Handbrake

[jburrows500]

Hi.. I am a recent convert to Mac and using hanbrake to convert my windows AVI files to MP4 so I can import them into iMovie. After conversion I can open it using quicktime player and it imports into imovie ok but I find the edges of the people to have jagged lines.. kind of like a deinterlace issue??? Can anyone suggest some settings I might try that will get rid of these lines.. they look very similar to what you would see on an old tv zoomed it if that makes any sense.. Thanks!

 

[jburrows500]

I actually think I am getting close.. I fixed the lines by going into filters, checking deinterlace.. slow... and that seemed to clear up the problem.. just took 3 hours t figure that out.. lol. Is it typical to go from a 2.5GB avi to a pretty good looking clip that is 285MB?? Seems odd it would be reduced that much?

 

[floh]

I actually think I am getting close.. I fixed the lines by going into filters, checking deinterlace.. slow... and that seemed to clear up the problem.. just took 3 hours t figure that out.. lol. Is it typical to go from a 2.5GB avi to a pretty good looking clip that is 285MB?? Seems odd it would be reduced that much?

Hi again! (from another thread)

Yes, that was deinterlacing. For future readers: The original AVI container has an NTSC-DV video stream. These are interlaced, and you have to tell that to the converter so it can try to deal with it.

The quality will be okay while the size is reduced a lot. This is due to the much more advanced codec used (H.264 instead of the original DV). The difference is between an interframe (H.264) and an intraframe codec (DV). This is perfectly fine if you are converting the files for archiving or something. If you want to do some fast and advanced editing on them or lots of color grading, you will maybe want to use a different codec.

And again: ".avi" and ".mp4" are container formats and tell almost nothing about the codecs used inside. So if you are searching for assistance here, try to include the codec of the files, not just the extension. Because there is so much confusion in this forum, I actually made a video just for it:

If you want to convert the files for editing and the like, I would recommend you to used MPEG Streamclip instead of Handbrake. Just drag-and-drop the clip into the program and then select "File -> Export as Quicktime movie...". Here, for the compression, you will want to choose either "Apple DV/DVCPRO NTSC" (that's the same as the original codec and will produce about the same filesize) or "Apple ProRes 422" which makes sense if you are converting anyways. The program will also help you determine the video codec of the file if you don't know it: Just go to "File -> Show stream information".

Good luck!

 

[jburrows500]

Hi floh.. I have tried Streamclip numerous times with no success at all. In this case my AVI file wont even import into Streamclip.


General
Complete name : /Users/Jburrows500/Desktop/1999 03 21.avi
Format : AVI
Format/Info : Audio Video Interleave
Format_Commercial_IfAny : DV
Format profile : OpenDML
File size : 2.33 GiB
Duration : 11mn 33s
Overall bit rate : 28.9 Mbps

Video
ID : 0
Format : DV
Duration : 11mn 33s
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 24.4 Mbps
Width : 720 pixels
Height : 480 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 4:3
Frame rate mode : Constant
Frame rate : 29.970 fps
Standard : NTSC
Chroma subsampling : 4:1:1
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Interlaced
Compression mode : Lossy
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 2.357
Stream size : 2.70 GiB

Audio
ID : 0-0
Format : PCM
Muxing mode : DV
Muxing mode, more info : Muxed in Video #1
Duration : 11mn 33s
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 1 536 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Bit depth : 16 bits
Stream size : 0.00 Byte (0%)

 

[floh]

Hi floh.. I have tried Streamclip numerous times with no success at all. In this case my AVI file wont even import into Streamclip.

Hm. Then just like in the other thread, I am at my wits' end. And I highly suspect that there is something wrong with you AVI files. Normally, MPEG Streamclip can easily read DVCPRO video streams, no matter the container. So can Quicktime with the right container. And the fact that Quicktime (via my converter tool) and MPEG Streamclip both failed on the files is very weird...

So yeah, maybe you should convert them with Handbrake. You'll save some space in addition. And space is expensive, since you are using mostly SSD drives.

 

[Drewski]

I actually think I am getting close.. I fixed the lines by going into filters, checking deinterlace.. slow... and that seemed to clear up the problem.. just took 3 hours t figure that out.. lol. Is it typical to go from a 2.5GB avi to a pretty good looking clip that is 285MB?? Seems odd it would be reduced that much?

I'm bringing back this old thread, as I have the same issue. I'm not importing AVI files, but some old MPG files from an older home video camera that were "compressed". Handbrake makes short work of converting them back to their intended (843x480) format, but the deinterlacing is still there, and I have no idea where the above mentioned filters and checking deinterlace is going on. Where do I find that option?

EDIT: Nevermind! Found it... And it works great.

 

[floh]

I have no idea where the above mentioned filters and checking deinterlace is going on. Where do I find that option?

Just saw that you found it. In case anyone else is searching: Click on the big "Picture Settings" button in the top row in HandBrake. A HUD will open up, the "Filters" tab of which looks something like this:


Here, you can apply some useful filters, including Deinterlacing.