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Setting up Handbrake?

T

TDHXXX

macrumors regular
Original poster
I'm getting an i7 quad-core soon and am planning on using HandBrake to copy across alot of my DVDs to store for viewing, I was wondering what the best settings are for this, I'll be backing up movies and alot of anime so I will need to have subtitles of course.

Thanks
 
The best settings... ask 10 people and you'll get 10 answers... all of them right. I've been using the 64 bit handbrake beta. Has been working well except if you need subtitles or closed captions which I've been unsuccessful at getting the beta to output. If you do use 64 bit handbrake you'll need to use it with 64 bit vlc (version 1.02). Vlc version 1.03 is out but it's only out in 32 bit.

Now for the settings I've been using. I've used the canned setting on the slide out menu. I've used the universal, normal, and high profile settings. Best thing to do would be to try each one to see which suits you.

For sound I've been tweaking the DRC setting to 3.00 which is supposed to make soft sounds louder.
 
I should add that the handbrake website has a user forum and this is a commonly asked question. I've read through some of these and I came away with no gems. Everyone has their own opinion of what is best. Best thing for you is to experiment with some different settings and see what works best for you.

I have a 13" MBP and use smcfancontrol to ramp my fans up to 5000 rpm. Plus I raise the laptop up on 1 inch wood blocks to give it a little more air under the chassis. My hottest temp is about 165 - 170 F. You have a bigger machine, bigger fans but still handbrake really works the CPUs.
 
if you are planning on doing cartoons, i have found that using the decomb and detelicine settings on default makes a good picture. they help clear up the double frames that are usually in cartoons. these work well on tv shows as well.

as said before run some test conversions to see what you like best.
 
Thanks,

I can't seem to find any user guides on the handbrake forum... could you link me?
 
TDHXXX said:
Thanks,

I can't seem to find any user guides on the handbrake forum... could you link me?
Click to expand...

I would have to throw in, that it depends on what you'll be viewing on, and what you'll be using to play them.

If you are ripping them to watch on an AppleTV, then there are specific things that must be set for ATV to recognize it, and you'll probably wnat to do 2 pass encoding, with a larger end size file for higher quality video....

If you are planning on watching them on an iPhone, you may not want as much quality, because well, it's a 4" screen..., but again, you need certain codecs/containers for iphone to recognize it.

If you are going to connect your mac to a 52" High Def TV, then you'll definitely want to use a codec that allows decent compression with minimal loss.

Look into your needs, what you are viewing on, avaiilable storage capacity, and then monkey with the HB settings. You can save your own presets after you've set them, so that you don't have to reset them each time you start HB.

Best,

Brian
 
Well I'm planning on watching them on my 27" iMac, do I need to do anything fancy for that?
 
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