The Dark Knight Rises, did you buy the Blu-ray or 1080p iTunes ?

[davwin]

I received the DKR in iTunes HD from my wife as a B-Day present and had already pre-ordered the BD for myself

I compared them and found pretty much the same thing TrackZ posted. The BD has better audio and video whether played off the disc or from a full bitrate rip. I played the BD disc via a Toshiba player and the rip was done through MakeMKV at full bitrate with audio converted to FLAC (thanks to TrackZ for the help on that part). I played the rip through Plex and the iTunes HD file was played back off the same Mac Mini that runs Plex... So, same connections, same equipment, etc.

Audio was the biggest difference IMO, just to second TrackZ post. There was noticably less dynamic range and depth to the sound even after compensating for the db difference. Video was better on the BD in fine detail and other aspects (again, as mentioned) but, to be honest I was surprised at how close the iTunes HD file was on the video encode. Blacks were deep and clean, no noticable banding, no compression artifacts or anything "bad" really; just not up to the BD's standard.

Also, it hasn't been mentioned much in this thread but, having most of (or all) of the extras available through iTunes is a huge bonus IMO. Maybe I'm one of the few remaining that watch all those things but, I love extras and the iTunes file comes with them more often than not now so that's a significant bonus for me versus other downloadable versions.

I would still defer to the BD for quality and extras - especially on older releases and, having said that - the ideal solution would probably be a Plex server with full bitrate BD rips or ISO's. you lose nothing and control all of your own media. However, ease of use is a significant factor too and that has to go to iTunes for me. Not just for "shopping" for a title such as hard to find or out of print releases but, for getting the movie, multiple device compatibility, being able to watch it almost instantly and even re-downloading it when needed too. The fact that you get a very good HD video encode, decent sound and the extra features (not on all movies) are just bonuses. I think they are the best of the available download services today.

So, I would say if you don't want the physical media or find the movie cheaper via iTunes go for it. You will be trading off some video and audio quality for convenience but, as long as you know what you're getting that's a pretty acceptable trade. If previous Movies upgrades are any indication we will likely get better download files in the future as well for no additional cost so the audio and video may indeed "catch up".

 

[TrackZ]

I find DTS mixes to be far too uncontrollable because there's neither dynamic range control nor dialogue normalization. That and Dolby Laboratories has a more stringent standard for using the Dolby seal. All AC3 content has to be mastered to -27dBFS Leq(A) (A-weighted average loudness). That's significantly lower than your typical DTS mix, which significantly *increases* dynamic range, think of the distance from the average sound to the peak (0dBFS)... that creates more overhead with less data.

I feel you on the uncontrollable soundtrack. Before moving back to the midwest last August, I was using my Pioneer Elite SC-27 with 5.1 B&W CDM-NT speakers. With a little one sleeping and how some of those soundtracks go, it goes from turning up the sound to better catch some dialog to scrambling for the remote to turn it down because of the baby during an action sequence. It's been a while, so I don't recall trying out any DRC modes on the that receiver.

Can you better explain the dynamic range differences between AC3 and the lossless DTSHD tracks? I'm not fully following your explanation, but I would like to understand it. Are you suggesting we should have pushed the volume on the iTunes HD copy higher?

The Blu-ray, I prefer a superior viewing and listening experience that doesn't take up GBs of disk space, use GBs of downloading and costs less money.

For me, going BD means taking up more space because I don't intend to playback via discs. I would play from a media server in the house. No matter which way I go, I don't want to be flipping discs, except for when I specifically want to enjoy BD extras outside of a commentary track. A BD rip to an MKV file with lossless audio is significantly larger than the same movie from iTunes. Encoding the BD rip for iTunes OTOH takes the file size down by 1/2 to 1/4 in most cases in my experience.

I played the BD disc via a Toshiba player and the rip was done through MakeMKV at full bitrate with audio converted to FLAC (thanks to TrackZ for the help on that part).

