screen you can get away with 2000-2500. Now if I had a 50" plasma like you, I would probably go to 3000 also double pass.

 

[thunderclap]

With a 42" screen you can get away with 2000-2500. Now if I had a 50" plasma like you, I would probably go to 3000 also double pass.

When I tried 3000 streaming was tough on the system. A lot of stuttering. I assume you sync the films?

 

[slapppy]

When I tried 3000 streaming was tough on the system. A lot of stuttering. I assume you sync the films?

No, I stream everything. So you're getting pauses during playback. Your on "G" or "N"? If you look at your ATV settings, do you show a full strength signal on ATV?

 

[Krevnik]

With a 42" screen you can get away with 2000-2500. Now if I had a 50" plasma like you, I would probably go to 3000 also double pass.

Heck, most of the time, I can get away with a little less than 2000-2500, but that is also usually when all the macroblocking begins to appear on certain material as well.

 

[thunderclap]

No, I stream everything. So you're getting pauses during playback. Your on "G" or "N"? If you look at your ATV settings, do you show a full strength signal on ATV?

I'm on a G network and yes... full strength.

 

[slapppy]

I'm on a G network and yes... full strength.

Thats odd, because I have the Airport with G network and do not get these streaming issues during normal use. The computer that host all my media is an iMac G5 and works great.

The only time I've seen the issue you describe come up is when I was transferring 30GB of data from a MBP to the iMac on the public folder through Airport, which is something that happens rarely. Perhaps restarting your ABS or giving it a lower multicast rate may help.

 

[CrunchyPickle]

Has anyone tried turning on the VFR setting? Just wondering if that would be a good idea. Does anyone deinterlace?

 

[Krevnik]

Has anyone tried turning on the VFR setting? Just wondering if that would be a good idea. Does anyone deinterlace?

VFR is best left to being used on animated content. Some animated shows are encoded in a way that they aren't a fixed framerate (24 or 30 fps), and instead jump around anywhere between 15-30 fps (and in rare cases, you can run into 48 or 60fps segments which are nearly impossible to get right).

Deinterlacing is really only useful if you see 'combing' in the picture, where the even and odd lines don't match up.