Serato Video General Discussion

Talk about Serato Video and Video-SL.

Yet another Handbrake encoding question

Res-Q 6:51 AM - 30 November, 2010
Please bare with me, I see those type of questions posted everyday, but when I hit search there are so many long threads it's confusing... I think I know what I'm doing but I wanna make sure.

I just bought the "One Love Bob Marley All-Star Tribute" DVD, you know the one with Lauryn Hill, Erykah Badu, etc singing Bob's song.

-I ripped the dvd with SmartRipper (default settings).
-Now I'm ready to go through the HandBrake process, I want to encode it in mp4 in handbrake using the vsl preset. I left the preset as it is, but in order to get better quality, I bumped the audio Bitrate to 320.
First question: Is it worth bumping the video Average bitrate too (default vsl preset is 2000, but this is a high quality DVD, I wanna get the best of it), to what value?

Secondly, I read on the forum that 4:3 vids needed to be encoded cropped to 640x480, and 16:9 vids needed to be encoded cropped to 640x360.
When I go in the Pic Settings, I left the auto-crop on because it did a good job. (8 and 6 on left and right side).
Under Size, the DVD's original aspect ratio is 720x480. (3:2)
This resolution is not 4:3 nor 16:9, so what should I encode it to: 640x480 or 640x360?

Now when I tick the "keep aspect ratio" box, it changes to 624x480, should I just dont bother and leave it this way (vsl preset), or untick the box and go as close as I can to either 640x480 (I can do that) or 640x360 (I cannot do that, its gotta be either 640x368 or 640x352)?

Anything I'm overlooking?
Thanks for your help.
carter 7:23 AM - 30 November, 2010
Honestly man, Handbrake is a huge PITA. There are only a few video files I'll actually use it on anymore. I go with MPEG Streamclip and that's it. The only thing is that there isn't a way to export a preset that I know of...but if there is and someone would like to tell me how I'd be glad to share. The frame size settings are the most difficult things to deal with in Handbrake. In MPEG I can scale the frame size from 720x480 to 640x360 and then crop 60 top and 60 bottom, with minor adjustments to the sides, and keep a great looking, correct a/r video. With Handbrake it won't do that. The scaling and cropping occur with one setting. If you crop it scales to keep the aspect ratio. And the aspect ratio will only reduce in increments of 16, which leaves you with an a/r that's slightly off. If you're bound and determined to use Handbrake, I'd keep the audio between 160 and 224 aac, and the video bitrate around 3000. There's an MPEG tutorial that I gave someone a while back and he posted it somewhere on here. If I can find it, I'll add it to the discussion.
Res-Q 7:40 AM - 30 November, 2010
Thanks a lot Carter. Do you know I have a setting in Handbrake called Carter, because you posted HB settings here somewhere a looong time ago. I reference to this setting sometimes, but I had a few videos crash on me with it so I tend to stick with the Vsl setting but I feel its kind of low quality.

I can try MPEG Streamclip, but I'd like to have some kind of preset first. Can I tweak it and save the preset, or will I need to adjust the settings every time?

I dont often buy/rip dvds so I tend to forget.
carter 7:34 PM - 30 November, 2010
LOL. That's funny. I've tweaked mine a few times probably since then. I have one hard set for detelecining to 23.98, one for 29.97, and one for 25fps. In each one of them I have a decomb filter setting that I picked up here and the picture settings set to no anamorphic at 640. There are only a few videos that I'll actually run through those settings though. Most of the videos I do I run through MPEG. You can save the preset, but you will have to adjust the crop settings for every video. Some won't need cropping but most will need some kind of adjustment. I'm going to copy and paste my MPEG settings below. If you have any questions, hit me up. And if you decide to use these settings, make sure you click on the preset button and save these as VSL or something like that.

Format: Mpeg4 then click options. File Format: MP4 (not ISMA), video format: h264, data rate and image size will be done on the main screen, frame rate: current, key frame every 20 frames. Video Options: Main, Single Pass (Faster Encode) click ok. Audio tab: AAC-LC (music), 224kbps, stereo, 48k, better. Click ok.
Back to the main screen click "Limit Data Rate." You can choose your own data rate. I use 3000 and adjust according to the file size I want. Frame size: Again personal choice. A lot of people choose the unscaled selection, which for PO would be 720x480. I use other and scale to 640x360 and then crop letterboxes. Leave frame rate blank (you've already selected current under options. I leave Interlaced scaling and reinterlace chroma unchecked and then check deinterlace ONLY after previewing and seeing if it actually needs deinterlacing. However with PO they pretty much all need to be deinteralced. Field dominance: Upper. Rotation: No. Zoom: 100%. If you use unscaled leave cropping unchecked. If you are wanting to get rid of the black bars select cropping. You will need to preview a few times to get the cropping exactly right. For the older PO videos you won't need to crop, but it WILL stretch the videos to fit if you don't. 60 off of the top and 60 off of the bottom will give you a perfect fit on those videos. The same can be done for the other videos as well, but you will still have some letterbox at the top of those. Also with PO you'll need to take about 8 off of each side too. No idea why they're there on some videos. After you've previewed and have everything set, I use Adjustments and check Automatic Volume Control.
I have mine saved as a preset that I labelled SSL. So anytime I load up MPEG I can go right to that preset and I only have to adjust cropping.
If you want to do a whole bunch of files at once, go back to the main screen of MPEG (where the main video window is). Click List and then Batch List. Now there are two ways to do this. 1. You can do it individually by going through the steps above and at the end of that sequence you will have a button that says "To Batch" instead of "Ok."
OR 2. you can click "Add Files" in the Batch window. It will then ask you what files. You can click on a whole folder or select individual files out of a folder. Once you have your files it will ask you to choose a task. Export to other formats and leave all of the others unchecked. It will then ask you where to export those files to. Once you've chosen that you are back at the settings window. Once you have the settings you want click "To Batch" and then in the batch window click "Go." There is also a space in the batch window to do simultaneous tasks. If you have a dual core or quad core you can do 2. I wouldn't go any higher than that. It's really taxing on your system.
Dj Nyce 9:22 PM - 30 November, 2010
i think you'll be better served using dgindex, avisynth and megui (or virtualdub).

