So, for some time now I have been using my own custom HandBrake settings when encoding for the AppleTV. I have two eSata modded AppleTV’s and by and large these HandBrake settings have been stellar. They have also been used by other HandBrake testers and fervent users on stock AppleTv’s with much success. So I figured I would post them here now.

Having said that though, I suggest these settings be used with one of the snapshots posted on the HandBrake forums. HandBrake 0.9.3 is almost a year old and the current HandBrake snapshots produce much smaller files with better quality than the older 0.9.3 public release.

1. To start, pick the Apple > AppleTV preset in HandBrake which is built in.

2. Instead of the built in presets constant quality of RF 20, slide the slider up so you get RF 19.25 ( RF goes lower as your quality gets higher, much like in golf ). One word of warning: constant quality is determined based on the source file. 19.25 is proven for SD DVD. Now if you are doing HD sources like say a 720P or 1080p mkv or whatever, then try more like RF 23 or so as 19.25 on HD sources will give you a pretty high bitrate depending on the source file.

3. Click on the Advanced panel and paste this string into the ” Advanced Options String ” textbox at the bottom (note the crappy code box.. gotta work on it but functions just fine):

Here’s our original post on optimizing HandBrake settings for the best quality.

If you’re anything like me, and you rip your movies at the highest quality possible, you’ll never want to lose your data.  Those large file sizes and long rip times should never have to happen again. If you lost all that data, think of how long it would take to re-rip your whole DVD library.  That’s why you want to back up your files.

How to:

Lets face it, inevitably your hard drive is going to go kaput.  Wouldn’t you feel better if you had a backup of all that data?  These days, hard drives are cheap, but finding a good backup solution that works for you could still end up being costly. I’m going to look at two solutions here.  One’s cheap and requires some initial set up from you, and the other is a little more costly, but is a no brainer for security and ease of use.

The first solution is to just go purchase a second hard drive, in most cases you’ll be getting an external USB drive of some sort. Get something large and cheap, hopefully large enough to hold your collection.  Drives come in sizes up to 1TB currently unless you buy a RAID set up (see step two). A 1TB drive can hold roughly 200 5GB movies.  Obtaining the drive is the first part, the second will be to install an application that you can use to automatically copy the files over to the drive for you. On the Mac, I would recommend something like SuperDuper! It features basic scripting where you can set it up to backup your files in the middle of the night when you’re away from the computer. This is a fairly secure method, however there’s always that .01% chance that both drives fail at the same time. Eww.

The second solution is a RAID (Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks) setup. For a setup like this, I’m going to recommend a Drobo storage device. The benefits of a setup like this is immense. First off, this isn’t a backup solution, it’s a storage solution that provides redundancy if a drive fails.  No backup’s necessary. You’ll store your whole library on this device. It’s a set of four drives in one storage unit.  The magic of Drobo is that if one drive fails, another drive has it it mirrored, and you just pull the defective drive out, and stick a new one in.  What’s even better about the Drobo is that you can swap in drives of any size.  Let’s say you stuck in a 500GB drive because it was cheap, later on if it fails or you just want more storage, yank the drive out and stick in a 1TB drive. The drives can be hot swapped, you can use any size, and you don’t have to worry about losing data, the Drobo takes care of everything for you.  The only down side is that a fully loaded Drobo with 4 drives will cost you $750 or more depending on the size of the drives you use.

Leave a message in the comments if you have a solution that works for you. Now go back up your media!

You might be unhappy with the the video quality of the DVD rips you’re getting from Handbrake. Don’t fret.  Almost all the devices you are ripping files for can handle higher bitrates.

How to:

Lets take for example, the Apple TV.  When you currently rip a DVD using the built in preset for Apple TV, you’ll notice that the standard average bitrate (kbps) is set to 2,000.  What does this mean?  It means the compression rating is set to allow only 2,000 kbps of data throughput per second.  If you up that rate, there is more data, less compression, hence more quality in the image.  The Apple TV can actually handle around 5,000 kpbs, but begins to lock up with any more.  In most of my DVD rips for the Apple TV, I usually change the setting to around 4,500 kbps.  This is more than twice the quality of the default setting, and provides an image that looks almost indistinguishable from the original DVD.

DVD’s are typically encoded at around 8,000 kbps bitrate.  Despite the fact that my Apple TV setting is not quite half that, the quality appears to be just as good.  This is due to the type of compression used in the Apple TV.  Compression algorithms have become extremely efficient compared to the days of DVD. DVD’s are encoded with MPEG2 compression, and the Apple TV files are encoded with .h264, which is an extremely efficient high quality compression algorithm.  As a result you can compress more data into a smaller bitrate.

The second setting we can look at changing would be the 2-pass encoding section.  You will want to check mark this setting. Since a VBR (variable bit rate) encoder will vary the bitrate depending on the complexity of the images, it tends to make mistakes from time to time. Handbrake can do two passes to correct for the compression mistakes. The encoder will make a first pass at encoding the video, then start from the top and do it again. When finished, the encoder analyzes the results before finalizing. By using 2 passes and analysis, the encoder is less likely to make a mistake in choosing the appropriate bit rates.

Due to the fact that you are now essentially encoding the disk twice, it will obviously take twice as long, and due to the higher bit rate, more space is required on your hard drive. But you can be assured that high motion scenes in your DVD’s don’t lose any quality due to abrupt motion artifacts.

Take one afternoon, and experiment with the bitrate and your end device.  You might find that your PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, or other device can also handle a lot more data than the default settings lead you to believe.

Most movies you download from the internet will be in .MKV container format with .h264 video and DTS Surround audio. While the Apple TV can play .h264 video, it cannot play DTS sound, nor can it do this from an .MKV container format. This post will show you how to convert an .MKV into a format that will play on a non-hacked Apple TV maintaining the surround sound.

Prerequisites:

• An Intel Mac
• Apple TV
• CrossOver (Allows you to run Windows applications without Windows)
• MKV Audio Converter (Set of Windows conversion tools)
• Perian (audio/video codecs for the Mac)
• Visual Hub (audio/video encoder for the Mac)