HANDBRAKE H.264 PROBLEM SOLVED!! DOWNLOAD HERE!!!

Yes, the maximum Audio Bitrate is 160kbps.

*nathan

I've ripped movies on both the mac and pc. On my mac I used handbrake on my pc I used pqDVD. The video encoded with handbrake seems to be much smoother than pqDVD. handbrake takes HOURS to encode a full movie, pqDVD takes about 50 minutes. Has anyone found a faster way to do this on the mac?

I've been experimenting with H.264 on the iPod. My only question is... what is the difference between the 'baseline' and 'main' profiles? Anything encoded with the main profile seems to look great at low bitrates (but unfortunately won't play on the iPod). Anything encoded at the same low bitrate (say about 250 kbps) with the baseline profile looks terrible on the iPod (even with two pass encoding)- there's lots of colorbanding, etc...

My question is, if you have to pump the bitrate all the way up to 768 kbps for H.264, why bother when a 400 kbps MP4 gives great quality on the iPod (and a smaller file size, not to mention faster encoding speeds). To me, H.264 loses its advantage if it doesn't retain its quality at lower bitrates (for smaller file sizes).

Am I crazy? Thanks!

You are NOT crazy... I use Handbrake to create MP4 files - 480 x ones, which look amazing on the iPod, and are smaller.

Thanks for the post and your link. I've spent hours trying to rip a dvd but nothing worked until today. With some patience it worked like a charm!

I am trying to copy a tv show dvd and handbrake see's the disc, but when I click open, it tells me "no valid title found"
any help would be greatly appreciated.

Sweet! I just got mine. But anyway, I've been doing tests with settings on Handbrake, and I'm having a hard time deciding which ones look better. They all look amazing. It's crazy, but the single pass 500kbps meg4's look almost exactly as good as a 2 pass 768kbps h.264. I don't care about hooking up to a TV, or I would definitely go for a higher quality encoding. But has anyone else noticed that they really need h.264 at the highest settings etc...

I almost think the 500kbps encodings with the mpeg4 look better than the 500kbps h.264. Maybe it's because it's a bit softer, and the ipod's screen is so sharp that it looks smoother or something. I haven't totally decided. Anyone else doing any comparing?

Try playing the final files in the QuickTime Player at twice the normal size and compare the results side by side. You may find more differences than you thought.

Yeah, I'm sure I would then, but what talking about is how they look on the ipod, as that's all I care about. And on the ipod screen the difference is very very slight.

Anyway, I've done more testing, and I've decided that how I will encode will depend on how good the dvd footage is. I just did the Jack jack short from the Incredibles DVD and with the pristine quality and clarity of that animation, then h.264 at 768 is clearly sharper. It looks amazing. But if I'm encoding an older movie like say, Spaceballs, I'll probably be able to get away with mpeg at 500 and not notice much difference at all. Still doing some more tests though.

Ok, I know I'm one of the only ones that cares, but I've concluded that I like h.264 better in every encoding I've done. It's just slightly more crisp, and worth the extra time it takes to encode. So for anyone who wants my advice, I say encode everything in 768kbps h.264. Also, I didn't notice a difference between 1 or 2 passes, so for the sake of time and sanity, I'll stick to 1 pass.

'Kerry Bailey' !!!

Tell me how did this go for you and how long did it take ????

I tried 'Handbrake' before I saw your link, (I did mpeg 4).
But after it was finished (1hour-2hours later). The file was nowhere to be found!!!
I'm very frustrated by all this!!!! Please help !!!!!! Bren !