HD/High Quality HandBrake conversions?

[absolut_mac]

Follow up question to my earlier post. Link posted below.

Playing around with the different options available on HandBrake to convert VIDEO_TS files on my HD to QT, it seems that selecting High Profile on the presets seems to give the best quality and is virtually indistinguishable from the original. Do the default settings for this option give the highest quality conversion, or should I tweak some of the options to different settings? i.e. choose an average bit rate rather than the preselected Constant Quality etc? File size is not that important because these conversions are not going to be uploaded or emailed.

Thanks once again for helping me sort through this confusing video conversion jungle. At least that's how it is for a video newbie like me!

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1558136/

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

If you want the highest quality, no settings get you there because all involve a conversion (2nd generation) copy. To max out quality, use a tool like Subler to simply re-wrap the original. No conversion of the video is done- just a container change. Of course, this also means the file will still be about as big as it is in raw (rip) form too.

If you do want to convert/compress, high profile is the profile to use. Crank down the constant quality to 19 or maybe 18 to squeeze a little more detail into the file (noting that this will increase file sizes with detail you may not be able to see in the final output).

There is probably some fine tweaks you can make in High Profile but you also need to identify how you want to play it back. For example, if TV, there are limitations in what it can play back.

 

[absolut_mac]

If you want the highest quality, no settings get you there because all involve a conversion (2nd generation) copy. To max out quality, use a tool like Subler to simply re-wrap the original. No conversion of the video is done- just a container change. Of course, this also means the file will still be about as big as it is in raw (rip) form too.

If you do want to convert/compress, high profile is the profile to use. Crank down the constant quality to 19 or maybe 18 to squeeze a little more detail into the file (noting that this will increase file sizes with detail you may not be able to see in the final output).

There is probably some fine tweaks you can make in High Profile but you also need to identify how you want to play it back. For example, if TV, there are limitations in what it can play back.

Thanks for the info.

I'm not interested in making it compatible with all the different devices out there. I figure that converting it to .m4v QT will present no problems playing it on multiple platforms.

Plus while VLC can play the original VIDEO_TS files, believe it or not the default High Profile conversion that I did with no additional tweaks or adjustments actually looks sharper and less pixilated and it's only about 60% of the original file size.