To be clear, by ripping to FLAC, you kept the lossless properties of the audio track versus my encoding the DTS core to AC3@640kbps. There should be no difference between the BD and your BD rip keeping the original video track and converting audio to FLAC. Any difference would be from the player, not the file. The downside to that is the file isn't Apple ecosystem formatted.

 

[jmcrutch]

Just chiming in with an opinion here...

I used to be an audio/video-file. I ripped all of my CDs into iTunes using Apple Lossless (ALAC) because I care about quality. Once I had done that and stopped using optical discs ever, it then became difficult for me to actually expend the energy to go out and buy new CDs in physical form - it just felt strange buying it that way when all I'm going to do is listen to the 1s and 0s digitally via an iPod, an iPhone, an iPad, or a Mac connected to external speakers via AirPlay, or to an AppleTV that is connected to my home audio system. And, most of the time I decide I want to buy music, I buy it digitally, either from iTunes or from other sources (some of which offer ALAC). A lot of my music purchases are spur-of-the moment, right on my iPhone.

So, the same thing has happened to me with Video. I have a Pioneer Kuro display and an Oppo Blu-Ray player because I care about video quality. My Kuro was calibrated by a certified ISF technician.

YET - I find it completely laborious to load a BD in the machine and wait for it to boot up and play. Renting from iTunes is just SOOOO much easier. And I've never ripped a DVD or Blu-Ray - it's just too damn complicated and too time consuming (7 hours? Are you kidding me???). If it was legal to rip DVDs and BDs, then there would be an easy option to do it built right into iTunes. But alas, its not legal, and there is not an easy way to do it like there is with CDs. So, I have now conceded to myself that the convenience of digital streaming and downloads via iTunes simply outweigh the downsides (poorer audio and video).

Physical media is a dinosaur.

 

[cxc273]

It's unfortunate that when you purchase a Blu-ray disc that you can't always get the option of an iTunes or Ultraviolet digital copy. Without getting into all the legal stuff and piracy concerns, it seems that if you've legitimately purchased a movie, why can't you watch it on whatever platform you wish?

For my purposes, I assume I'm getting Dark Knight Rises on Blu-ray disc for Christmas. After years of amassing standard-definition DVDs and realizing that I really don't watch all of them often enough to justify the purchase and shelf space, I've moved to a more digital-only approach to my movie collection. My SD movies now live on my Mac Mini's external drive, being shared throughout the house on Apple TVs.

As for the digital version of Dark Knight Rises, I'll skip the UV version (the concept has some intriguing ideas, like being able to share movies, but I'm so immersed in the Apple ecosystem that it makes no sense for me to jump in) but look at other ways of getting it into my iTunes library. I think it's really unfortunate that fans have to resort to ripping movies so they can watch what they've legally purchased on their computer or other device.

For the handful of movies I truly love and will watch over and over again, I'll buy the Blu-ray discs for the optimal picture and sounds. This mostly extends to classic film series like Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Lord of the Rings, but also epics and favorites like Braveheart, Gladiator, Avengers, and so on. But in the end, I'll only own maybe two dozen films on BD as I don't see it worth the investment of re-buying movies I enjoy, but may only watch once every year or two.

I tend to really like digital and the ability to consume content not only on your TV, but any Apple device. Again, it's a bit of a tradeoff as you won't get the very best picture or sound or even the extras. But the convenience is fantastic -- I love starting a movie on my living room Apple TV and being able to finish it in my bedroom Apple TV or on my iPad. Another really nice thing is the lack of previews and commercials you have to suffer through on disc -- I've gotten to the point in my life where I just want the movie to start -- I don't care about what's coming soon on DVD or how fantastic your studio is.

I have purchased a few HD movies on iTunes -- a film or two that wasn't available on Blu-ray and a couple Pixar movies that I was missing on HD. I've been pretty happy with the quality overall, though I think the prices should be a few dollars less since we're not getting the physical package or in many cases the full slate of extras. Here's a thought -- charge a few bucks more for a Blu-ray that includes an HD digital copy with extras. I would certainly go for that.

