Need some HandBrake help

Vaulter98c

[H]ard|DCer of the Month - October 2009
Joined
May 21, 2008
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OK, so I'm currently deployed again and I've been playing around with a few different ideas to help conserve space on my Media collection I brought with me (currently sharing with my squad from a 12 TB NAS).

I'm really getting behind 265 encodes for HD TV shows, which from the torrents I've found seem to be about 500-600 MB a piece for an approx hour episode of a TV show and looks pretty good to me. I've got a ton of other shows that I've ripped from BluRay's in the past and using my old 264 settings those are between 2 and 4 GB an episode. I was toying around the idea of re-encoding some of my much higher quality rips and getting them into smaller file sizes so I installed the latest 64 bit version of Handbrake on both my gamer laptop and my torrent box laptop (a small 11 inch dell with a 6th gen dual core i7)

I tested a few settings out in short 30 second encodes on the torrent box and now I'm trying to do full episodes on my gamer laptop to see what the actual space savings would be and to see the results on a better 1080p screen to see if it's up to standards. My gamer laptop is significantly more powerful then my torrent box so I have no idea why this is happening. When I run encodes I will always cap at exactly 50% CPU usage on all cores/threads and won't even ramp up the CPU to base clock or the boost speeds. It literally sits at 50% usage and about 1.4-1.5 Ghz speed. I've confirmed I'm not using Intel QuickSync or anything. The power profile is set to high and there is no CPU caps on or anything. When I play games it has no problem ramping up and getting hot, fast, and loading all the cores. I can run burn test forever so it's not unstable, it's going to and from a PCIe NVME drive so it's not disk related. Running the latest 64 bit build (1.1.1) from their website today, can't figure this out after spending like 30 minutes on google. Does this on x265 as well as x264 encodes, doesn't matter if I say fast, medium, very slow for the profile, same result every time. Also, changing the app priority in the settings menu does nothing except make windows laggy, but it still lags at 50% CPU at 1.4 Ghz in "very high" priority

Please help me lol


TLDR;

Specs :
i7 6820 HK (4c/8t , 2.7 ghz base, 3.60 ghz boost)
https://ark.intel.com/products/88969/Intel-Core-i7-6820HK-Processor-8M-Cache-up-to-3_60-GHz
16 GB 3000 DDR4
512 WD Black PCIe NVME drive for storage

Latest 1.1.1 64 bit Handbrake build
Latest Win10 Pro with all drivers and updates applied
Not using Intel QS or any GPU assistance for the encodes
Machine is burn test, mining, and gaming stable, never crashed outside of 1 known destiny bug a few months back
No OC's on CPU or RAM (or GPU, not that that matters)
Doesnt matter if 265 or 264, or if fast, medium, or very slow, same results every time

Can not figure this out

And yes, I know I should never re-encode already encoded rips, blah blah blah, it's good enough for me for TV shows and can literally help me shave like 1+ TB off my collection if I can get this to work right
 
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Maybe the Handbrake forum itself would be the best place to ask this question. I've never personally encountered a situation where Handbrake's internal encoders haven't pushed whatever CPU I was using to the max across the cores/threads, so perhaps there's some tidbit of info those folks over there at the actual forum might be able to offer as assistance. I would ask as long as it's encoding properly, does it really matter? :)

Sure, this might mean a slightly slower encoding speed overall but how fast does it really need to be if it's just transcoding of material you already have? x265 encodes will take longer than x264, that's a given, so while having it hit the CPU a bit more might help, I can't imagine it's going to suddenly blow the doors off the encoding times if you do manage to eek out that higher CPU usage.
 
I like the X265 codec as well, just haven't tried to encode anything myself with it.
47 minute shows are around 200MB for a 720p x265 HEVC encode. 720p is fine for me, my TV is only 50" and I usually watch most things on my PC with a 34" monitor.

I'd really love to convert all my media to X265 since I would save a ton of space, but it would take years to convert my library.

Oh, I did a conversion on Forrest Gump to see if I could get it to play on my Apple TV 4k but it didn't work and took a long time, over 12 hours.

forrest-gump-encoding.jpg
 
x265 is an encoder, for the record, h.265 is the codec and no they're not the same things and yes the details do actually matter. :)

As for Apple hardware, if you're going to encode for that platform use the info from the Handbrake forum to get working encodes, and do sample encodes ahead of time and test them so you don't waste 12+ hours doing an encode that won't play at all on that platform if it's a serious concern.

And that screenshot... kinda revealing, know what I mean? :D

Forte Agent and Newsrover, my god man, that's ancient stuff, seriously, and SuperGravity was infinitely better. Newsbin Pro, that's the secret these days. ;)

I am a bit envious of the hardware, however, not bad, not bad at all.
 
x265 is an encoder, for the record, h.265 is the codec and no they're not the same things and yes the details do actually matter. :)

As for Apple hardware, if you're going to encode for that platform use the info from the Handbrake forum to get working encodes, and do sample encodes ahead of time and test them so you don't waste 12+ hours doing an encode that won't play at all on that platform if it's a serious concern.

And that screenshot... kinda revealing, know what I mean? :D

Forte Agent and Newsrover, my god man, that's ancient stuff, seriously, and SuperGravity was infinitely better. Newsbin Pro, that's the secret these days. ;)

I am a bit envious of the hardware, however, not bad, not bad at all.

I use Agent to browse some groups and NewsRover is just used to download from the NZB's. Been using them for well over a decade, probably been using Agent for almost 2 decades.
 
