Mimic Handbrake's default H264 setting

At the university where I work we have our own streaming video server which we use to deliver educational content.


It's own built-in compression profiles don't deliver the quality I want, but there is an option to upload .mp4 without compression, and I can get good results this way if I use FCPX's Share > 720p for Apple devices. However these videos only play well on campus - outside our network a lot of students have complained that they don't have the bandwidth to play these videos smoothly.


My problem is that I have been unable to find a Compressor profile that delvers good enough quality whilst also delivering low enough bitrate for smooth playback for home users. A lot of the videos contain text, and this tends to degrade badly with all of the lower bitrate profiles in Compressor that I have tried.


A colleague has been using the default profile in Handbrake, and the the results are much better, so ideally I would like to try and reproduce it in Compressor, so that I can use this profile to export directly from FCPX.


Unfortunately the Handbrake documentation doesn't give much away, and video compression is not really my area, so any help would be greatly appreciated.

Final Cut Pro X, OS X El Capitan (10.11.4)

Posted on Oct 3, 2016 2:13 AM

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6 replies

Oct 3, 2016 11:19 AM in response to TheLoneRoger

"...upload .mp4 without compression"


Um, no such thing .mp4 is a super highly compressed file.


Anyway, you'd have to open Handbreak, look at the settings. You should be able to see the settings in there somewhere. I haven't used it in ages. But look at the Inspector in Compressor, the Video section. Compare that to the Handbreak screen.


Start with the Apple Devices preset you've been using in Compressor's presets.

Duplicate it by right-clicking and select Duplicate from the pop-up menu.

That duplicate will be in the Custom group now.

Select it, go to the Inspector, the Video section, and there's where you're going to adjust things. Basically you're only going to set the Bit Rate. Everything else will automatically set to your original video's frame size and frame rate. Unless you want them changed. But you can easily get all the information you need by simply looking at the Handbreak screen and jotting down all the settings.

Oct 13, 2016 4:57 AM in response to Speculation

It's not obvious from looking at the GUI, but you can create an MPEG 4 custom preset directly. Click the plus sign in the Settings pane far lower left > New Setting and from the drop down dialog choose MPEG-4. In the Inspector > Video set the Profile to High and the bit rate to whatever you need up to a maximum value of 30 Mbps. Then in Audio, make whatever adjustments are needed.

But as BenB pointed out, the result is not going to be uncompressed; it will use an inter-frame form of compression.


Russ

Oct 14, 2016 3:30 AM in response to Russ H

Thanks for your replies.


When I said 'upload without compression', I meant upload without any further transcoding or compression by the streaming platform itself - I am aware that .mp4 is a form of compression!


What I am trying to do is to streamline my workflow, and it makes sense to have only a single transcoding stage if possible, both from the point of view of video quality and time.


My point about Handbrake was that the settings it uses are pretty opaque and as far as I can see there is no way of getting more details about the built-in profiles.


Ironically, I have now run up against the 'Unable to submit to queue' issue with Compressor, and as my Mac hasn't been able to re-start or shut down without forcing since the last OS update (I have asked Apple support, and so far been unable to find a solution), trashing the Qmaster and Motion prefs and restarting is not much of an option.


Back to Handbrake for now then...

Oct 14, 2016 6:14 AM in response to TheLoneRoger

TheLoneRoger wrote:





My point about Handbrake was that the settings it uses are pretty opaque and as far as I can see there is no way of getting more details about the built-in profiles.


Suggest exporting a test clip from Handbrake with their default settings. Open with an app such as MediaInfo or VideoSpec and it will report the clip's properties in detail.


Russ

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Mimic Handbrake's default H264 setting

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