What are the Handbrake settings to import to iBooks Author?

You're right - I didn't elaborate on using Compressor. It does create the proper m4v file but due the enormous amount of videos that are included in my book I wasn't able to use compressor becuase the minimum limits of how much they can be compressed -- I needed to go lower. Using Handbrake with Constant Bitrate created a much cleaner file and at a much smaller file size than what was coming out of compressor.

Hi David,

I'm looking for some help on Compressor 4 settings for IBA.

If you have a moment could you look at the question I posted on this thread?

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4087685

Thanks

H.264 is an open standard (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.264/MPEG-4_AVC). Note the matrix at the bottom that compares QT, x264 and other implementations. The standard is open and available to all. There are not supposed to be any secrets. Anyone with the requisite skills should be able to create applications that create and/or display H.264/AAC video.

Of course there will be some things that are undefined or ill defined such that one implementation differs from another in some small and insignificant way. An example of this is the placement of the "fast start" atom in an MPEG-4 container of H.264/AAC encoded content. The standard only specifies that this atom be at the front of the file. Apple puts it in one spot and ffmpeg puts it in another. They are close but not in the exact same byte range. Apple has even changed this location over time. Sometime in the last five years or so, Apple has moved the location of this atom from bytes 5-8 to bytes 37-40.

The issue here is the disconnect between members of the MPEG-4 H.264 open source community. This includes Apple and the ffmpeg community as well as others.

To reiterate a portion of my original post, Apple's iBooks Author application is rejecting perfectly functional .m4v (MPEG-4 container, H.264/AAC encoded content) files. The same files that IBA rejects play in the iBooks.app on an iPad when they are embedded in an ePub document created by the Apple Pages application. In other words, iBooks Author is looking for an inconsequential detail that has nothing to do with playback ability in iBooks.app on iPad and rejecting video that doesn't have this inconsequential attribute.

The iBooksAuthor application is quite young (v1.1) so this fault is most likely due to 1) overcautiousness at Apple and 2) reticence by Apple in sharing critically important information with the open source communities of which it is a member. If whatever iBooks Author is looking for that it doesn't find in Handbrake output is important, Apple should make it public. The support documents on video in iBooks Author that I have seen (2 of them) do not reveal anything beyond an *.m4v container and H.264/AAC encoded content.

Conspiracy theorists will try to make more of this.

Compressor is half the size compared to QtX encoding, 17 MBs...

File Fomat... H.264 for Apple Devices...

Device: iPhone Local/WiFi

Aspect Ratio: 4:3 480x368

Data Rate: 700

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Hi imshapp! I'm trying to make it work a video in Html Widget but I get this:

I start from an Mp4 - H264 file that works with Media Widget. I open it in Subler, I change the profile in "Main@3.1", then I save it as ".m4v". I change back ".m4v" extensione in ".mp4" but it doesn't work.

Any help?

Thanks,

Davide

without seeing you html code my first thought would be that something's not right with your video tag sytax. Can you post the code you're using to display the video?

One good thing is that IBA isn't fussing about the video being in the widget so it's accepting the format.

Do you have your widget setup properly with all of the required files: Default.png, Info.plist (with all of the correct references to the widget name)? I would assume so since this widget is working but I will say that I had mixed results if the Info.plist entries don't match the widget name exactly. With that said it looks like it's just a path problem but I could be wrong. Would it be possible to send me the wdgt package? I'd be happy to take a look at the code.

Thanks cmath,

I've tried to follow your hint but still no luck. I'm happy to share with you my experiment, I've put to upload the file here http://www.terredainventare.it/Semplice.wdgt.zip, it will available in less than 1/2 hour I think.

Thanks!

I'll take a look. I've had to mess around with it quite a bit to get it to work so I could be off on my description of how I did it. Of course that doesn't bode well for the reliability of the process 🙂 I wish Apple would either fix the widget or allow m4vs since they already work in Media widgets. At the very least they could provide some documentation on how to get mp4 videos to work properly in a HTML widget since their documentation says that it will. I'll let you know what I find.

Thanks cmath, I'm waiting with impatience if you can work it out! :-)

I have found that Hype does this (and much, much more) very nicely. Well worth the $50. No coding necessary. As well, there are a number of online systems that will build a YouTube or Vimeo widget for you to download and use. See: http://www.classwidgets.com/

You're right - it didn't work with the video that was in the package. However, I opened your video in Subler and saw that the profile was Main @ 3. I change it to Main @ 3.1 to transcode a new m4v with this profile and then changed the ext to mp4 and replaced the video and it worked. Give that a try and let me know if it works.

Frank - I've heard a lot of people using Hype but I'm not familiar with it. I looked at the link you provided and didn't see a widget for presenting your own mp4. Can you tell us how it works if you want to use your own mp4 that's embedded in the iBook. I only saw 2 widets that would display either a YouTube or Vimeo hosted video. Thanks!

Any Handbrake encode whether from a DVD or from a regular video file can be "fixed" so that Ibooks Author will accept it. Here's how:

Handbrake has just revved to 0.9.8 with new presets but that doesn't seem to help IBA users. However, a comment on the HB forums led me to a workaround.

Subler may be downloaded at: http://code.google.com/p/subler/

1) Open Subler and create a new (empty) file.

2) Do File > Import > File... selecting your Handbrake encoded video. Be sure to bring in both audio and video tracks (nothing more). Use the default File Format: Video-MPEG4. It should not be necessary to select either of the 64 bit options unless you are importing more than 2 GB.

3) Save the file with a new name. Test by dragging and dropping onto IBA.

It should be just a matter of time before Handbrake figures out how to do this natively but, for now, this is the best we can do.

Timult Hype can create all kinds of widgets w/o coding. I've created two varieties of video widgets, one for external (to the iBook) video and another for internal video. The internal video widget does not escape IBA's pickiness. If it rejected a video in the media widget, it will reject that same file in an HTML widget. No escape.

The external video does evade IBA evaluation. As external media, its your responsibility to not link to stuff that cannot play on the iPad.

You can download a free trial version of Hype.

Thanks cmath, I followed your instructions but still it doesn't work :-(

Here's the modified widget

http://www.terredainventare.it/Semplice.wdgt.zip

Can you send me your working package? I'm working on iPad 3, maybe this makes the difference?

Maybe it is the iPad3 causing the problem. I'm supposed to get on today actually so I'll test. I've also uploaded my package but I doubt it will be any help. The only thing I changed was to add the width/height parameters to the video tag.

http://www.banchee.tv/aminta/Semplice.wdgt.zip

This is yet more confirmation that Apple needs to get this fixed. We shouldn't have to jump through so many hoops to get this to work. Have you tried Hype like the OP suggested? I've never used it so I can't offer any help for that but I would be interested to know what you come up with.

For our project we simply abandoned the HTML widget and are using the Media Widget. We would prefer to use HTML so that we could add other elements of our lesson around the video but we've managed to create a product that we're happy with despite not being able to use the HTML widget for displaying videos. We do use it though for our own custom multiple-choice test and other pieces of our lessons that only include audio (m4a) and png files.

I'll let you know what I find when I get the iPad3 up and running today.