The Problem with handbrake...

Handbrake has a big limitation (for me) and that is that you cannot adjust the width and height parameters with more accuracy. For example I have a lot of films in wide screen cinema format which I want to put on the ipod, and while handbrake will export them fine at 720, with the correct ratios, when I change the width to 320, the height comes up as 320X128 and if I change just the height I can only change it to 144, either way it's too high, or too low, so the picture is too squashed or too stretched, and believe me I do notice, and it annoys too much to watch. it should be 320X135 but there is no setting for 135 to give the correct ratio. I hope somebody fixes this, as this would solve all my problems at present with files not working in ipod.

Miklos.

Posted on Nov 4, 2005 4:00 PM

20 replies

iDaze

Level 3

805 points

Nov 7, 2005 4:32 AM in response to Jon Walker

That was exactly my intention: I needed to transform a 16:9 DVD movie down to the iPod's 4:3 (full screen) display, accepting the fact that I will loose horizontal information. I just laid out the procedure on how to calculate the crop-values, nothing more, and nothing less. It's just my approach which I wanted to share.

Jon Walker

Level 6

19,489 points

Nov 7, 2005 6:58 AM in response to Miklos Power

I thought rescaling in quicktime and then saving would cause it to re-encode thereby causing a generational loss is that correct?

No, the encoded file is duplicated exactly as it was. The only thing that is changed is the new display setting. Same is true for setting auto-start, loop, quality, cache hint, preload, volume, balance, treble, bass, etc. flags which are applied at the time of display. Since the file size, data rates, etc. are not changed, you would not want to simply re-scale a 720x304 conversion file. Instead, the strategy here is to create your iPod compatible file and then simply correct the distortion introduced by by the converter's "approximation" of the aspect ratio.

I want to see the original intention of the artist. I mean relatively, the difference between 136 and 142 and 136 and 128 is quite significant it's about 5% difference which is noticable to me.

Could live with incremental steps of 4 but consider 16 to be too coarse even for my own greater sense of tolerance in this area. I believe that if it bothers you, then you should change it. If it doesn't, then don't bother. As far as changing it, am merely trying to find a path of least resistance which balances efficiency in terms of time, space, and complexity.

Jon Walker

Level 6

19,489 points

Nov 7, 2005 7:08 AM in response to iDaze

Okay, thought you were addressing the problem of restoring the original aspect ratio. If conversion of aspect is you intention, then your approach is certainly a viable solution. Still not convinced that left-right centering is necessarily the best solution in all instances, though. While I am more tolerant of distortion than Miklos, I can't stand the idea of trimming off a portion of the picture. It always offends my sense of propriety to know that something is going on that I was meant to see, but now can't.

Miklos Power Author

Level 2

336 points

Nov 18, 2005 11:26 PM in response to Jon Walker

Still not clear here about single and double pass I did several experiments on that to same effect I thought it was a pretty final thing had the same results using both handbrake and quicktime pro - what are we doing different? Very strange do you have the 30gig ipod video or the 60? that might be it??

Second thanks for clearing up the aspec ratio thing and the rescaling-doesn't-reencode issue.

As for the video bitrate summing with the audio bitrate and the actual maximum for the ipod video I am certain that on apples page www.apple.com/ipod (click tech specs) it says that the maximum for h264 is 768kbps for the video component of the file PLUS 160kbps for the audio component. This works in practice I've done it but NOT if you use double pass encoding (including if the bitrate is just 100kbps I don't get that part).

However It is important to note that if you use VARIABLE bitrate encoding then the bitrates for either/or the audio and video portions will go above their maximums and then the file probably won't play. It's got to be a fixed bitrate, if it's lower, then it could be variable. The apple quicktime export which we can assume is the best quality and all around best export settings to use, is using a fixed bitrate and I believe, from my experiments single pass encoding. I mean I literally tried exactly the same files with single and double in various settings including very low bitrates and they simply would not sync. Everything else since has worked.

Let me know what you think I'd love to nail these couple of things down as it's weird to have these kind of discrepancies.

Miklos.

Merman

Level 1

40 points

Jan 5, 2006 7:32 AM in response to Jon Walker

However, if your converted file is incorrect, simply
correct it in QT and re-save it. Since no further
format conversion is involved, the process only
requires the amount of time needed to write the
self-contained file to HD.

I've done this correction in QT - which is fine when you view the movie in QT or iTunes - but when you watch the movie on the iPod it reverts back to the 320 x 144 NOT 320 x 135 (as set in QT)

Hopefully the next version of Handbrake will offer 320 x 135 for 2:35:1 widescreen DVD's.

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The Problem with handbrake...