Need Help With Deciding on Bitrates

[W1nks]

Hi, I'm new to ripping DVDs/BluRays and have some questions.

I am trying to decide on what bitrate to go with for my rips. I will have 3 different types of main settings. I will rip some movies to 1080p, some to 720p, and just one for DVDs. I want my rips to lose almost no quality but be able to cut down on the size a little bit. I will be using h.264 in an mkv file for this via Handbrake.

My question is what should I set for the bitrate on these (and other setttings)?

Right now I left it at default for everything and am just doing a 2 pass variable bitrate. For DVD TV show rips I have the bitrate at 1200kbps and for DVD movies I have 1400kbps. Both have decomb on default. Those are the only settings I changed. Is this good for DVDs in terms of saving a little space but keeping good quality? It doesn't look like I lost much quality at all and I get a little over 400MB for a 40 minute episode and about 1.2GB for an hour and half movie.

I haven't started Blu-Rays yet so this is my more important question. What would you recommend for the bitrate and any other settings I can change. I've tried searching around but haven't really found a conclusive answer.

Audio isn't really a concern. If it's Dolby Digital 2.0 I just leave it untouched because you don't save much space. If it's 5.1 I will put it to AC3 256(DVDs) and probably 320/640 for BluRays unless it's a good action movie which I will leave the DTS-HD.

Any help is appreciated. Thanks!

[aedipuss]

you might try vidcoder(a handbrake gui) and use constant quality mode. find the setting you like - 20 or so seems popular, i usually go for 18ish. it allows you to create your own presets once you find what you like.


[edit] welcome to the forum.

[jagabo]

I use CRF 18 in x264. There will be a little posterization, especially in dark areas. To get rid of that you have to drop down to CRF 12 or so. But at that setting the files will usually be as big as the source.

There is no single bitrate that will work for all movies. Every movie is different and will require a different bitrate to maintain quality. That's why it makes more sense to use constant quality encoding. You pick the quality, the encoder uses whatever bitrate is necessary to maintain that quality. Only use bitrate based encoding when you need a file of a particular size. Like 700 MB to fit on a CD, or 4.3 GB to fit on a DVD.

[somespirit]

you can find some information on settings here - http://www.avidemux.org/admWiki/doku.php?id=tutorial:h.264#overview

[W1nks]

So it seems constant the way to go. Even for DVD rips? It sounds like 18-20ish for BluRays? Should you use that same range for DVDs? Also is the lower the number the better quality?

I did try a BluRay with constant and TrueHD and noticed when I skip ahead sometimes it takes a bit for the audio to get started. Is this normal? Will this cause any problems streaming the video?

Thanks a lot for the responses so far!

[jagabo]

I use CRF 18 for DVD rips. You should convert a few short clips and see what quality level you prefer (lower CRF = higher quality). The kind of clips that cause problems with h.264 encoding (and many other compression schemes) are dark scenes, noisy shots, foggy or smokey shots, etc. Watch for posterization artifacts, creepy crawly stuff in the shadows.

[W1nks]

Would the variable bitrate solve the problem for those dark scenes?

[jagabo]

CRF is variable bitrate. Each frame gets whatever bitrate it needs to maintain the quality you requested.

[W1nks]

Sorry, I'm getting everything mixed up. Anyways what would be the solution for dark scenes?

[manono]

Sorry, I'm getting everything mixed up. Anyways what would be the solution for dark scenes?

He already told you:

I use CRF 18 in x264. There will be a little posterization, especially in dark areas. To get rid of that you have to drop down to CRF 12 or so. But at that setting the files will usually be as big as the source.

Just run some experiments and find out what suits you best.

[somespirit]

i use 2-pass automated x264 and Bits/(Pixel*Frame) - 0.220 or 0.200 (you can go even with 0.150, no big impact on quality) then you can calculate bitrate for your resolution using any bitrate calc:



here are my x264 settings inside Megui:

[jagabo]

Bits/(Pixel*Frame), often called "quality factor", is a poor measure of quality. Take a look at the videos in this post:

https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/295672-A-problem-for-video-experts?p=1811057&viewfu...=1#post1811057

The video with the lowest Qf (Gspot can tell you the Qf for AVI files) is the best quality.

[somespirit]

you know better ........