HandBrake 0.9.3 Released

[usarcher]

[WheelSpinners]

[Aargh-a-Knot]

Thanks a bunch, usarcher.

I have been reading the "best settings" thread on the Handbrake forum, and I'm even more confused than when I started.

I think I'm going to try the AppleTV settings as you suggested, except bump the quality up to 68%, and see how that works.

Seems like one could get a PHd in how to use Handbrake!

[Grover Time]

[zen]

Handbrake along with VLC and Quicksilver are perfect examples of how the best things in life are free.

I have been using Handbrake heavily for 2+ years now and it has totally changed the way I encode and store all my video. It runs pretty fast on a C2D also..

[Ben Tex]

A decent update, but I'm sticking with 0.9.2 because of the slower encoding speeds. It's like 50% to 60% slower in my testing. That said, I may continue testing the Windows version on my quad-core box. The overall video quality definitely seems better.

[Aargh-a-Knot]

OK, Sorry to be clogging up this thread with all my hulla-baloo, but I just thought I'd add the results of my experimentation over the last day, in case anyone else browsing here is wondering what some generally good settings might be.

I settled on the AppleTV preset, but with the following changes:

Average bitrate- 2500 kbs,
for most movies set the Anamorphic to "loose", but some I keep at "none",
2 pass w/ turbo first pass,
"Create Chapter markers" checked

and for audio:
track 1 - Dolby Pro II,
track 2 - AC3 passthru
subtitles - "forced only" unless it is a "foreign film"

These settings make the final product just over 2Gb, and the picture looks pretty decent on my projector. If you have a smaller screen you could probably bump the ABR down quite a bit and save some space. Everything I have now is anywhere from 4Gb to 7Gb, so this is quite an improvement for me.

[MrBabou]

I'm pretty late on this topic, but I just recently downloaded this latest version of Handbrake. I am so totally happy that you can now use any common video file as input. I've been using HB for all my DVD's and have been quite happy with it. But I've been using another product to convert files for my iPod Touch, which had annoying ads in. And the end result was not that great, and that's when it didn't crash. So now with this new version, it is all I need.

For my Touch, I use the iPhone/iPod Touch preset, and I change nothing.
For TV, I use the AppleTV preset, although I do have to verify that it uses the right chapter, then I verify that the resolution is the same as the source, then choose the correct sound source, and that's it.

I've been using it on my Mini, but mostly on my PC with the Windows version since it's a much more powerful machine.

Very happy!
_________________
My home setup

[Aargh-a-Knot]

Speaking of being late, I came across some information that, looking through this post, was apparently already common knowledge..

Turns out, that HandBrake can utilize the libdvdcss code in VLC (if you have the latest version of VLC installed in your apps folder) to decrypt dvds. This is the exact same code that Fairmount relies on for decryption. So, in many cases, if you are going to re-encode the V_TS folder into M4V or what have you, there's no need to use any ripper at all.

I know, I Know, this is old news, and if I would have read the release notes for the newest version of HB, I would have saw that this code was actually just now removed from HB, and must rely on having VLC installed. But, being new to HB, I was oblivious to this feature.

So anyway, I was trying to rip The Dark Knight, which has some sort of new-fangled copy protection scheme. MTR couldn't even scan it. Fairmount got a bunch of bad sectors and went into it's hissy-fit-force-quit-me routine. I busted out the ol' reliable AnyDVD & CloneDVD in Parallels, and even THAT couldn't read it. I did some googlin' and it turns out that HandBrake is the answer. Thanks to phosita for these instructions: