VisualHub/Handbrake Settings for iPad Video Conversion

[mconk]

Scanned through the forums, but have not yet seen this discussed...

I am wondering what the optimal settings would be for VisualHub or Handbrake for converting HD .mkv files for viewing on the iPad.

I know i could select AppleTV or iPod settings, and call it a day...but id like to find out what the optimal settings would be for ipad videos. My Apple TV videos are around 3GB in size, so obviously id like to bring that file size down a bit, for the iPad.

Anyone dabbled in this area yet?

 

[NewSc2]

Haven't tried VisualHub; for Handbrake I've been using the "Universal" Apple preset and pushing the quality slider to rf=18. Results in a little less than 1gb per movie—acceptable quality, nothing amazing, but for its size it's okay

 

[mconk]

Thanks for the input! I should have been more specific in my post...I am looking to find the balance between quality and file size, for iPad conversions. I have tons of .mkv HD video whether movies or tv shows. A select few I am going to convert for viewing on the pad, but since the screen on this thing is so brilliant, id like to retain as much quality as possible...but still would like to optimize as far as file size is concerned...

Haven't tried VisualHub; for Handbrake I've been using the "Universal" Apple preset and pushing the quality slider to rf=18. Results in a little less than 1gb per movie—acceptable quality, nothing amazing, but for its size it's okay

 

[TylerL]

For VisualHub, The AppleTV preset at Standard quality would be the easiest quality/size option (High and Go Nuts would be unnecessary on the iPad).
You could even push it and use the Low option if Standard turns out to still be too big. Any artifacting would be offset by the slight downscale.

 

[johno25]

iPad video encoding per Apple

Per Apple's iPad Tech Specs:

H.264 video up to 720p, 30 frames per second, Main Profile level 3.1 with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats; MPEG-4 video, up to 2.5 Mbps, 640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per second, Simple Profile with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats; Motion JPEG (M-JPEG) up to 35 Mbps, 1280 by 720 pixels, 30 frames per second, audio in ulaw, PCM stereo audio in .avi file format

 

[mconk]

Thanks for the reply...i am going to start messing with some settings tonight and see what works best...i will post my results here. I am more curious to find out if anyone has rally dabbled into this area yet, and what specific settings they have used.

Per Apple's iPad Tech Specs:

H.264 video up to 720p, 30 frames per second, Main Profile level 3.1 with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats; MPEG-4 video, up to 2.5 Mbps, 640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per second, Simple Profile with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats; Motion JPEG (M-JPEG) up to 35 Mbps, 1280 by 720 pixels, 30 frames per second, audio in ulaw, PCM stereo audio in .avi file format

 

[rockarollr]

How's the experiment going?

Any luck finding a suitable set of parameters for a good quality video with a "reasonable" file size yet?

 

[jodorowsky00]

Any luck finding a suitable set of parameters for a good quality video with a "reasonable" file size yet?

I have!
Steps
Download Torrent Client Vuze
Turn on Devices and click on Itunes. Its on the right hand side.
Right click on it and click ipad if you cant just select Apple tv.
then drop any file on the itunes icon and it will be converted to ipad format and loaded to your itunes.

 

[Chupa Chupa]

I've been using the "AppleTV" preset on handbrake but bumping down to 1800-2000mbps.

 

[spectre51]

I have a bunch of dvds and blu-ray rips on my mac at home. The blu-ray rips were mkv files then converted using handbrake's AppleTV preset. For the mkv files I selected the Apple TV preset then set the max bitrate to 6000 and let it do its thing. For dvds I do the same but instead of setting the max bitrate I set the quality to 65%

The resulting files play on the AppleTV and look great and they also copy over just fine and play on the iPad. Obviously you can reduce the quality to get better file sizes but I like quality my procedure produces.

 

[mconk]

Haven't really had much time to mess around with settings...for now, using Visual Hub, I set it to All Devices, and bumped the quality to Go Nuts. Looks decent on my 42" Vizio, great on the iPad and stellar on the iPod. File size was around 400mb for an hour long TV show.

Any luck finding a suitable set of parameters for a good quality video with a "reasonable" file size yet?

 

[Cave Man]

See the "Blu-Ray to Apple tv" thread in the Apple tv and Home Theater forum. Note, you cannot use mkv containers, only mpeg4 such as m4v and with h.264/AAC audio.

 

[mconk]

What exactly are you talkig about? I've converted hundreds of MKV files for playback on Apple TV and iPod Touch...I am now obviously starting to convert for iPad as well, and looking for optimal settings for viewing on all devices. Visual Hub is no longer in dev hence my question here.

See the "Blu-Ray to Apple tv" thread in the Apple tv and Home Theater forum. Note, you cannot use mkv containers, only mpeg4 such as m4v and with h.264/AAC audio.

 

[Cave Man]

I thought you were asking how to convert TO mkv not FROM mkv.

 

[ugp]

Handbrake is much better. OpenSource and free.

I convert tons of AVIs, MKVs, and m2ts files. All of resolutions. Not a single problem.

 

[mconk]

Nope, other way around. Nit asking how to do it, I'm asking for other users settings, specific to iPad settings...I'm sure people are now starting to mess around in this area.

I thought you were asking how to convert TO mkv not FROM mkv.