The other thing I learned is that technology marches on. I sold off my VHS collection as DVDs started to get big and did the same for Blu-rays. I don't plan on investing in Blu-rays because at some point 4K will become standard. Again, aside from the must-have short-list of films, I don't want to invest in the same movies over and over again but am willing to buy the handful of movies I love on the new 4K format.

Maybe I've gotten a bit more cynical as I've gotten older, but I've pretty much given up on purchasing physical discs for the most part.

 

[SonomaFlyer]

Dilemma

I'm in the same boat as many of you, caught in the dilemma between physical discs and digital copies.

So far, I've bought an Apple TV3 and already own a PS3 and BlueRay player with Netflix, Vudu etc.

Once you get yourself set up on UltraViolet, its not bad though its an initial pain in the ass. You can then stream via your PS3 or BlueRay player any of the titles you own that you've registered.

I'm annoyed there is no Vudu app for the AppleTV but I suspect that's just Apple being Apple.

I briefly looked at the whole ripping/HandBrake thing and decided it was too much time and (for me) not necessarily worth the effort. I used to be into the max quality for everything and for those movies where I STILL want it, I'll buy the disc and ensure it comes with either an ITunes copy or UltraViolet.

I agree with the above posts about the quality difference between ITunes and BD etc. It is noticeable but not a big deal; having a glass of wine before means none of that stuff matters!

In the end, we have some stuff on Vudu and may have some on AppleTV and see what the next few years bring in terms of changes.

 

[tejota1911]

I'm undecided as to which one I should get

How's the iTunes quality ?

I already saw the movie in theaters but I wanna check it out again , I'm thinking just getting the iTunes 1080p version than next year around this time just buy the bluray for $5 Black Friday/cyber Monday type of sale , for my collection

I have Apple TV 3 , iPhone 5 , ipad mini


$19.99 seems like a reasonable price

I bought the iTunes version and I'm happy with the quality. Went ahead and bought The Bourne Legacy too. I recently moved to a new house and this gave me a reason to rethink my home theater setup. I went with a more minimalist approach this time(60" 1080p Plasma over the fireplace with just the ATV3 and a sound bar attached). I ripped my entire 200+ DVD library to my iMac and access them, as well as Hulu+ & Netflix, through the ATV. Very happy with the simpler setup and no cable bill or discs to mess with.

 

[Alx9876]

I bought the Blu-ray because if I ever watch any of the newer Batman movies, It will be at the highest HD quality on my huge big screen HDTV.

I know for a fact I will never watch a movie like this on an iPhone, iPad or anything smaller than 70 inches.

Easy choice to make. Get the best version of the film you can find.

You want it on Apple tv then get a blu-ray combo pack.

 

[locust76]

i bought the BD, i dont like spending money on overpriced "files"

i'm "oldschool" that way and i'm not even that old

You do know that on that BD there are... files... right?

 

[atandon]

I agree with the above posts about the quality difference between ITunes and BD etc. It is noticeable but not a big deal; having a glass of wine before means none of that stuff matters!

Lol!
I was looking for a reason to pickup drinking

 

[slothrob]

So today over lunch, 2 friends and I did some A/B and blind testing. I had the following version of Dark Knight Rises:

1. iTunes HD
2. Blu-ray
3. Blu-ray ripped via MakeMKV and encoded with Handbrake and played through iTunes (high profile setting, RF 18, same as source FPS with constant framerate, strict anamorphic, no cropping, DTS track encoded to 5.1 AC3 at 640kbps)

Both iTunes versions were played from my MacBook Air iTunes homeshare to an ATV3. The BD played on a PS3.

You should probably do the a/b using a direct blueray mp4 repackaged as an.mv4 using Subler, to control for the effects of setting differences on the two devices and the two input channels. Things like the squashed blacks you describe in chapter 7 could easily come from using high RGB on the aTV or from an adjustment difference on the TV. Similarly, double-check that you aren't applying any different audio manipulation in your receiver to the different audio streams, like "night mode" audio compression or "cinema sound" frequency gating.

