Best handbrake settings PAL Hi8 convert?

[Ohank]

I'm trying to get the size down of AVI (40gb sometimes) made with Virtualdub. There's one with 720p but 30fps. I think PAL is 720x576 but 25fps? Any tips on the best quality at a reduced size appreciated. Thanks

[Ohank]

I don't know if this setting is any better or fits better than the "fast720p30" I used last time. I don't have a surround sound system so maybe the difference is only in audio?

[mbassiouny]

> "fast720p30"
> " I think PAL is 720x576 but 25fps?"

you answered yourself.

I am afraid you are doing this because the captures are too big and you plan to delete the 40gb files, right? if so, please purchase some extra storage when the budget allows it and keep the original captures, do not "compress"/encode them. You will probably do it wrong and regret losing the original files.

Also, handbrake is dangerous if you don't don't know what you are doing. It suggests a lot of profiles and a lot of people use them without knowing anything about them. Are you even de-interlacing these properly? Cuz I am fairly certain your current settings are just throwing out a progressive output without proper de-interlace...

[Ohank]

Appreciate the comment. I've qot a lot of tapes to do and on a budget so buying all that hard drive capacity would be not so great. Still, judging by your comment I should think about keeping the most important ones uncompressed if that's the general consensus. One capture yesterday was 75gb for one tape. I'm barely hanging on as far as technical knowledge. I've just started to get a grip on how to make a good capture. So is fast720p30 the best I can do with those kind of settings. I'll have to study what you mean by deinterlacing. Thanks

[mbassiouny]

I understand your budget concerns, which is why I said "when the budget allows it". I personally consider the cost of storage part of the project. It is a project/a hobby, it has a cost, but that's ofc my opinion, you are free to disagree.

By loosing the original captures, you irrevocably lose your ability to restore, and visually improve the quality of your captures. I don't know how serious the content is, but if it going to be rewatched more than 1 single time, you will probably the issues after you have moved on, lost the originals, and sold the equipment so you may not even be able to re-capture.

Quote:

So is fast720p30

No it is not! not p and not 30, also fast means fast encoding preset, slower encode gives smaller filesize and/or better quality. You are losing a lot here with fast. Which is why I said do not use profiles before knowing what is inside, you need to understand the 4-5 most important settings of the encoder you use (like speed/preset, crf, tune, bit depth)

Quote:

I'll have to study what you mean by deinterlacing.

I would suggest pausing your analog digitization project immediately for like a week or sth until you get the time to to read and understand these concepts. There is no point in digitizing analog sources if you don't know what they are. You need to understand the difference between interlaced and progressive. your videos are 576i not 576p. Converting them to progressive, if necessary (for distribution... etc ), requires a "special" process (it is pretty straightforward once you know what to do).

your videos will look like this if converted incorrectly



I dunno if this forum has guides on this, I am sure they do, but maybe you can start with this website
http://www.100fps.com/

Don't mind the technical part about creating Divx videos, etc, these are obsolete, but the examples and the explanations are still relevant.

EDIT: and here are useful links from digitalfaq
http://www.digitalfaq.com/guides/vid...nd-sources.htm
http://www.digitalfaq.com/guides/vid...tore-video.htm

The second one does not cover everything like rainbow, aliasing, etc but you can read more about these later when needed after capture if you plan to do restoration, the above links are the bare minimum you should know before capturing imho, specially if you are going to delete the original captures.

[mbassiouny]

Also for other readers, the guide at 100fps is PAL oriented. The fps and dimensions are obviously not the same for NTSC people (480*720 and 29.976 fps->59.94 fields instead of 25). But again concepts and methods are still the same.

(@admin please merge this to my post above, can't edit)

[Ohank]

I'm just trying to get these old tapes archived. Once that's finished I don't expect to have to try to figure out this technical stuff again. It's quite a bit over my head. I'm going to try to give as much info about my captures and if someone feels like just giving me some settings for high quality compression on Handbrake or Hybrid(I'm just hearing about that program now) it would be much appreciated. Thanks.

[mbassiouny]

Euh... The thing is, I am not suggesting those reads just for the fun of it, but simply because the question does not make much sense...

It's like asking " I want to cook food, but I don't want to learn how to turn on the cooking stove".

There is no such thing as "best handbrake settings PAL" or "high quality compression". These are very subjective, it is all about preferences. It really like cooking some steak. some of us are impatient, you want it done quickly, you eat medium, some of us are patient, they eat it well done or like eating pasta (Al dente vs fully cooked). It is a matter of test!
When you go to a restaurant, they give you a menu to pick and tweak sauces and extras as you wish. We don't have uniform food. It is the same with encoding.

Pick your preferences!
- Do you want to keep the videos interlaced or do you want to convert them to progressive (hint: what device are you gonna watch the videos on) [this is an important question on which the encoding settings will depend]
- Are you willing to spend hours for 1 single encode or minutes?
- You say "high quality compression" how much compression do you want!? 1GB per hour of content? 10GB per hour of content, both are compression.
- What is high quality to you? as long as you can still see things moving? as close as possible to the original? in-between?

Also, Handbrake (and hybrid) do not have settings, what you set is the encoder. These programs are just interfaces. It's like having Alice and Bob, 2 Italians, who both speak Italian, but you are looking for Alice's language, without looking for Bob's language. When you learn Italian, it is Italian , you can just use it to communicate with any of the 2. Once you know what x264 settings you want (assuming you will use x264 and not one of the other codecs) you can use use x264gui (the simplest interface of all of them imho), MeGUI, Hybrid, Handbrake, VirtualDub or whatever you want.

Normally what people do is: they read for a couple hours on encoding settings, try a combination 1 on a short clip, watch it, try another combination of settings, watch, compare quality, repeat few times until you reach something you are happy with between "encoding speed, quality, filesize(aka compression)"

Personally I don't care about speed at all, I would rather have smaller size, so I encode on "veryslow" or maybe "slow", rarely on "medium", never on fast, or superfast unless it is just to test the result of some avs script (which you won't need).
CRF: controls the quality, I consider the 23 (default) too high, and thus very low quality, (lower number gives better quality) My encodes vary between 10-20 depending on various factors (usually around 14-18). I know a lot of people who would go for 20+, I consider this low, others are happy with it, I know people who always fo 8-12, it's insane imo. You figure it out for yourself. (obviously the lower the crf value, the higher the quality but the bigger the file size)

hope that helps a little