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Handbrake settings help

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Peteman100

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Oct 7, 2007
Messages
1,466
I'm using Handbrake 0.9.4 to encode some of my DVDs into a more compact digital format. I started with the "high profile" preset in a MP4 format, but the quality of the resulting video was pretty bad. I could easily spot pixelation and other obvious signs of compression. I want to try again and need a little assistance in tweaking the settings. Besides switching to an MKV/H.264 format and increasing the quality from 60% to ~65%, is there anything else I should he changing to improve picture quality? Thanks!
 
What's your target filesize (or what size are they ending up now, anyway)? Choose the Regular/High Profile preset, that's really all you need to do. With some research and testing there are some tweaks you can do, but the extra quality you'll get won't be super notable in most cases. If the quality is really bad, chances are that your bitrate is just too low.
 
Ok good to know, thanks! My files were only around 1.8GB, so I wouldn't mind something a bit bigger if the quality was improved. I'm re-encoding now, with a higher quality factor.
 
Hrm if they're standard 2hr DVDs, 1.8GB should result in pretty nice quality with the default settings in Handbrake.
 
I dunno. Maybe its just me. But compared to the DVD, which I am playing side-by-side with the encoded version, I can see the graininess in peoples faces. Upping the RF didn't seem to improve the picture much. :/
 
Peteman100 said:
I dunno. Maybe its just me. But compared to the DVD, which I am playing side-by-side with the encoded version, I can see the graininess in peoples faces. Upping the RF didn't seem to improve the picture much. :/
Click to expand...

Graininess is pretty normal i think.
 
You can tweak the psychovisual rate distortion to attempt to preserve fine detail...but you shouldn't need to. See this thread for details...but you shouldn't need to read it. Note that subpixel motion estimation range must be set to 6 or higher.

Have you done an A/B comparison of frame captures?
 
Snowknight26 said:
Considering a higher value lowers the quality, I'm surprised you saw any improvement.
Click to expand...

Sorry, I meant upping the percentage, which actually drops the RF value in Handbrake. My fault. I'll try posting up some comparison frames later tonight.
 
Now that I look at the two stills together, it looks like the rendered version is brighter or has its shadows distorted, rather than being more grainy. You can see what I mean by looking at Johnny Depps face. Any suggestions on how to minimize this effect?

snapshotrender.jpg

snapshotdvd.jpg
 
Here is the output from MediaInfo:

General
Complete name : C:\Users\UltimateAdmin\Desktop\Movies\Pirates of the Carribean.mkv
Format : Matroska
File size : 2.93 GiB
Duration : 2h 23mn
Overall bit rate : 2 933 Kbps
Writing application : HandBrake 0.9.4

Video
ID : 1
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : High@L3.0
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames : 3 frames
Muxing mode : Container profile=Unknown@3.0
Codec ID : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration : 2h 23mn
Width : 720 pixels
Height : 368 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 2.35:1
Frame rate : 23.976 fps
Resolution : 8 bits
Colorimetry : 4:2:0
Scan type : Progressive
Writing library : x264 core 79
Encoding settings : cabac=1 / ref=3 / deblock=1:0:0 / analyse=0x3:0x113 / me=hex / subme=7 / psy=1 / psy_rd=1.0:0.0 / mixed_ref=1 / me_range=16 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=1 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / chroma_qp_offset=-2 / threads=6 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / mbaff=0 / constrained_intra=0 / bframes=3 / b_pyramid=0 / b_adapt=2 / b_bias=0 / direct=1 / wpredb=1 / wpredp=2 / keyint=240 / keyint_min=24 / scenecut=40 / rc_lookahead=50 / rc=crf / mbtree=1 / crf=16.0 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=10 / qpmax=51 / qpstep=4 / ip_ratio=1.40 / aq=1:1.00
Color primaries : BT.601-6 525, BT.1358 525, BT.1700 NTSC, SMPTE 170M
Transfer characteristics : BT.709-5, BT.1361
Matrix coefficients : BT.601-6 525, BT.1358 525, BT.1700 NTSC, SMPTE 170M

Audio #1
ID : 2
Format : AAC
Format/Info : Advanced Audio Codec
Format version : Version 4
Format profile : LC
Format settings, SBR : No
Codec ID : A_AAC
Duration : 2h 23mn
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel positions : Front: L R
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Language : English

Audio #2
ID : 3
Format : AC-3
Format/Info : Audio Coding 3
Codec ID : A_AC3
Duration : 2h 23mn
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 448 Kbps
Channel(s) : 6 channels
Channel positions : Front: L C R, Side: L R, LFE
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Stream size : 459 MiB (15%)
Language : English

