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A “best settings” guide for Handbrake 0.9.9June 12, 2013 13 comments

So Handbrake 0.9.9 has been out for a while now, and if you’velooked through my previous multi-page guide that explained all theadvanced settings in 0.9.6, I’ve got some good news:

Getting something that amounts to the “best settings”is a whole lot easier in v0.9.9.

(yay!)

The “x264 presets” are now in Handbrake, and 99% of the time,that should mean that you don’t have to dabble in the “x264Advanced Options Panel”. Though if you want/need to for whateverreason, the old rundown of Handbrake settings (0.9.6) guide shouldhelp explain all those options for you in great detail.

I’ll use some images this time around to help make things quick &easy. We’ll start at the more complicated part, and workbackwards.

But first…

-Encodes fast-High quality-Smallest file size possible

Pick 2.

The decisions you make during these sections will largely depend onwhich 2 you choose.

Anyway, let’s start at the highlighted area below.

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A “best settings” guide for Handbrake 0.9.9 - mattgadient.com

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Constant Quality (RF) vs AverageBitrate (kbps)

1. These have the largest impact on quality & file size. Move theConstant Quality RF slider far enough to the right (or use ahigh enough Average Bitrate) and the video will be large, andlook indistinguishable from your source. Moving the slider tothe extreme left (or using a low enough Average Bitrate),and you can get really small file sizes, but something lookingpretty ugly. Most people aim for something in between.

2. Generally speaking, one isn’t going to get you a “nicer” videothan the other.

3. I’m really going to be simplifying the rest below (it won’t be100% technically accurate, but accurate enough to give youan understanding).

First, a quick image to give you an idea as to what Constant Qualityentails…. (click for a larger image)

Constant Quality – Usually this is the preferred method. This

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A “best settings” guide for Handbrake 0.9.9 - mattgadient.com

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targets a certain level of quality throughout your video(s). Theadvantage to Constant Quality is that your videos all tend to lookconsistent. The downside is that you don’t know how large eachvideo will be until the end.

RF – Sliding to the right (lower numbers) lead to better quality.Sliding to the left (higher numbers) result in lower quality, butlower filesizes too. If you’ve never used Constant Quality before,normally RF:20 is considered as a starting point for DVD encodes(and RF:22 for BluRay). Most people experiment to find an RF valuethat looks good enough to them at a file size they can handle, anduse that RF value most of the time, deviating slightly when needbe.

RF examples – Here are a couple screenshots taken at differentRF settings (one at 20, and one at 30) to give you a very roughstarting point (click for a larger view):

For a more in-depth look at RF values, check out Comparing x264“RF” settings in Handbrake (examples) for the full write-up.

And an image to give you an idea as to what Average Bitrateentails… (click for a larger image)

Average Bitrate – Using this and a calculator, you can aim for aspecific file size given a certain video length. Helpful if you wantedeach of your movies to be exactly 700MB for example. Generally,use 2 pass encoding when using this option. Advantage to AverageBitrate is that you can effectively pre-determine your file size. Thedownside is that after you finish encoding, you might find out thatthe filesize you chose wasn’t high enough, and your video looks likejunk. Or maybe the file size was higher than it needed to be.

kbps – The higher this is, the larger the file will be (and thus, thehigher the quality). Online bitrate calculators are the easiest way todo this.

A “best settings” guide for Handbrake 0.9.9 - mattgadient.com

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Looking at Constant Quality vs Average Bitratefrom another perspective…:

Let’s pretend we’re encoding a 1 hour TV series from DVD withconstant quality and have determined that RF:22 looks just-good-enough to us. Here’s how it might turn out:

Episode 1: RF22 – 278MB (avg video bitrate of 686kbps)Episode 2: RF22 – 349MB (avg video bitrate of 915kbps)Episode 3: RF22 – 363MB (avg video bitrate of 948kbps)Episode 4: RF22 – 304MB (avg video bitrate of 792kbps)TOTAL SIZE: 1294MB

All episodes should look consistent. Clearly, Episodes 1 & 4 didn’tneed as much bitrate as the others, so they ended up beingsmaller.

Now what if we’d tried using an “average bitrate” instead, targetingexactly 323.5MB per episode?

Episode 1: 798kbps (avg video bitrate) – 323.5MBEpisode 2: 798kbps (avg video bitrate) – 323.5MBEpisode 3: 798kbps (avg video bitrate) – 323.5MBEpisode 4: 798kbps (avg video bitrate) – 323.5MBTOTAL SIZE: 1294MB

The TOTAL SIZE is the same. The problem is that this time,Episode 1 got more bitrate than it needed. Episodes 2 & 3 probablydidn’t get enough. Episode 4 got close to the ideal amount for our“RF:22 looked good to us” standards and probably looks identicalto the RF:22 version from before. Either way, we’re now in asituation where Episode 1 looks stellar, but in Episodes 2 & 3, thingsare below our standards, looking notably worse.

That doesn’t mean that average bitrate is *bad*. It’s just notconsistent when it comes to visual quality – it’s only consistentwhen it comes to file size. So if you use average bitrate, you mayhave to “pad” your numbers a bit just in case some of your videosneed the extra bitrate to look okay. If I were encoding the rest ofthe season via “average bitrate”, I’d probably be encodingeverything at 1000kbps to be on the safe side. Unfortunately, thatmeans my total filesize for 4 more episodes similar to the abovewould now be 1622MB instead of just 1294MB. And at that point,I’d have been better off using Constant Quality with a better RFvalue.

Short version: Unless you desperately need your file to come outat an exact size, use Constant Quality. Play with RF values until you

A “best settings” guide for Handbrake 0.9.9 - mattgadient.com

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find values where the video looks good enough to you on thedevices you play back from, at file sizes you find acceptable.

—

x264 Preset

As mentioned above, this has a different effect depending onwhether you went with Constant Quality, or Average Bitrate.

If you went with Constant Quality, your quality has already been“decided”. Changing this won’t affect the quality any further (if youwanted higher quality, move the RF slider more to the right). Goingwith slower settings here will find ways to fit that quality into alower file size. Going with faster settings will result in a larger filesize. Either way, it should look the same.

If you went with Average Bitrate, your file size has already been“decided”. Changing this won’t affect the file size any further. Goingwith slower settings here will try to pack more quality into that filesize you’ve chosen. Going with faster settings here will result in lessquality.

Details: This is where the time tradeoff comes into play. Theveryslow preset is about the most hard-core anyone shouldtypically get, and it can take a long time even on a quick machine.This is one of those areas where you’ll have to experiment on yourmachine and find something reasonable.

Keep in mind that there are diminishing returns as you get slower.Compared to “veryslow”, the “placebo” setting takes forever and aday. At the very least, it’ll usually add a few hours, if not days,depending on your source and computer. Even worse, you mightnot even notice the visual difference (it’s called “placebo” for areason). On the other hand, the difference between “ultrafast” and“medium” (skipping superfast, veryfast, faster, and fast) might onlybe a few minutes and will often give a quite noticeable difference.

Finally, when on the quest for quality, keep in mind that days ofencode time is no substitute for simply choosing a better ConstantQuality or higher Average Bitrate. Slow settings will let you getmore bang-for-your-buck, but it’s not going to work miracles.Sure, a 350MB TV show encoded at really slow settings will lookbetter than the same 350MB TV show encoded at fast settings. Buta 600MB encode of the same TV show will trounce both of themeven if it was done at really fast settings.

A “best settings” guide for Handbrake 0.9.9 - mattgadient.com

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x264 Tune

In general, these focus on shifting “bits” between detailed & flatareas, depending on the setting. To be honest, you don’t have toreally understand what they do – other people have done the gruntwork figuring them out, so they’re whittled down to pretty simple“one size fits all” settings.