(7 hours? Are you kidding me???)

You realize that you don't have to watch it, right? A 7 hour encode that happens while you are at work or asleep only takes the 5 minutes of your time required to select a couple menus and push start.

 

[ELMI0001]

I got it for 18 bucks on blu ray with ultraviolet. Why is everyone obssessed with iTunes. I have gotten flixster to send me itunes copies of movies and they are sending me a iTunes copy of the new spiderman so i hope I can get them to send me a copy of Batman although it says it right on the back of the blu ray case NO ITUNES included so I might be out of luck on that

Not obsessed with iTunes.

I do not find myself borrowing DVD's to anyone and I like the idea of having the movie on all my devices.

When it was time to buy a media device do I want to buy a DVD player or an Apple TV? I choose the Apple TV. I see that as the way of the future. All previous forms of media have been replaced, the DVD is getting replaced.

 

[Avatar74]

I feel you on the uncontrollable soundtrack. Before moving back to the midwest last August, I was using my Pioneer Elite SC-27 with 5.1 B&W CDM-NT speakers. With a little one sleeping and how some of those soundtracks go, it goes from turning up the sound to better catch some dialog to scrambling for the remote to turn it down because of the baby during an action sequence. It's been a while, so I don't recall trying out any DRC modes on the that receiver.

Can you better explain the dynamic range differences between AC3 and the lossless DTSHD tracks? I'm not fully following your explanation, but I would like to understand it. Are you suggesting we should have pushed the volume on the iTunes HD copy higher?

Ok this will be a bit of a crash course with some laborious explanation but the short answer to "we should have pushed the volume on the iTunes HD copy higher?" is yes. The short reason is that the Dolby Digital mixes are typically mixed at a lower average loudness to leave considerably more headroom for louder noises. The tendency to master music recordings closer and closer to peak, aka the "loudness wars", is one of the reasons that audio recordings today often lack punch because producers are using plugins like FG-X to shift everything to 0dbFS peak. dBFS is short hand for "decibels relative to full scale"... all digital sound reproductions have strictly defined amplitude limits.

So there are two factors important in sound reproduction: amplitude spectrum and frequency spectrum.

1. Frequency spectrum - Human beings have thresholds of perception for both. The digital sampling frequency limit was determined by a Bell labs engineer named Harry Nyquist in the 1920s. More or less, he determined that because the only two reference points needed to reproduce a sinewave at any frequency are its peak and trough, the minimum sufficient sampling rate to completely reconstruct any sinewave is 2x the frequency. Since the upper limit of human hearing is around 20-22kHz, it was determined that 44.1kHz was the "Nyquist limit" for accurate reproduction of the entire human audible spectrum.

So systems that can sample at 96kHz, 192kHz, etc. are fantastic for sound recording and mastering for the same reasons that using 70mm in optical effects is useful... because you can downsample from there without inducing any kind of spectrum/frequency roll-off or degradation of the source. But, for audio reproduction in the home, once the whole 24, 32, 64, 72, 128 channel multitrack is mixed down, 44.1kHz is more than sufficient to reproduce any frequency audible to the human ear.

2. Amplitude spectrum - even in the heyday of vinyl, the groove width of a record limited its dynamic amplitude range to about 80db. That is, whatever the "floor" of a given recording was, the maximum amplitude reproducible (the loudest noise possible) without distortion was 80dB upward from there. Solution? Most older recordings were mastered at lower levels because a) loudspeakers of the time were not capable of reproducing substantially high dynamics or tremendous sound pressure levels, and b) it would leave plenty of headroom for considerably dynamic recordings like operas and classical music. But then two things happened: the FM radio spectrum started to get heavily competitive and rock music emerged, both of which caused producers to get into a sort of an ever-escalating "arms race" of volume to grab the listener's attention while eroding the abilities of the medium.