Menu
00:00:00.000 : Chapter 1
00:08:52.265 : Chapter 2
00:16:06.665 : Chapter 3
00:27:17.385 : Chapter 4
00:36:01.396 : Chapter 5
00:41:05.083 : Chapter 6
00:48:20.985 : Chapter 7
00:54:03.398 : Chapter 8
01:04:07.301 : Chapter 9
01:15:59.516 : Chapter 10
01:21:23.040 : Chapter 11
01:35:01.240 : Chapter 12
01:40:02.462 : Chapter 13
01:48:17.110 : Chapter 14
02:02:03.102 : Chapter 15
02:13:10.569 : Chapter 16
02:23:11.006 : Chapter 17
 
A few suggestions:

- 3 reference frames seems inadequate for 720x368. Try 6 or 7. This will increase encoding time.
- Change motion estimation to uneven multi-hexagon. This will increase encoding time.
- Change motion estimation range to 24, though 32 is not a terrible idea if you're okay with spending more time encoding

A CRF of 16 is surprising low, though. You're getting about 3 MBps with it, and I can't for the life of me imagine a circumstance in which that wouldn't be either perfectly transparent or damn close to it. I've found that 21-22 is adequate for DVD rips.

What are you using for playback? Which external AVC decoder and external splitter, if applicable?
 
I'll give your settings a try. For playback, I'm using Media Center Classic- Home Cinema, which I got as part of the CCCP codec pack. However, the same video in MP4 format looks equally bad when played with WMP12.
 
Peteman100 said:
...the same video in MP4 format looks equally bad when played with WMP12.
Click to expand...
The MP4 probably also contains H.264 video and is decoded in the same way as the MKV, so this suggests a post-process issue such as...
Snowknight26 said:
Sounds like there's some pre/post-processing going on.
Click to expand...
...this. Download MPC Home Cinema (the portable version if you wish) and play back the MKV without changing any MPC-HC settings. If the rip looks more like the DVD (it should look practically identical), then you're doing some post-processing within WMP. If it looks as bad as it does in WMP, then some sort of processing is being performed prior to encoding.
 
Looks like I miss-wrote before. I am playing the video in MPC-HC already, and used WMP12 just as a double-check. So unfortunately, I am seeing the same effects as shown in the images above. I'm still encoding the new video using the settings you suggested, so I'll wait and see how that turns out.
 
Why are your screencaps greater than the source resolution?

Is your DVD playback software doing the 16-235->0-255 adjustment? IIRC Handbrake does this as a preprocessing step, which will increase apparent contrast.
 
keenan said:
Why are your screencaps greater than the source resolution?

Is your DVD playback software doing the 16-235->0-255 adjustment? IIRC Handbrake does this as a preprocessing step, which will increase apparent contrast.
Click to expand...

Screencaps are larger than the source because I took screenshots with the video set to fullscreen on my 1920x1200 monitor. Not sure what you mean by "16-235->0-255 adjustment." Can you tell me where I should look in the Handbrake settings menu to tell if this is enabled?
 
Didn't see much improvement using the new settings, as the overexposed graininess still exists. Any clues as to where I should look to see if any pre-processing steps might be to blame?
 
Peteman100 said:
Screencaps are larger than the source because I took screenshots with the video set to fullscreen on my 1920x1200 monitor. Not sure what you mean by "16-235->0-255 adjustment." Can you tell me where I should look in the Handbrake settings menu to tell if this is enabled?
Click to expand...

You should screencap the actual source video, not some rescaled version, just to isolate the encode settings. In MPC-HC you can do this in File->Save Image; use Play->Go To.. to select a specific frame. This will also avoid any odd renderer configuration.

Basically, broadcast and DVD video is set up so that pure black is the value '16' and pure white is the value '235' (out of the 8-bit range of 0-255). PC video uses the full range, with black at 0 and white at 255. At some point in the chain you should be doing the conversion, or videos will look washed out, blacks will be dark grey and it will lack contrast. Depending how your playback setup is configured this might be responsible for the discrepancy (if Handbrake applies the conversion, but your DVD playback software does not, for example). Likewise, if the conversion is applied twice, you'll be magnifying the contrast and things will look crappy that way too.

I'm not sure where you'd set this up in Handbrake. I normally use other tools.
 
What do you use to re-encode your videos?

And here is a still shot from the rendered video unscaled, using your method. I get an error when trying to do the same with the DVD.

snapshotrender2.jpg
 
I usually use MeGUI, but I haven't been doing much of this lately. With the speed of Internet connections these days, the proliferation of BT, and the popularity of HD encodes most of the time it's more convenient to just download someone else's encode.

Weird, that method has always worked with DVDs for me.

From your screenshots I'm pretty convinced there's some weird gamma or contrast adjustment happening somewhere... just not sure where to look for this without the source material in front of me.
 
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