 

[mconk]

Much better, how? I use both...don't really see much of an improvement quality wise when using handbrake over visual hub. I think it's really more of a personal preference than anything. Either way, I'm still curious to hear what settings people are using as a standard to convert bku-Ray mks's or DVDs to iPad format. I'm sure an update to handbrake for iPad is coming down the pipeline sooner or later.

Handbrake is much better. OpenSource and free.

I convert tons of AVIs, MKVs, and m2ts files. All of resolutions. Not a single problem.

 

[s1m]

I have!
Steps
Download Torrent Client Vuze
Turn on Devices and click on Itunes. Its on the right hand side.
Right click on it and click ipad if you cant just select Apple tv.
then drop any file on the itunes icon and it will be converted to ipad format and loaded to your itunes.

Hmm - just tried this. Using iSquint at the highest setting I can do a 350MB Xvid in about 5-6 mins. Vuze is showing 20 mins - not brilliant really but it is enhanced through dumping straight into iTunes...

I might play with this a little.

 

[mrgreen4242]

Much better, how? I use both...don't really see much of an improvement quality wise when using handbrake over visual hub. I think it's really more of a personal preference than anything. Either way, I'm still curious to hear what settings people are using as a standard to convert bku-Ray mks's or DVDs to iPad format. I'm sure an update to handbrake for iPad is coming down the pipeline sooner or later.

Visual Hub is no longer maintained, Handbrake is. HB uses the newest x264 encoder which provides much better quality in a smaller space, along with faster encodes. HB will rip closed caption soft-subs, VH doesn't. HB will import up to 4 audio streams including the original 5.1 AC3 track, VH can't do that either. HB has built in decomb and denoise filters, VH just does deinterlacing. I'm probably forgetting some stuff, but I think there's enough listed here...

As for settings, for DVDs use Universal, for HD content (BD and HD mkv's) use the ATV setting... pretty simple!

 

[mconk]

To be honest, I've used both extensively...converting 5-8gb files with VH or HB take the same amount of time (too damn long, even on a 3ghz iMac) and look identical, I've tested, and tested, and tested to compare/contrast. Same thing with file size...same end result. VH also has decomb and denoise filters. Most of the things you've stated are wrong, with the exception that it's no longer being developed which really isn't even an issue...the program does what it should. HB may have a few more options, but at the end of the day, one works just as well as the other. Anyway, trying to get back on topic....I want to know what settings people are using either in HB or VH, to convert HD MKV video, or DVD video for iPad viewing. To those who have shared their configs already, thanks!

Visual Hub is no longer maintained, Handbrake is. HB uses the newest x264 encoder which provides much better quality in a smaller space, along with faster encodes. HB will rip closed caption soft-subs, VH doesn't. HB will import up to 4 audio streams including the original 5.1 AC3 track, VH can't do that either. HB has built in decomb and denoise filters, VH just does deinterlacing. I'm probably forgetting some stuff, but I think there's enough listed here...

As for settings, for DVDs use Universal, for HD content (BD and HD mkv's) use the ATV setting... pretty simple!

 

[ugp]

Much better, how? I use both...don't really see much of an improvement quality wise when using handbrake over visual hub. I think it's really more of a personal preference than anything. Either way, I'm still curious to hear what settings people are using as a standard to convert bku-Ray mks's or DVDs to iPad format. I'm sure an update to handbrake for iPad is coming down the pipeline sooner or later.

I've been down converting the resolution to 1280x* (What ever the aspect ratio comes out to be) using a 2000kpbs bitrate on the video and 160kbps bitrate on the audio and I see no issues at all.

For example The Lord of the Rings came out to be 2.69GB and its 178 minutes long. Not to bad at all. I don't see any quality issues at this bitrate.

Also converted a South Park 720p straight to MP4 and look awesome at same bitrate.

Also I know Handbrake uses Multicore processes. If you have a Quad-Core encode times are amazing. I am not sure VisualHub did this. The overall interface on Handbrake I like much better.

 

[schuntzie]

This link may be of help, the author gets very specific in discussing encoding for the iPad:

http://digitalcontentproducer.com/videoencodvd/revfeat/encoding_apple_ipad_0420/index.html

 

[arustleund]

I have a bunch of dvds and blu-ray rips on my mac at home. The blu-ray rips were mkv files then converted using handbrake's AppleTV preset. For the mkv files I selected the Apple TV preset then set the max bitrate to 6000 and let it do its thing. For dvds I do the same but instead of setting the max bitrate I set the quality to 65%

The resulting files play on the AppleTV and look great and they also copy over just fine and play on the iPad. Obviously you can reduce the quality to get better file sizes but I like quality my procedure produces.

I'm having some trouble using the AppleTV preset to convert an MPEG-2 I pulled down from my TiVo.
I have only been able to get it to work with the iPhone & iPod Touch preset with the picture size bumped up to 640x368. 960x544 would not work for me.
By "would not work" I mean that iTunes would play the video but would not copy to the iPad.
Any ideas as to what I'm doing wrong?

 

[Cave Man]

Are you using Handbrake? Also, you need to tell us the file's parameters in terms of bit rate, resolution, audio & video codecs, etc. That will help isolate the problem.

 

[spectre51]

Make sure you have the latest handbrake. Shouldn't have to change any settings just select the appletv preset.