Then digital came along in 1982, and with CD-Digital Audio (CDDA, or SMPTE "Red Book") a dynamic range of 96.7dB was made possible with only 16-bit word lengths. This doesn't sound like a huge improvement over vinyl except that decibels are a logarithmic scale (every 3dB increase represents a doubling of wave power, or about 47 times the maximum wave power of vinyl). But as the loudness wars raged on, producers of sound recordings were still pushing the limit rather than taking advantage of the even wider dynamic range afforded by digital.

So that's a little bit of the background on amplitude and frequency... since the human ear can withstand, though approaching the threshold of pain, sound pressure levels up to 140dB (not to be confused with dBFS but since the noise floor of a digital system can in principle be reduced to zero... you see where I'm going with this)... 24-bit linear PCM digital systems are capable of that type of amplitude range. So you can see why wordlength beyond 16-bit can still improve a recording perceptibly while frequency sampling cannot.

The key difference between DTS and AC-3, beginning with their original variants is that DTS is a "lossless" format while AC-3 is a perceptual coding schema. DTS is in a family of encoding methodologies known as ADPCM (Adaptive Delta Pulse Code Modulation). There's far less data there than a normal PCM stream but the original wave is accurately reconstructed because instead of storing an absolute value for every quantization interval (say -25dB in one sample, -25.1dB in the next sample), only the delta/difference is stored and the wave computed continuously... so the number of bits per sample required to store the exact same information is fewer.

AC-3 approaches the problem of data from several different angles. First, there's a lowpass filter that eliminates any sound above 20kHz.... if it can't be perceived, then why store it? This is also called an anti-alias filter because the result of sampling a frequency above the nyquist limit is a frequency other than the one intended. Some people argue that this interferes with the perception of harmonics but harmonic frequencies scale up, not down... so fundamental frequencies above the range of human hearing don't cause harmonics in the human range. So eliminating imperceptible harmonics has no effect on perceptible ones.... But I digress.

That lowpass filter eliminates a good deal of useless data. DC offset and notch filters also eliminate electrical noise from infiltrating the signal, thereby also reducing the needed data. Then dynamic range control parameters in the AC-3 stream tell the receiver where to taper the dynamic range envelope so the system can boost sounds falling at the lower range and taper off sounds at the upper limit of the reproduction system's range. Then there's the dialnorm parameter... engineers take measurements of the average loudness of the entire AC-3 track and plug this in to the dialnorm parameter. What this does is adjust the center channel dialogue relative to the ambient sound effects and music (and vice versa). The original idea came about because AC-3 was originally developed in conjunction with the DTV standard (a couple decades before HDTV was ever finalized by the ATSC), whereby a viewer could flip from channel to channel and not have to adjust the volume to hear the dialogue where instead the receiver would do all the adjustments so that the loudness of the dialogue relative to the rest of the audio was always the same.

These features, combined with other proprietary perceptual coding (some of which later combined with Apple and Fraunhofer-IIS's research and development of AAC, a direct descendant of AC-3) led to a multichannel coding bitstream of 384 to 448kbps that could accurately reconstruct six channels of audio in a way that is barely distinguishable from uncompressed PCM. Tests by the Audio Engineering Society would later validate that in fact, 128 and 256kbps AAC in blind tests were indistinguishable from 16-bit PCM.

DTS and DTS-ES versus Dolby Digital and Dolby Digital EX recordings (unlike Dolby True HD, Dolby Atmos and DTS-HD which are all multichannel discrete PCM high bitrate) differ from a listening experience perspective most noticeably because DTS contains no metadata to normalize dialogue across all programs and no dynamic range control. The DRC is less relevant since DTS doesn't really need it, but the dialnorm is very relevant because as you've yourself noticed, it is harder to make out dialogue in a DTS soundtrack compared to a Dolby Digital soundtrack.

The Dolby Digital soundtrack has been mastered properly to more strict specifications. Turn up the volume if switching from a DTS program, and enjoy the dynamics.

P.S. Always set the DRC mode to "Standard" to hear how the mastering engineer intended the sound mix.

 

[Omne666]

Now I've got a headache!

 

[Mackan]

I find DTS mixes to be far too uncontrollable because there's neither dynamic range control nor dialogue normalization. That and Dolby Laboratories has a more stringent standard for using the Dolby seal. All AC3 content has to be mastered to -27dBFS Leq(A) (A-weighted average loudness). That's significantly lower than your typical DTS mix, which significantly *increases* dynamic range, think of the distance from the average sound to the peak (0dBFS)... that creates more overhead with less data.

I think it's recommended by Dolby, not required, that you mix the dialogue to -27 dBFS. Nowadays they also start to use LKFS instead, (K-weighted) instead of dBFS. You could mix the dialogue to whatever level you want, as long as you set the dialnorm metadata to that value. The decoder will use this value to attenuate the audio stream to reach -31 dBFS, before it applies any DRC.

All of the iTunes movies I have checked do have -27 dBFS set as their dialnorm, but when I measure it myself, I can get -22 dBFS. So I am not sure if they actually care to accurately measure it. But then again, it depends on what technique they used to measure the dialogue level. If the dialnorm is not set correctly, any DRC applied may not do its job as intended.

Most iTunes movies I have checked have also had Film Standard as DRC, recommended by Dolby for most kinds of movies except dramas and such. Unless you turn DRC off on your player or receiver, you won't have a good dynamic range. But then again, without DRC you'll hear the original mix, which may or may not be suitable for your listening environment and equipment.

DTS is as mentioned rather uncontrollable. The audio engineers always go for maximizing the volume here, and have no standards for dialnorm or DRC. In order to compare DTS to AC3, the DRC must definitely be turned off, and then you up the volume as much as possible. Even then it might not sound the same, because the AC3 decoder may have some internal stuff going on that you have no control over.

 

[Avatar74]

I think it's recommended by Dolby, not required, that you mix the dialogue to -27 dBFS. Nowadays they also start to use LKFS instead, (K-weighted) instead of dBFS. You could mix the dialogue to whatever level you want, as long as you set the dialnorm metadata to that value. The decoder will use this value to attenuate the audio stream to reach -31 dBFS, before it applies any DRC.

I think you're right that Dolby Labs recommends -27dBFS... but dialnorm is always set to match whatever the Leq(A) is.

I think I typically see -27 on content that bears the Dolby Digital logo but that's usually the DVD, not the iTunes file... I'm using AudioLeak to measure it. But even if people are straying somewhere between -22 and -31 in their mix, that's still substantially more headroom than most stereo sound recordings these days.

Another thought: Is the tool you're using measuirng the combined Leq(A) of all the AC3 channels or the two channel downmix?

----------

Now I've got a headache!

Short answer: Yes, turn the volume up when listening to Dolby Digital.

 

[TrackZ]

We'll try more volume adjustment next time and see what we all think. Hoping to include more listeners next time as well.

I believe (based on the receiver volume indicator) we were listening at -27 or -28 db on the volume scale with the BD. We turned it up to -20 for the iTunes version. I have a standard analog SPL meter. Maybe I'll take that next time and see if we can try to level match a bit. That's probably hard to do by hand though on a meter like that.

 

[Avatar74]

We'll try more volume adjustment next time and see what we all think. Hoping to include more listeners next time as well.

I believe (based on the receiver volume indicator) we were listening at -27 or -28 db on the volume scale with the BD. We turned it up to -20 for the iTunes version. I have a standard analog SPL meter. Maybe I'll take that next time and see if we can try to level match a bit. That's probably hard to do by hand though on a meter like that.

Your individual receiver volume knob does not correlate to dBFS necessarily. Just FYI. If you do measure SPL it should be done at 1 meter distance from the loudspeakers. that's the standard measurement. But the SPL of your sound reproduction system will not correlate to the -dBFS on the disc.

Just want to make sure you aren't expecting the difference in -dBFS on disc to translate to an equal difference in sound level on your system.

But I'm also unsure of what exactly you're trying to achieve/determine at this point. There's no question that Dolby Digital will give you better dialogue clarity than DTS.

 

[padapada]

Your individual receiver volume knob does not correlate to dBFS necessarily. Just FYI. If you do measure SPL it should be done at 1 meter distance from the loudspeakers. that's the standard measurement. But the SPL of your sound reproduction system will not correlate to the -dBFS on the disc.

Just want to make sure you aren't expecting the difference in -dBFS on disc to translate to an equal difference in sound level on your system.

But I'm also unsure of what exactly you're trying to achieve/determine at this point. There's no question that Dolby Digital will give you better dialogue clarity than DTS.

Wow, gonna read all your replies on macrumors. Knowledge is power.

Patrick

 

[GarrettL1979]

The Handbrake encode in both video and audio was much closer to the BD than to the iTunes copy. One friend noted that he'd be happy with the encoded quality, but the iTunes copy was just too low fidelity to make reasonable sense having spent money to create a good quality HT set up.

This really surprises. I would have thought that Apple (working with the master copy) would have been able to generate a better copy than HB.

 

[nathanjbrown]

I know this is somewhat off topic, but I think it relates:

What Handbrake settings would preserve the IMAX scenes from the Blu-ray version of Dark Knight Rises?

I've tried encoding it twice, and I've accomplished the following:
1.) IMAX is lost completely and the entire movie plays with the "standard" aspect ratio of the film.
2.) IMAX seems to be somewhat preserved, but when non-IMAX scenes are playing, the entire film is offset toward the top of my screen. In other words, the letterbox on the top is about half as thick as the letterbox on the bottom.

Any thoughts?

FYI: I'm using a modified version of the AppleTV 3 setting in Handbrake. I bump RF to 19, set framerate to "Same as source," change anamorphic to "strict," increase bitrate of AAC to 320, and check "web optimized."

Thanks so much.

Nathan

 

[nathanjbrown]

I know this is somewhat off topic, but I think it relates:

What Handbrake settings would preserve the IMAX scenes from the Blu-ray version of Dark Knight Rises?

I've tried encoding it twice, and I've accomplished the following:
1.) IMAX is lost completely and the entire movie plays with the "standard" aspect ratio of the film.
2.) IMAX seems to be somewhat preserved, but when non-IMAX scenes are playing, the entire film is offset toward the top of my screen. In other words, the letterbox on the top is about half as thick as the letterbox on the bottom.

Any thoughts?

FYI: I'm using a modified version of the AppleTV 3 setting in Handbrake. I bump RF to 19, set framerate to "Same as source," change anamorphic to "strict," increase bitrate of AAC to 320, and check "web optimized."

Thanks so much.

Nathan

I believe I found the answer to my own question: See this thread...

It appears to be an auto-cropping adjustment in Handbrake settings.

Nathan

 

[TrackZ]

I know this is somewhat off topic, but I think it relates:

What Handbrake settings would preserve the IMAX scenes from the Blu-ray version of Dark Knight

Anamorphic strict and manual cropping with all the values set to 0. I encode everything this way.

 

[nathanjbrown]

Anamorphic strict and manual cropping with all the values set to 0. I encode everything this way.

Pros & Cons?
Increased file size?
More work for the CPU/GPU?

I ask because my objective is to rip my entire Blu-ray collection at the highest possible quality (within reason, of course...perhaps 19 or 18RF & maxed out audio settings) while ensuring playback is possible across all devices: iMac, AppleTV(3), iPad(4) & iPhone 5.

Thanks so much, TrackZ. I appreciate your help today as well as your contributions to date. Good stuff.

Nathan

 

[PinoyAko]

Is ripping a bluray movie legal?

 

[Nermal]

I got the Blu-ray last week and haven't had a chance to watch it yet! With that said, I tried to use the Ultraviolet code and it didn't work*. I immediately emailed support and they haven't bothered to reply yet so I won't be going out of my way to use UV in the future.

*The packaging says that it doesn't work in Ireland, Channel Islands or Isle of Man, but when I try to redeem it from NZ it kicks me out for not being in the UK.