Convert DVD to Play on Tablet without losing quality

[Howie411]

Recently got a Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 which has a resolution of 1,280 x 800. From what I know a DVD has a resolution of 720x480. Every time I convert one of my DVD's to play on the tablet, its pretty pixelated (and or blocky). Is there a way to upconvert the movie so it looks decent on the tablet? When I watch a DVD on my 1080p dvd it doesn't look pixelated so I can't understand why on a lower resolution tablet it looks bad.

[aedipuss]

When I watch a DVD on my 1080p dvd it doesn't look pixelated so I can't understand why on a lower resolution tablet it looks bad.

dvds are 480 not 1080. pixelation is a problem associated with too low a bitrate. you can encode to 480p with a high bitrate or upscale to 720p if you must. try vidcoder, high preset. use video/constant quality(cq) of 18 to start, adjust down for higher bitrate larger filesizes, up to reduce quality smaller filesize.

[hech54]

Recently got a Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1

What type of video does this thing accept/play?

[johns0]

Recently got a Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1

What type of video does this thing accept/play?

They can play at least 1280x720 mkv.

[hech54]

Yes but MKV supports DTS and PCM audio....apparently the Samsung cannot......know what I mean?

[Howie411]

When I watch a DVD on my 1080p dvd it doesn't look pixelated so I can't understand why on a lower resolution tablet it looks bad.

dvds are 480 not 1080. pixelation is a problem associated with too low a bitrate. you can encode to 480p with a high bitrate or upscale to 720p if you must. try vidcoder, high preset. use video/constant quality(cq) of 18 to start, adjust down for higher bitrate larger filesizes, up to reduce quality smaller filesize.

sorry, meant to type When I watch a DVD on my 1080p TV (not DVD). Anyways so do I select Android High or High Profile? I don't see where I'm selecting a high bitrate.

Thanks,

[Hoser Rob]

I assume you tried vidcoder? You never said what you used initially.

The profile has nothing to do with the bitrate.

I'd suggest using constant quality mode instead of target bit rate/file size. At least that's what handbrake/vidcoder calls it. Technically it's called constant rate factor. Anyway, it gives you about the same quality as 2 pass bit rate and it's almost as quick as 1 pass, which doesn't give good quality. That may have been the original problem.

[Howie411]

Sorry for all the questions, I'm still new to this. Here is what I've tried so far.

1st attempt with Hand Brake: Android High - The results were 720x480, Data Rate 999kbps, 1158kbps total bite rates and 23 frames/second.

2nd attempt with Vidcoder: Android High - The Results were 720x480, Data Rate 1238kbps, 1366kbps total bite rates and 23 frames/second.

3rd attempt with Vidcoder: High Profile - The Results were 720x480, Data Rate 1479kbps, 2087kbps total bite rates and 23 frames/second.

Are you basically saying the higher the data rate and the total bit rate the less pixelated it should look? Even if the tablet resolution is higher then the source? I would have thought any time you stretch a video from the normal size your going to have an issue.

[steptoe]

Just had a quick look, and there are a couple of half-decent players for Android systems that should easily play an MKV file on your Galaxy Note ..... Weather the hardware is capable of playing it is a different situation

http://www.videolan.org/vlc/download-android.html
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mxtech.videoplayer.ad&hl=en



To do a lossless MKV of any unencrypted DVD, I personally use MakeMKV which can also handle blu-rays, and as they are literally 100% of what is on the source there is zero quality loss but the filesizes are huge. On a desktop thats not much of an issue anymore but playing it from an SD card might be. Considering the MKV rip of Prometheus blu-ray is 36.1GB !!!


I had a look at DVDFab thats on my system, and is has a profile for the Samsung Galaxy tablet 10.1, which should make the filesizes much smaller

Just run a quick DVD rip to test the profile, and it converts to an .MP4 with a final filesize of 1.18G with the original filesize using MakeMKV of 3.7GB, so a good 30% smaller and the playback quality should be perfectly acceptable on your tablet without the hardware throwing a fit

[Hoser Rob]

Handbrake and vidcoder are the same program with different interface. I think vidcoder may have more advanced h.264 options but obviously you're nowhere near that yet.

If there's a preset for your device in handbrake, use it. Again, the preset doesn't have anywhere near the difference in quality you think it does.

If the bit rate is higher it should look better. But I've seen some very bad looking very large files ... file size is directly proportional to the bit rate.

Video encoding is way more complex than bit rate, but you're not there yet either.

You need to do a lot more research. Read the handbrake docs. They're very good ... many paid programs don't have anything nearly as good.

RYFM!

[aedipuss]

Yes but MKV supports DTS and PCM audio....apparently the Samsung cannot......know what I mean?

doesn't that depend on the software player? android devices can install other players. i use android VLC on my nook HD+ and it can play 1080p mkv with DTS audio whereas the included nook player can't play mkv or DTS.

[Cornucopia]

Why convert at all? There's a good chance that just ripping + demuxing + remuxing to standard .MPG would allow it to play natively on the device. That would be the highest quality and take much less time. Yes, it will have to upscale (but not by too much), but that's going to have to happen one way or another, whether in software ahead of time or in hardware at time of playback.

Scott

[Howie411]

I don't really care how I do it, I just want to be able to play my movies on the tablet and not have them look like poo. So whatever the easiest way is what I want to do it.

[aedipuss]

then try vob2mpg. all it does is take the mpg out of the dvd vob wrapper. the video should always be fine, but you may need to install a player like vlc that can deal with dts and ac3 audio. one of the nightly builds of vlc may be your best bet. pick the one that matches your hardware, most likely the arm7-neon version.

[Howie411]

Thanks for everyone's help, I've found by using VidCoder with on Android High and bringing the constant quality down to 15, I'm able to have the movie look pretty dang good on the tablet while keeping the size under 3gigs.

[theewizard]

i'm coming to this thread late but DVD can be espected to have a bitrate around 4000kps to 6000kps if you did a straight rip, you would have a 4gig or larger file you are Not ripping, you are down converting to avi or some other container while using too low a bit rate try h264 at 2000kps in an mp4 containtainer or just do a straight change from dvd vob to mPEg one large ORIGINAL size file you want a file rip with NO recoding that low bitrate is NO good