Properly encode with Handbrake?

[Kocane]

I'm using AmarecTV to capture PAL video via my Hauppaueg USB-Live2. I use Lagarith for video and "uncompressed" for audio. I then want to make more easily shareable versions with e.g. Handbrake.

My issue is that it spits out an AVI that contains no metadata, so Handbrake seemingly doesn't know what to do with it. I can't even force it to encode in 768x576, it insists on 720x576. Furthermore, it can't seem to figure out what field to interlace first so the output obviously look terrible.

Anyone got some good tips on how I can make this process easier? Ideally I'd just embed into the files some information about the video so that players and encoders alike know what to do with it.

Thanks

[thestarswitcher]

I made a similar reply to a different thread- I use Hybrid for my encoding. What you need, is for the encoder to insert the actual ratio flag to your file. This is the best way I can put it:

Quote:

Originally Posted by thestarswitcher

When you capture lossless AVI, everything is displayed in Square Pixels (1:1). So the reason NTSC looks "stretched", this is the cause, as literal 720 pixels wide and 480 pixels high.

Now when you pop in an NTSC DVD file, do you notice that the resolution is 720x480, but it's being displayed as 640x480? This is because the pixels are being assigned a flag to display in 4:3, adhering to the laws of NTSC video standard without resizing.

To do this in Hybrid, go to Cropping and tick both boxes "Force Input PAR" and "Force Output PAR"- type in 8x9, this is MPEG-2 NTSC DVD ratio, but it's also appropriate for SD AVC files. When you do this, you retain the resolution but you change the "shape" of the pixels- so they're no longer square, but a ratio that matches with what we see as 4:3. Make sure your resolution is 720x480 all the way through.

In terms of YouTube, you want to have the size as 1440x1080, 1:1. The reason for this being is that if you have it any lower, your video quality will suffer worse from the compression compared to how it was. Make sure you deinterlace properly as well.

Important; for YouTube, follow this encoding specs guide provided by the site- all settings configurable in Hybrid. Hope this helps!
https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/1722171?hl=en

[Kocane]

Quote:

Originally Posted by thestarswitcher

I made a similar reply to a different thread- I use Hybrid for my encoding. What you need, is for the encoder to insert the actual ratio flag to your file. This is the best way I can put it:

Thanks for the reply. Do you know what the equivalent pixel aspect is for PAL? I need to make the video 768x576, but by golly I can't figure it out.

[thestarswitcher]

For PAL, it would be 16x15 for a standard 4:3 video

[Kocane]

Quote:

Originally Posted by thestarswitcher

For PAL, it would be 16x15 for a standard 4:3 video

When I disable any cropping, and input 16x15 pixel aspect, handbrake gives me a size of 676x576

[lordsmurf]

This is the main reason that Handbrake is crappy software. It doesn't understand aspects, and fights you, sometimes making it impossible to change. No issues with anything else ever, unique to Handbrake. Hybrid is better anyway, use it instead.

[Kocane]

Quote:

Originally Posted by lordsmurf

This is the main reason that Handbrake is crappy software. It doesn't understand aspects, and fights you, sometimes making it impossible to change. No issues with anything else ever, unique to Handbrake. Hybrid is better anyway, use it instead.

I'll try Hybrid for the future. Earlier today I encoded a video with Vidcoder instead, that allowed me to just specify the size (768x576) while keeping pixel aspect ratio of 1/1. That should be fine, right? Furthermore, neither of these applications seem to allow me to specify which field to deinterlace first but if I set "interlace detection" to off in Vidcoder, it seemingly worked out fine.

[thestarswitcher]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kocane

I'll try Hybrid for the future. Earlier today I encoded a video with Vidcoder instead, that allowed me to just specify the size (768x576) while keeping pixel aspect ratio of 1/1. That should be fine, right? Furthermore, neither of these applications seem to allow me to specify which field to deinterlace first but if I set "interlace detection" to off in Vidcoder, it seemingly worked out fine.

PAL video is 720x576. Displayed, the size of the pixels equate to 768x576.

When you encode your piece, you want it as 720x576, with the pixel aspect ratio as 16x15