Ideal Video Format?

[valnar]

1. Handbrake defaults to stretch the video to make it full-screen without loss of actual video (Anamorphic). While this works, it does this by changing the aspect ratio. Movies that normally would not fill the screen, will be stretched in one way, resulting in tall & skinny people, or short and stubby people. To get this behavior in DVD Catalyst, in Global Settings > Conversion, change the crop setting to “Fullscreen Stretch” It will remove black borders from the actual video, and then stretch the video to fill the screen completely.

Huh? Not in my experience.

PictureSettings ? HandBrake

Anamorphic (PAR) ¶

When this is enabled, HandBrake will encode anamorphically. giving you a bigger picture.
There are three different ways of doing anamorphic in HandBrake: strictly, loosely, and custom. In strict mode, the full resolution of the DVD is preserved exactly. As a result, the picture dimensions will be locked and the "Keep aspect ratio" box will be dimmed out. Loose mode will tweak the dimensions slightly so they divide evenly by 16, and allows scaling the width of the stored video. Custom mode is just that -- all settings are configurable by the user. When it is enabled, extra controls appear in the inspector.

Perhaps when you wrote your post, you should have highlighted the word "HandBrake defaults to stretch...." That was a bit disingenuous. Other options are available.

 

[dvdcatalyst]

Perhaps when you wrote your post, you should have highlighted the word "HandBrake defaults to stretch...." That was a bit disingenuous. Other options are available.

I wrote my response as a direct answer to JTAC's questions in regards of full screen video using DVD Catalyst, not to make any comments on Handbrake in particular.

I have run into one roadblock with Catalyst. How do I get the movie to appear in full screen mode. I have the Verizon Droid preset at 848x480 and have tried to remove bars from file, device, even crop them out.....each and every single time I get the horizontal black bars or part of the movie missing.

Trying to find a way to use the full Droid screen in Catalyst 3....without cutting parts of the picture out.

 

[BrianSmithton]

I have a question about encoding in Handbrake. When I try to adjust the width to 848 for the droid, it keeps defaulting back to 720. Is there something I am doing wrong? I started with the Iphone legacy settings, and tried to adjust.

 

[valnar]

I have a question about encoding in Handbrake. When I try to adjust the width to 848 for the droid, it keeps defaulting back to 720. Is there something I am doing wrong? I started with the Iphone legacy settings, and tried to adjust.

HandBrake is a little funny that way, but with good reason. Other x264 front ends are more liberal in letting you upscale.

Basically 720 is probably the width of the source (DVD, I imagine?), so there isn't much point in forcing an encode higher than the original width. However, this limitation does almost force you to use anamorphic encoding if you want to retain the 480 height resolution or something similar (minus horizontal black bars for > 1.78 AR films).

 

[jahzooo]

I've been using HandBrake as well, and so far every video I've converted has turned out great! Quick question though.

So I've been converting a bunch of music concert DVDs using HandBrake, and I've been utilizing the program's ability to create chapter markers during the conversion process. Does anyone know of any video player for Droid that supports chapter markers (so that I can easily jump from one chapter to the next)? I'm assuming this would come in handy for movies as well.

 

[dvdcatalyst]

I have a question about encoding in Handbrake. When I try to adjust the width to 848 for the droid, it keeps defaulting back to 720. Is there something I am doing wrong? I started with the Iphone legacy settings, and tried to adjust.

Most likely it's because you are using the iPhone profile itself, the iPhone can not play any files that have a higher resolution that 720x480, so it's possible that Handbrake automatically changes it back to the maximum supported to ensure compatibility with the selected device (the iPhone).
Remember the settings, and then adjust the Apple TV profile or create a custom profile, and mimic the settings, but change the screen resolution then.

Your video files might still end up with a lower resolution, if the resolution of your original file is less than the resolution you set, but the video player application will scale the video some if needed.

 

[wuyanks]

i encoded a bunch of movies using handbrake a few weeks back, and all worked perfectly. however, now, no matter what settings i use, i'm getting no video on my Droid... and of course the video works in Windows. anyone else run into this problem?

p.s.,i also can't change the video's resolutions, handbrake just reverts to the original size.

 

[dvdcatalyst]

i encoded a bunch of movies using handbrake a few weeks back, and all worked perfectly. however, now, no matter what settings i use, i'm getting no video on my Droid... and of course the video works in Windows. anyone else run into this problem?

p.s.,i also can't change the video's resolutions, handbrake just reverts to the original size.

Somewhere on these forums I read a post about someone mentioning that if you tried playing one bad video, the other ones that did work before wonht play anymore either. Try a soft-reset on your Droid and see if that helps.

As for your PS, look at my previous post in this thread.

 

[wuyanks]

i encoded a bunch of movies using handbrake a few weeks back, and all worked perfectly. however, now, no matter what settings i use, i'm getting no video on my Droid... and of course the video works in Windows. anyone else run into this problem?

p.s.,i also can't change the video's resolutions, handbrake just reverts to the original size.

Somewhere on these forums I read a post about someone mentioning that if you tried playing one bad video, the other ones that did work before wonht play anymore either. Try a soft-reset on your Droid and see if that helps.

As for your PS, look at my previous post in this thread.

thanks DVDcatalyst... not sure if it's worth mentioning, but i still have my old movies on the Droid , and they still work...

 

[dvdcatalyst]

The videos that do work, are they converted with an older version of Handbrake?

With the latest version of Handbrake a lot of things have changed. Based on their changelog : HandBrake it appears that quite a few things have changed from the previous version that affect conversions.

 

[trilerian]

Questions for dvdcatalyst. I purchased your software and ripped the new Harry Potter a few nights ago. No problems except that my pc is 7 years old and it took 2 1/2 hours to do it. I also have act1 video on my droid. Harry Potter plays fine, and using the same settings I ripped Transformers today, but the audio sync is off. I am just starting to learn this whole conversion thing stuff so please forgive my ignorance here, also what would be the best way to convert a blu-ray to play on the droid?

 

[dvdcatalyst]

Questions for dvdcatalyst. I purchased your software and ripped the new Harry Potter a few nights ago. No problems except that my pc is 7 years old and it took 2 1/2 hours to do it. I also have act1 video on my droid. Harry Potter plays fine, and using the same settings I ripped Transformers today, but the audio sync is off. I am just starting to learn this whole conversion thing stuff so please forgive my ignorance here, also what would be the best way to convert a blu-ray to play on the droid?

Hi Trilerian,

Your Transformers rip, does it have the sync issues on your computer as well?
What was the source, a video file or the actual DVD,
What settings did you use in DVD Catalyst?

thanks

 

[trilerian]

Hi Trilerian,

Your Transformers rip, does it have the sync issues on your computer as well?
What was the source, a video file or the actual DVD,
What settings did you use in DVD Catalyst?

thanks

Dvd rip, It is not perfect on quicktime, but would go unnoticed by most. I used the moto droid standard settings. I would try the HQ, but it is already taking long enough. Anyways, did a battery pull and the syncing is better now.

 

[lDemon]

for some reason i cant raise the video size in handbrake higher than width:512 can someone help me out with this....because someone has posted that i best resolution for the droid is like 848x480 or something....assistance please

 

[mr2man]

For all the people getting audio and no video using handbrake

I found by changing the video codec from h.264 to mpeg-4 that the video started working on the droid.