None – This is like the “old” Handbrake presets. Nothing inherentlywrong with it. It’s something of a middle-road setting.

Film – For TV/Movies/Film and 3D animation (Pixar movies forexample)

Animation – For 2D animation (Mikey Mouse, Simpsons, etc)

Grain – For very grainy movies/shows. For example, movies like300 or Saving Private Ryan (the beach scene). Note that this triesto KEEP the grain, which uses a boatload of bitrate, and tends toresult in higher file sizes when using Constant Quality (if you’reusing Avg Bitrate, make sure you’re using a high bitrate, or overallquality will suffer.).

Stillimage – For still images (slideshow/pictures).

PSNR/SSIM – Generally for testing/comparative purposes. Thesestand for “peak signal to noise ratio” and “structural similarity”.x264 has some enhancements that improve the image as youwould see it (robbing “detail” from places you wouldn’t notice itanyway, and putting that detail where you would notice it). Thesesettings disable those, so that the image is more “technically”correct so that a computer can compare the video with the sourceto see how accurate/identical it is.

Zerolatency – Meant for fast encoding with quick streaming.

Short version: Film, Animation, and Grain are what you probablywant to use most of the time (perhaps “None” as well). The othersare for pretty edge cases that most people don’t have to worryabout.

—

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Fast Decode (checkbox)

Usually you do *not* want this checked. A few exceptions:

Check it if you’re trying to play your videos on an oldercomputer that struggles to decode H264.Check it if playing videos on an older device that struggles todecode H264.You could optionally check it if uploading to YouTube or othervideo-sharing sites. It may make it quicker for the site todecode it and put your video up. It’s usually not necessary.

It disables a few H264/x264 optimizations, making it easier to playbut at the expense of a larger file (or lower quality if using anaverage bitrate). Since most recent computers/devices have built-inhardware support for these optimizations, you usually don’t need tobother with it. If you find that playback on your favorite device ischoppy, try checking this though.

—

H.264 Profile & H.264 Level

This is where things can get a little tricky. Higher profiles & levelstend to get you better compression (so better quality in a givenfilesize). However, you’re going to be limited by the profile supportof the hardware devices you’re planning to play your videos on.Here’s the order of things:

Baseline -> Main -> High1.0 -> 1b -> 1.1 -> 1.2 -> ……. -> 5.1 -> 5.2 (this one’s easyenough to figure out)

Currently, High Profile, Level 4.1 is the most popular profile onrecent / cutting edge devices. Such a device will also playBaseline/Main, and any level between 1.0-4.0. The industry’sstagnated at Level 4.1 for a couple years, probably because it’s atthe point where it’s “good enough” until H265 starts taking over.

Here are a few examples of profile support for populardevices:

iPhone 3, iPhone 3GS: Baseline Profile, Level 3.0iPhone 4, iPad 1, AppleTV 2: Main Profile, Level 3.1AppleTV 3: High Profile, Level 4.0 (may actually support 4.1)iPhone 4S, iPhone 5, iPad 2, iPad 3, iPad Mini: HighProfile, Level 4.1

Blackberry 7 & 7.1 devices: High Profile, Level 3.1 (theyrecommend using Baseline Profile though)Blackberry 10, Blackberry Playbook: High Profile, Level 4.2

A “best settings” guide for Handbrake 0.9.9 - mattgadient.com

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WD TV Play & TV Live: High Profile, Level 4.1

BluRay devices (those which will read from a USB hard drivefor example) should normally support High/Level 4.1, but areoften somewhat picky and have a tendency to complain aboutbeing “too complex”. I haven’t actually bothered to trydetermining the exact cause, but if you run into this issue, youcan try entering bluray-compat=1 in the “Additional Options”window (note that your file size may increase somewhat). Ifthat doesn’t work, try Main profile or a lower level.

Samsung & Nokia don’t list profiles on their spec sheets forphones/tablets. Probably safe to assume at least Level 4.0 ontheir devices that record in 1080p.

Roku, Boxee Box, Netgear NeoTV don’t list profiles on theirspec sheets for media streamers. Probably safe to assume atleast Level 3.1 for 720p devices and Level 4.1 for 1080p.

…you’ll have to do your own digging for devices fromother manufacturers.

Short version here is that for devices which are a couplegenerations old, Main Profile, Level 3.0 is usually supported.

Almost every current-generation device supports High Profile, Level4.1.

Thus, you probably don’t want to exceed Level 4.1. If you go anyhigher, your video probably won’t play, or will play-with-glitches onany current smartphones, tablets, etc. Note that some slowercomputers which lack hardware playback support may also struggleto smoothly play back videos encoded at very high levels.

—

Enough with the complicated/hard stuff. Now the easier bits.

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Format – MP4 file vs MKV file

This is known as a “container”. Doesn’t affect the quality, so don’tstress too much over this one.

MP4 file – This is what you usually want to use. It has the highestplayer & device compatibility. Windows Media Player won’t playMKV by default. Quicktime, iPhones/iPads/AppleTV/etc don’t playMKV files either. MP4 is the safe bet and works perfectly fine.

MKV file – This is a more flexible, but less supported container.Technically, you can jam multiple video streams in it, add DVDmenus, use a wider variety of codecs, and a whole whack of otherthings (none of that through Handbrake, mind you). The 2 notableexceptions when it comes to Handbrake are that it will allow you touse the Theora (VP3) video codec, and FLAC or Vorbis audiocodecs.

Short version: Unless you have a specific reason to use MKV, useMP4.

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A “best settings” guide for Handbrake 0.9.9 - mattgadient.com

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Video Codec – H.264 (x264) vs MPEG-4vs MPEG-2

H.264 – This is probably the *reason* you’re using Handbrake tobegin with. It’s the newest codec offered, results in high quality atlow file sizes, and is supported by virtually every recent device outthere.

MPEG-4 – An older codec, and very few reasons to use it. To giveyou an idea, old devices/players that won’t play anything newerthan DivX will usually do well with MPEG-4. If you have a really old(or really cheap) phone that has very basic video playbackcapability, it might work on those too. And if you’re hoping to edityour video later in a 5-year old editing program that lacks H264support, this gives you an option to do so.

MPEG-2 – Unless you have a specific reason for using this (beyondtime travel to the late 90′s), don’t.

Short version: H.264 unless you have a good reason to usesomething else.

—

Framerate (FPS), and Variable vsConstant framerate

Same as source – You almost always want to use this instead ofmanually picking a frame rate. Handbrake is smart and will virtuallyalways get this right. If you detelecine or deinterlace, it will also dothe smart thing here too and change the frame rate to be accurate.Manually setting the frame rate to something incorrect will oftenresult in the video looking choppy/stuttery. Manually reducing theframe rate generally won’t reduce the file size by as much as you’dexpect either. There are very few edge cases where manuallysetting it makes sense – usually it doesn’t.

Variable Framerate – Ideal most of the time (especially if de-telecining). If the “true” frame rate bounces around (or does afterde-telecining), this will keep things looking as good & stutter-freeas the original (and perhaps keep from encoding extra wastedframes). And if the “true” frame rate doesn’t bounce around, you’llend up with a constant frame rate anyway.

Constant Framerate – I’d only go with this if I needed a specificframe rate & had manually set it.

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Short version: “Same as Source” and “Variable” unless you havea solid reason for forcing something else.

—

On to the “Picture Settings” window.

(accessed via a button towards the upper right)

SIZE – Anamorphic – Unless you’re doing some manual resizing,you’re usually best to use “Strict”. I can’t think of a lot of reasonsto use “Loose” unless you’re resizing the video resolution (loosemakes it fairly easy). “Custom” is beyond the scope of this write-up, but allows you to do a bit of manipulation, including changingthe aspect ratio if you have a desire to smush/stretch things. Don’tuse “None” unless you know what you’re doing.

SIZE – Cropping – Use Automatic. That way, it won’t waste spacetrying to save any black bars (your device will add black bars ifnecessary). On the other hand, if you want black bars manuallysaved as part of the video stream, feel free to set it to “none” andchange the values to all 0′s.

Hitting the “Preview” button is usually a good idea if you’re tryingto tweak here.

—

Next, if you click the “Filters” button…

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FILTERS – Detelecine – Setting to “Default” is a good idea. If yoursource is telecined, it’ll detelecine automatically. If it’s not, it won’t.Set-and-forget.

FILTERS – Decomb – Setting to “Default” is a good idea here too.If your source is interlaced, it’ll automatically deinterlace it. If not,it won’t. Just like the above. Set-and-forget.

You normally don’t want to use “Deinterlace” unless decomb isgiving you problems or you have one of those oddball situationswhere you want to manually set it for some other reason.

FILTERS – Denoise – Usually, keep this off. A couple exceptions:

Turn it on if you have noise/grain in your source you want toget rid of.Turn it on if you want to reduce your filesize slightly (orimprove overall quality) at the expense of softening yourimage some.Turn it on and use a CUSTOM value if you’re trying to get ridof “dancing dots”.

UPDATE: I put together a new denoise write-up with video andimages if you’re interested in de-noise settings.

FILTERS – Deblock – Off. It’s supposed to get rid of blockiness butin my experience it ends up blurring everything a crazy amountthat makes the video hard to watch. On the plus side, it prettymuch destroys noise/grain in the process.

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—

For Audio Settings, Subtitles, and Advanced Settings,nothing’s really changed so rather than re-write it all, I suggestreading the old writeup for version 0.9.6 if you need furtherdetails on those options.

—

That about sums it up. As a quick note, I’ve really generalized afair bit – especially when it comes to the Constant Quality vsAverage Bitrate part. But hopefully this has given you enough of anunderstanding that you’re comfortable using the new system.

Encoding none

Comments (13) Leave a comment

Reply#1 | Written by Anon about 2 months ago.

Reply#2 | Written by Matt Gadient about 2 months ago.

So no more Advanced settings. Good.

Can you explain one thing to me: Why is it thatsometimes the encodes will go really fast but the nexttime they go really slow? I was ripping a cartoonDVD (using your settings) and one disc did roughly 1minute per episode (5 minute episodes), but the nextdisc took roughly 10 minutes per episode. I don’t getit.

Anon: To be honest, a 10x increase in encodetime is fairly tough to explain for:

Similar content (same series, etc), atIdentical durations, atIdentical resolutions (in other words, onewasn’t a DVD and the other a BluRay), atIdentical Handbrake settings

Were you encoding directly from the DVD, or didyou copy the DVD to the computer first (andencode from the ISO, MKV, etc)? If it was directlyfrom the DVD, sometimes read issues or variedcopy protection methods on certain discs can

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Reply#3 | Written by Anon about 2 months ago.

Reply#4 | Written by Matt Gadient about 2 monthsago.

throw a wrench into things. A good practice isusually to rip the DVD to the computer first andencode it from there.

Beyond that, if everything in the list above holdstrue, short of some other odd issue like acomputer overheating and throttling, I’m not sure.Episodes with a lot of fairly static scenes tend togo quicker (you’ll notice in movies that the endcredits tend to encode rather quickly), but thatwouldn’t justify a 10x difference in overall encodetime.

Thank you for your reply, Matt.

- “Similar content (same series, etc)” – Yes(for what its worth, Batfink cartoon DVD).- “Identical durations” – Episodes are around4:30.- “Identical resolutions (in other words, onewasn’t a DVD and the other a BluRay)” –They are all DVDs.- “Identical Handbrake settings” – Yes.Although, do the settings reset when youcontinue the encoding process the next time?Because I had the episodes in queue, andthen resumed where I had left off.

I first made a copy of the discs to my HDD(DVDFab created VIDEO & AUDIO_TSfolders). From there I selected the folder inHandbrake and encoded them episode perepisode.

I hope this helps.

Anon: Nothing sticks out that wouldexplain it.

As for the settings, they do generallypersist correctly when bulk-adding in theMacGUI at least (with the exceptions of“Audio” , “Subtitle”, and items in “PictureSettings”). If you exit Handbrake, I believethe next time you open it, you have to re-enter your settings again though for anynew items you add to the queue –old/existing ones in the queue should“remember” – usually saving your settingsto a profile helps make things a littlequicker the next time you use it.

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#5 | Written by Anon about 2 months ago.

#6 | Written by Matt Gadient about 2months ago.

You could try checking the log files tomake sure the same x264 settings wereapplied. To do so, open up the “ActivityWindow” in Handbrake (from the menubar), and right-click anywhere in thatactivity window and choose to open the“log file directory”. You’ll see all the logsshow up – open up the ones for those 2videos compare the section under“encoder: H.264 (x264)” (if you find thefile hard to navigate, choose Edit/Findand type in H.264 to jump to the correctarea). Alternately, since your stuffencoded pretty quickly, you could just tryencoding those 2 again, but 1 at a time(verifying the settings for both) to see ifthere’s any difference.

If those settings were indeed the same,I’m sure there’s an explanation of somesort, but I’m out of ideas (sorry!).

Matt, I just checked the log files. Itsays H.264. Anyway, I was hoping TVepisodes would go fast, too. Turns outit takes roughly 2 and a half hours toencode just one episode (doing thison my laptop) using your settings.Ugh. Thanks for the help anyway!

Anon: The options listed just belowthe “H.264″ part in the log file are theones I was referring to. For example,using the x264 presets, you’d seesomething like “veryslow”. Using theadvanced options, you’d seesomething like “ref=6:trellis=2:etc”. Ifyou get the situation where 1 episodeencodes really fast and the next fromthe same series/disc goes really slow,making sure those settings were thesame in the log files can help to rulethat out.

As for the 2.5 hour encodes,assuming you’re using the x264presets, just try bumping the slider toa faster setting until you get a timeframe you’re comfortable with. Notethat before going off and encoding

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Reply#7 | Written by frank about 2 months ago.

Reply#8 | Written by Mike about 2 months ago.

Reply#9 | Written by david about 1 month ago.

Reply#10 | Written by Ron about 4 weeks ago.

hundreds of videos, it can help to do afew test encodes on the sameepisode, using different presets.Compare the file sizes afterwards (ifusing Constant Quality) and see if thetime tradeoff is worth it to you. If usingAverage Bitrate instead of ConstantQuality, compare the quality of thevideos afterwards, and again, weigh itagainst the time it took.

Good luck.

thank you for this detailed writeup!

cheersFrank

Great Website Matt. I recently came back andchecked out your other sections and articles—-lot’sof great information. But I have to say your HBinformation is some of the best currently on the web.Excellent. For me, I’d like to see a discussion aboutusing handbrake for some of the Media Streamers onthe market (WD Live, Popcorn Hour…even some ofthe smart TV’s). Also, how about some downloadablepresets that can be further tweaked; for instancesomething for general MP4 archive or using astreaming box (there seem to be a lot of Apple/Macstuff and YouTube uploading).

Thanks for the website

Amazing content, thanks so much! Rare to find infothis good or complete even in the officialdocumentation!! It helped heaps… and I learned a lottoo. Cheers!

Finally. Someone who actually explains how some ofthese settings actually work. I’ve been reading thewiki and only get half answers. Thanks so much fortakin the time to write this up. Extremely helpful.

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Reply#11 | Written by Jan about 5 days ago.

Re.: Video menu – x264 Preset

First of all I fully agree with the other comments –GREAT website; easy to understand and veryhelpful.

I’m using Handbrake only to be able to tranfer mymany Dvd’s to my newly bought Synology NAS. I’m anormal user og Dvd’s enjoying films for what theyare: entertainment. I not a DVD/film “geek” or “nerd”interested in the finer points and technical sides oftranscoding a DVD.

Still I’m interested in the best possible quality andhighest possible speed of trancoding. I understandthre’s a trade off.

As far as I read your guide, I should be perfectly safequalitywise using Handbrakes standard “H.264(x264)” Video Codec, and should only use thesettings under the “Advanced” menu if I for somereason should alter my status from an ordinaryviewer of film to a “geeek”/”nerd” being veryinterested in the intricate and finer points oftrancoding a DVD – or is this an overstatement?

One thing, though.I’m slightly bewildered with regard to “x264 preset”under the “Video” menu.

You write that if one uses “Constant Quality”, which Ido, any setting under “x264 preset” won’t make a bitof difference – qualitywise. Quality depends on theRF setting.

However, you then continue to elaborate on thedifferences between “ultra fast, medium and placebo”settings without having stated whether thesediffences only apply to the “Avg. Bitrate” setting, tothe “Constant Quality” setting or to both settings.

Likewise I not quiet sure whether your description of“Details” apply only to “Avg. Bitrate” setting, to the“Constant Quality” setting or to both settings.

If I choose “x264 Preset”, which I do, why not use“Ultrafast” rather than f.ex. “Very Slow” and get thesame output quality?

Slower “x264 preset” like “medium” gives me a largeroutput file than when I use “very fast”?Why should I choose a transcoding that is slower andat the same time gives me a larger MP4 file?

….or am I completely missing your point?

Thanks in advanceJan

A “best settings” guide for Handbrake 0.9.9 - mattgadient.com

http://mattgadient.com/2013/06/12/a-best-settings-guide-for-handbrake-0-9-9/[25/08/2013 10:04:48 AM]

Reply#12 | Written by Matt Gadient about 5 days ago.

Reply#13 | Written by Jan about 3 days ago.

Jan,

As to the presets vs advanced settings panel, it’smainly a matter of the presets doing a great jobof getting you the most bang-for-your-buck. Thex264 devs put them together – they’re quite goodwhen it comes to bumping up the important stuffas the slider moves along. Being as easy asshifting a slider to swap between these settings isan added bonus. The way you stated it is fairlyaccurate too. There are a few situations whereusing the Advanced settings to fine tunesomething can make sense, but most of them areedge cases or used by people who are lookingfor something very specific.

On to the speed settings (ultrafast, medium,placebo, etc), they affect both avg bitrate (slowersettings tend to increase quality) and CQ (slowersettings tend to reduce file size).

As to the question of why you wouldn’t use“ultrafast” instead of “very slow”, if using CQ, theoutput quality would certainly be similar, but thefile size using ultrafast would usually be a lotlarger.

Hope some of that helps.

Many thanks for your answer. Most helpful.

I’m not only transcoding my Dvd’s to be able to playthe films on my PC or iPad. I have also bought aSynology NAS server which through WLAN is linkedto my state-of-the-art Loewe TV (a german brandwhich f.ex can play both the MP4 and MKV formats).

When trancoding my Dvd’s I’m using the followingHandbrake settings based on your excellent guide:

Format: MP4Picture: Anamorrphic is set to Strict. Cropping is setto Automatic. Display size is by default: 1024 x 576.Rest is unaltered.Filters: Default; Default; Off; Off and grayscale is alsoOffVideo: H.264 (x264) and not the advance menu –Variable Framerate – Constant Quality 19 – x264preset at Medium – H.264 Profile: High – H.264Level: 4.1Subtitles: Burned In Danish subtitlesChapters: I’ve checked the “create chapter markers”checkbox.

A “best settings” guide for Handbrake 0.9.9 - mattgadient.com

http://mattgadient.com/2013/06/12/a-best-settings-guide-for-handbrake-0-9-9/[25/08/2013 10:04:48 AM]

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