Handbrake compression movie#
Handbrake compression mp4#

Settings like “fast” basically means: we’re doing our best to maintain a reasonable quality, but speed of conversion is our main goal. The faster you try to encode a movie, the less “good” (in size and quality) the result will be. The same goes for converting movies/video. This rule goes for pretty much anything in life: the difference between doing it fast and doing it well. ( reference)ĭoing things in a hurry gives half-assed results. Going below that value will not add improvements to your copy, and will only increase the file size unnecessarily. You will have to keep in mind that DVD’s and even Blu-Ray discs are compressed in such a way that they already come with “loss” – i.e.

You’d end up with a gigantic file, larger than the original file, and with zero improvements on the picture quality. For HD video (720p and up) an RF of 21 – 23 is recommended, and some even recommend “30” – but you’ll have to play a little with this to find what works best for you.Īlso keep in mind that RF=0 means NO COMPRESSION at all, which is … useless. The default value is set to “20” which can be considered adequate for a DVD copy. HandBrake has a slider at “Constant Quality” allowing you to set an RF value, between 50 (low quality) and 0 (highest quality). Quality Setting for “Constant Quality” can be overdone. Rule of thumb: When converting never use a bitrate higher than the source file. “Single pass” encoding however has become significantly better these days. The good thing of “double pass” – and that is just my opinion – is that it does a pre-flight analysis of your video source, allowing it to better anticipate changes in the video. Note that so called “single pass” encoding can result in a less good quality or less efficient compression when compared to “multi pass” or “double pass” encoding – but that doesn’t have to be the case. It will only increase the file size but most certainly not increase quality – and probably even make the quality worse.

Handbrake compression mp4#

High bitrates do not guarantee quality but seriously impact file size.Īlthough in general there is a good correlation between quality and bitrate, a higher bitrate is not a guarantee for quality.įor example when transcoding a existing MP4 file with a low bitrate, to an MP4 with a high bitrate is total nonsense. For example: older devices that are h264 capable might not yet support the newer “options” of this codec, resulting in crappy or even unplayable files. These settings or options can also be the root of all problems. The compression settings can make it that an old MPEG-2 codec can actually out perform a modern codec like h264. Some codecs (en Coder/ Decoder) are more efficient than others when it comes to compressing and storage. The common containers (AVI, MP4, MKV) typically support a variety of so called codecs (en Coder/ Decoders) and the selection of the codec is what influences quality and file size.Ī great codec is not a guarantee for quality but has a great influence on file size. MKV is (in my humble opinion) better, but not as widely supported. AVI is widely supported but MP4 is definitely the strong upcoming format to use. Therefor I’d recommend using the container that is most compatible with your devices and/or software. Since the “container” file has a minimal or even negligible impact on file size or quality. The chosen file format, or “container”, has hardly any effect on file size or quality (MP4, MKV, AVI). So based on personal experience (note that I’m not an expert) a few pointers:

Handbrake compression movie#

The times that encoding a movie from DVD took 8 hours are long gone, most of my computers can convert a DVD easily under 15 minutes. The time to encode a movie should be irrelevant – sometimes the time difference is really not worth it, for a few minutes extra you will get a better quality and/or smaller file size.

Personally I believe that fine tuning should be a balance between file size and quality. Optimizing or fine tuning of video encoders comes basically down to: