Which Handbrake preset should I use to encode my Sony Handycam or VHS to DVD videos?

[zooby]

I recently transferred some VIDEO_TS files from my Sony HandyCam and converted a bunch of VHS to DVD. I played around with Handbrake using "Normal Profile" and "High Profile" but am not sure which preset in general is best.

Time it takes to encode or space is not an issue, I just want them to look good or just as good as the original file. I've heard High Profile, FPS same as source, Constant Bitrate with Rf of 18 - 21 is good. I might choose the encoder towards "slower" (which is better, right?). Is this good for the sources?

Any tips helps. Thank you.

 

[ColdCase]

The best preset is the one that looks good enough for you on the destination. There is no concrete settings, just guesses at a good starting point. Then one experiments like you have been doing. You are not going to make the video look better but, as you know, you can make things worse.

The best quality is simply changing wrappers, handbrake changes wrappers and will compress if you want. Pulling the quality slider the whole way over provides minimal changes but large file sizes.

 

[zooby]

The best preset is the one that looks good enough for you on the destination. There is no concrete settings, just guesses at a good starting point. Then one experiments like you have been doing. You are not going to make the video look better but, as you know, you can make things worse.

The best quality is simply changing wrappers, handbrake changes wrappers and will compress if you want. Pulling the quality slider the whole way over provides minimal changes but large file sizes.

Thanks for your input. I am visiting family and want to put them on my mom's iPad for her birthday. I have a lot of videos to encode so unfortunately I don't have time to experiment / see which works best. Some files are VHS converted to DVD (using the VIDEO_TS files) and the others are DVD. I can't see a huge difference between some of the profiles, at least now a clear cut night and day difference, hence why I am asking what would be something good to work with.

 

[ColdCase]

The presets are setup for something good to work with. Pick one associated with the destination device.

The best depends, and may be different with each source. There is no way to guide you except to experiment. If you like what you get, then use it.

 

[zooby]

I will be seeing it on different TV screens, iPads, etc. so it will be universal. But I will wait to see if anyone else gives a more specific example or answer of preset & options that I can begin with based on the sources I want to encode.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

ColdCase is right. There is no one best answer to your question.

VHS & DVD on higher resolution screens are all going to suffer a bit as those devices invent pixels to scale low-res video up to high-res screens. There's probably also some interlace "comb" artifacts to deal with too.

I suggest the TV presets with decomb turned on. Does anyone you want to be able to see these have their viewing device limited to Apple's former "HD" standard of 720p? If so, use the TV2 preset. If not, use the TV3 preset.

Decomb option is in "Picture Settings." It can do a good job dealing with comb artifacts from interlaced video (which is very likely ALL of these videos). Do a search and read up on it if you want to better understand it.

Beyond that, I wouldn't mess around too much with tweaking for these videos. The default + decomb should make a great digital copy. Again, there is no one-size-fits-all, perfect setting for all videos. So nobody is going to be able to give you that answer and be right.

 

[zooby]

ColdCase is right. There is no one best answer to your question.

VHS & DVD on higher resolution screens are all going to suffer a bit as those devices invent pixels to scale low-res video up to high-res screens. There's probably also some interlace "comb" artifacts to deal with too.

I suggest the TV presets with decomb turned on. Does anyone you want to be able to see these have their viewing device limited to Apple's former "HD" standard of 720p? If so, use the TV2 preset. If not, use the TV3 preset.

Decomb option is in "Picture Settings." It can do a good job dealing with comb artifacts from interlaced video (which is very likely ALL of these videos). Do a search and read up on it if you want to better understand it.

Beyond that, I wouldn't mess around too much with tweaking for these videos. The default + decomb should make a great digital copy. Again, there is no one-size-fits-all, perfect setting for all videos. So nobody is going to be able to give you that answer and be right.

No worries. I did my research and asked on another forum and a user was able to provide me a good profile. The video looks good too. Now for audio, 160 AAC should be fine, right? The default does Audio AAC 160 and AC3 Passthru... or should I just do AC3 Passthru?

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

Again, for your purposes, I wouldn't be trying to do all this tweaking. I suggest leaving the audio defaults alone for maximum compatibility with anything on which these videos might be seen. Even if you think you know exactly where these will play on immediate family hardware, what if any of them pass them along to someone else? As you tweak, you potentially constrain where these can play properly.

But yes 160AAC is fine, especially for Apple device playback. If I'm not mistaken, if you opt for only AC3 audio, you might not get audio on some Apple devices (but that may not still be the case).

 

[zooby]

Again, for your purposes, I wouldn't be trying to do all this tweaking. I suggest leaving the audio defaults alone for maximum compatibility with anything on which these videos might be seen. Even if you think you know exactly where these will play on immediate family hardware, what if any of them pass them along to someone else? As you tweak, you potentially constrain where these can play properly.

But yes 160AAC is fine, especially for Apple device playback. If I'm not mistaken, if you opt for only AC3 audio, you might not get audio on some Apple devices (but that may not still be the case).

Gotcha. I heard that about AC3 Passthru. In that case, I will stick with the AAC but I thought maybe I could crank up to 256 instead of 160. I guess since I have so many videos, I might as well leave them in great digital form, especially since I'll be putting these on my parent's iPads. But you say leave 160.

In terms of video, Rf of 18, FPS same as the source, and "slower" encoder option.