with respect to that dvd, i'm not sure why the ar is incorrect. at 720x480 it is supposed to be 4:3 or 16:9.

i would try resizing to 640x480 (4:3) or 640x360 (16:9) and cropping as necessary.

i use dgindex, avisynth and megui/virtualdub. in my avs script, i deinterlace, ivtc, crop and resize as necessary. i also conform to the correct colorspace.

then i use megui/virtualdub and convert to mp4 with 2500kbps 2-Pass H.264, 320 AAC Nero normalized.
Res-Q 9:27 PM - 1 December, 2010
Ok thanks guys. I'll try your different options and see what turns out the best for me. I'll keep you posted.
Jimbo 11:53 PM - 1 December, 2010
with the handbrakeCLI you can force 640x360 in the command line instructions. although handbrakeCLI does take some experimenting to get exactly what you want, it is excellent method of encoding videos. it's built in decomb/detelecine filters produce solid results.

however, you can get around 640x352 or 640x368 limitations of handbrake GUI by simply opening the file in quicktime pro (after you've encoded with handbrake) and changing the video dimensions under the movie properties panel (click on the "window" drop down). once changed, save the file. it will make a new video with the correct 640x360 but have a ".mov" extension. you can change that to ".mp4" if you wish without compromising anything.
Res-Q 12:38 AM - 2 December, 2010
Nice Jimbo, thanks for the tip.
What would be wrong with having encoded videos at 640x352 or 640x368?
I've got tons of encoded stuff that are at this ratio, I'm go through everything in QTPro from now on but I wanna know for everything I've encoded before.
Jimbo 8:04 PM - 3 December, 2010
Ha! I've always wondered the same thing. Similar situation here. I think it may become and issue in the future when the standardized display setting becomes a true 16:9 varation instead of 640x480. Until then we will have slightly more or less letterboxing... which is no big deal. However if it ever becomes an issue you can use the smart folder function to identify the videos with the offending aspect ratio and then deal with them accordingly.
DJ Tecniq 8:20 PM - 12 December, 2010
Yes Mpegstreamclip is tha shit, handbrake fails to convert certain vob's/dvd's. Mpegstreamclip does it all.
Res-Q 8:55 PM - 12 December, 2010
Did Serato ever released presets for Mpegstreamclip like they did for HandBrake?
DJ Tecniq 11:56 PM - 12 December, 2010
Quote:
Did Serato ever released presets for Mpegstreamclip like they did for HandBrake?
No they weren't aware mpegstreamclip was going to be so much better than handbrake. What carter mentions above is the preset, you can save the settings as a preset so it would load everytime in mpegstreamclip.
Res-Q 7:44 AM - 13 December, 2010
Allright thanks Tecniq. Looks like all my softwares are gonna have presets called Carter.
carter 1:47 PM - 13 December, 2010
Haha. Glad to help.
I had to go through all of that with Promo Only videos, so why not share what works? It's not the cleanest way (IVTC), but for Mac it works.
Res-Q 4:24 PM - 14 December, 2010
Ok carter I did a few tryouts using your Mpeagstrimclip preset. I think one thing is not right:
"Format: Mpeg4 then click options. File Format: MP4 (not ISMA), video format: h264, data rate and image size will be done on the main screen, ..."