Yeah, I know how old they are, hence the ancient stuff reference. :D I was an alpha tester for Agent so very long ago, then when development stopped and Microplanet created Gravity I shifted over to that one, then SuperGravity came out after Microplanet tanked. So on and so forth till Newsbin Pro came into existence and that's been the go-to Usenet binary app since that day about 18 years ago and will be for the future too. I use a new tool for macOS called Usenetic which is crazy awesome and damned near idiot-proof to mess up, tied to my $4/month for life unlimited Usenet + VPN service.

Sometimes life is good. :p
 
I like the X265 codec as well, just haven't tried to encode anything myself with it.
47 minute shows are around 200MB for a 720p x265 HEVC encode. 720p is fine for me, my TV is only 50" and I usually watch most things on my PC with a 34" monitor.

I'd really love to convert all my media to X265 since I would save a ton of space, but it would take years to convert my library.

Oh, I did a conversion on Forrest Gump to see if I could get it to play on my Apple TV 4k but it didn't work and took a long time, over 12 hours.

If I were doing this when I went through settings menus I would set framerate to "same as source" and CFR, and the audio to "Auto passthrough" since those didn't need to be changed. I would also turn off the Decomb filter since the source was not interlaced. Hopefully this might make it run faster.
 
After 3 reinstalls and reboots it finally fixed my issue, no clue why it was so damn difficult. Took my 265 speed up to about 15-18 FPS, much better than 1-3 I was getting before. I know its evil but re-encoding non critical things like stand up comedies and some TV shows has already cut off nearly 100 GB and I cant tell the differences in this application. I still haven't gotten ballsy enough to do my fresh BluRay rips in 265 but I imagine soon I'll jump over and do all rips moving forward like that once I get back in the states
 
After 3 reinstalls and reboots it finally fixed my issue, no clue why it was so damn difficult. Took my 265 speed up to about 15-18 FPS, much better than 1-3 I was getting before. I know its evil but re-encoding non critical things like stand up comedies and some TV shows has already cut off nearly 100 GB and I cant tell the differences in this application. I still haven't gotten ballsy enough to do my fresh BluRay rips in 265 but I imagine soon I'll jump over and do all rips moving forward like that once I get back in the states

When I tried it, I just downloaded the Portable version and unzipped the files, so there's no installation process. Maybe that helps if their installer has problems with your individual setup. As for bluray rips, the main thing is to do a little as possible, with things like framerate set to Same as Source CFR, Decomb turned off since the source isn't interlaced, and audio set to Auto Passthrough. Then just select your quality or bitrate. Usually I check the bitrate using the Properties feature in Media Player Classic Home Cinema and then manually set Handbrake to match.
 
After 3 reinstalls and reboots it finally fixed my issue, no clue why it was so damn difficult. Took my 265 speed up to about 15-18 FPS, much better than 1-3 I was getting before. I know its evil but re-encoding non critical things like stand up comedies and some TV shows has already cut off nearly 100 GB and I cant tell the differences in this application. I still haven't gotten ballsy enough to do my fresh BluRay rips in 265 but I imagine soon I'll jump over and do all rips moving forward like that once I get back in the states

Dumb question: how do I encode my items in 265?

Just a setting?
 
Open handbrake, drop your video on it, select the video tab>video codec>h.265 (there's also a presets button at the top right, seems like you may want to make use of it).
 
On the Video tab, under Video Codec, you change that to suit your purposes. There could be a bunch of potential options there from x264 native (meaning 8-bit) to x264 10-bit, x264 QSV (Intel Quick Sync GPU assisted), x265 (8-bit), x265 10-bit, and on some newer hardware you might even see x264 or x265 12-bit too as well as x265 QSV (on Skylake and newer Intel processors iirc).
 
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Hmm I just downloaded the version 1.1.1 and don't see either of the QSV GPU assisted options.

I have an 8700k and 1080ti...
 
Staxrip is superior to Handbrake in quality and encode time. Noobs use Handbrake and people who don't care about quality use GPU encoding. There are ton's of guides on Staxrip out there, it isn't difficult, and you can encode in batches.
 
Hmm I just downloaded the version 1.1.1 and don't see either of the QSV GPU assisted options.

I have an 8700k and 1080ti...

Well the Nvidia card is useless but you should see some QSV options given the 8700K has the Intel UHD 630 GPU as part of the assembly - I know you'll have to be using the Intel video drivers to make that a visible option as well so if you've never installed them you'll need to get that done. I'm of course going on the presumption that your current setup allows you to even make use of the Intel GPU at all; if your motherboard only supports a discrete GPU card in it there could be an issue with it and that would be why you're not seeing the QSV options.

Easiest way to know: if your motherboard doesn't have a VGA or DVI adapter, or potentially even an HDMI port on it there's a chance that the Intel GPU isn't even utilized so again that won't show up at all.

If you look at Device Manager and the only Display adapter you see there is the Nvidia card then the Intel GPU isn't being used. You might be able to enable it in the BIOS/UEFI, I have no idea, but then again QSV encodes, even on Skylake or Kaby Lake CPUs, isn't going to be of great visual quailty. Yes you can make them and it'll be extremely fast, but the quaility will not match what true x264/x265 CPU-powered encoding will be capable of.
 
Hmm I just downloaded the version 1.1.1 and don't see either of the QSV GPU assisted options.
I have an 8700k and 1080ti...

For some reason the QSV option is buried in the Tools, Preferences, Video menu.
 
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