Once I check out the stream info of the mp4, the video is:
H.264, 320 x 240, 25 fps, 2.90 Mbps

So I think that under "options" data rate and image size need to be changed too?
Dj Nyce 5:39 PM - 14 December, 2010
bit rate is good...2.90 mbps = ~2900 kbps

the size (resolution) is incorrect tho
carter 6:32 PM - 14 December, 2010
Here are screen shots of a Promo Only video that I just did.
Main Screen - Data Rate is set at 3000kbps, deinterlace is on because it's Promo Only, Better Downscaling I actually turned off, but it was in the preset already. Frame size is scaled to 640x360, and my cropping is set to remove the black bars.
i19.photobucket.com
Options - MP4, h.264, data rate is set to 3000, Image size and frame rate are set to current. Those 3 options can be overridden on the main screen by entering a value. Example, the Image size for PO is 720x480. I'm overriding that on the main screen and changing it to 640x480. If you want a smaller file size, change the data rate on the main screen to 2500 and that will override the 3000 you have in options. Same for frame rate. If you want to hard set the frame rate (not recommended) you can over ride the current setting on the main page.
i19.photobucket.com
Audio settings.
i19.photobucket.com
carter 6:34 PM - 14 December, 2010
Edit---changing image size to 640x360, not 640x480.
DJ Tecniq 6:34 PM - 14 December, 2010
Carter is 640 x 360? better than standard 4:3 I just been using standard
DJ Tecniq 6:35 PM - 14 December, 2010
And why is your quality set @ 50%?
carter 6:42 PM - 14 December, 2010
640x360 is the widescreen 16x9 format which plays on most of the current flat panel displays and projections screens. You can encode to which ever one fits your needs. It's not mandatory that you do it one way or the other.
The quality slider doesn't have any affect on the actual quality of the mp4 since you're hard setting a data rate.
DJ Tecniq 6:43 PM - 14 December, 2010
ahh interesting, okay thanx man. I'm really pleased with the preset how you originally have it.
carter 6:45 PM - 14 December, 2010
Thanks. It took a little trial and error, but I'm glad it's working out.
DJ Tecniq 7:08 PM - 14 December, 2010
Quote:
Thanks. It took a little trial and error, but I'm glad it's working out.
I also don't like automatic volume control, alot of times the quality sounds too high like it's peaking, i uncheck this option some videos sound muffled. I usually keep the volume in the middle, if a video comes out to low I raise it at a good volume. Some vob's come out with low volume even when it's set to save as the normal setting.
carter 7:33 PM - 14 December, 2010
Whatever works for you. I prefer to use it with a lot of the older videos because the volume level is so low on them. The PO classic series DVDs are really good but the audio needed some work. I could take the time to edit them...even I'd never use most of them, or just use the volume control. I don't think I've had any peak on me, but I still have some that need to be boosted in SSL.
Res-Q 8:39 PM - 14 December, 2010
Thanks for sharing the knowledge carter, the pics helped it works like a breeze with your settings now. I owe you big time!
carter 11:06 PM - 14 December, 2010
No prob. Any time.
Res-Q 11:36 PM - 14 December, 2010
One thing I miss compared with handbrake is the auto-croping which was pretty accurate with Hb. Now I gotta go back and forth between the preview and the settings many times before getting it right.
The preview on Mpegstreamclip sux too, with handbrake I could forward anywhere I wanted fast, now I gotta wait for the preview to build.
Aside from that, I really like the final result, def looks better than Hb.

Ps for those reading this post who have trouble converting, I must add I had to buy the Mpeg2 component from apple store in order to get vobs I got from labels/dvds decoded. I also had to buy Flip4Mac wmv Pro in order to encode wmv videos I got from labels.
DJ Tecniq 2:09 AM - 15 December, 2010
Quote:
Whatever works for you. I prefer to use it with a lot of the older videos because the volume level is so low on them. The PO classic series DVDs are really good but the audio needed some work. I could take the time to edit them...even I'd never use most of them, or just use the volume control. I don't think I've had any peak on me, but I still have some that need to be boosted in SSL.
I hear ya carter. When i have compared/played a video with automatic volume control and one without. I noticed the first with auto vol control checked made the waveform really big, it wasn't peaking but for some reason def sounded like it. As for the same video I unchecked auto volume control and noticed I had more of a "clean" sound.
Res-Q 2:16 AM - 15 December, 2010
Default value for volume threashold is 0db, did you try to lower than value Tecniq?
carter 8:55 PM - 15 December, 2010
I don't mind the cropping deal.. in order to get the proper 640x360 you need to crop 60 off of the top anyway. That's regardless of whether it was the widescreen bars or not. You can usually tell what you need to crop after about the first 4-5% without having to view the whole preview. In Handbrake I was doing about 30-45 seconds on preview.
Handbrake is actually a pretty powerful program with regards to converting, but it's not quite as straight forward as MPEG is...at least from a layout perspective. You can get better results from Handbrake by typing in custom filters and custom h264 encoder settings. But there are some vobs that just come out wrong.
DJ Tecniq 4:49 AM - 24 December, 2010
Quote:
But there are some vobs that just come out wrong.
+1 that's so true, that's why in mpeg i have the settings for crop 0, 0, 0, 0 I just manually crop every video if it needs it. I don't mind taking the time cause I want them to look good professionally.
smithshane 5:07 AM - 23 November, 2012
www.ilikemall.com
Whenever I need to convert something, I'll use either Handbrake or ffmpeg. Both are free. ffmpeg has a ton of options but Handbrake is nice and easy to use. With Handbrake, just make sure you select a preset that suits your needs. ffmpeg is a bit more involved, and a bit of a pain to download from the link I provided.