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HTC EVO Handbrake Settings with Video

Odd. I tried to encode some Dr. Who to see what it would be like, but... HandBrake gets the source resolution wrong. The source resolution is 1024x576, but HandBrake insists that it's 720x576--which is obviously wrong. It's not even consistent, in that it tells me that the aspect ratio of the source is 1.78--which is obviously not true if the source is 720x576. So... I can't make my resolution 800x450 because it thinks the source is smaller than that. But it's not. Gr.

EDIT: Managed to get the right resolution out of it by switching the anamorphic setting to custom and typing in my desired resolution. It still reads the wrong source resolution, but allowed me to get what I wanted... I just hope that the quality is right, considering the encountered oddities.

thedoctor.png
 
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I've not had one video encoded with Anamorphic play on any mobile phone.
What's your source? I could be wrong but DVD is 480p, Blue-Ray is 1080p.

you are correct. an NTSC dvd rip is 720x480. the height wouldn't be a problem but the width would if you want full screen results. i've grabbed up a 720p rip of Alice in Wonderland (since i actually haven't seen it) and am about to mess around in handbrake. should be simple.

720p = 1280x720

edit: also, i'm starting with an MP4 file.
edit2: going from 1280x720 to a width of 800 and keeping aspect ratio, that goes to 800x448.

@OP, dude, how did you get it to full screen like that? :thinking:
 
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I used the settings I gave on the video. I can't take the credit for it though. I found them on the xdadevelopers site.

what were the dimensions of the video file you started with? 800x480 isn't a native video aspect ratio, meaning whatever you started with, if you got it to go full screen, i would think you are cutting off video from the sides.

when typing 800 as a width into handbrake, and keeping aspect ratio, the width goes to 448 instead of 480. if you type in 480 as your height, then the width goes to 848 respectively. so again, lol, would you mind telling us what the original video dimensions were? thank you :)
 
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I've been playing with Handbreak all weekend seeing what settings I like best. However, I was wondering if there is an app that will let me watch .avi files on my future EVO. That would really be the best bet for me as I have tons of .avi files which I wouldn't need to convert. Any chance there is an app out there or am I way off base.
 
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And if we're ripping from DVD what is the best way to get the largest and truest picture?

the largest you can get is 720x480 (unless handbrake has up-scaling), which will show bars on the sides instead of the bottom, also known as pillarbox.

even if you did up-scale the width, it would cut off some of the height at that point if you wanted to keep the same aspect ratio.

hope that makes sense.
 
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The main question for me is what the Evo will do with an encoded video that has the black bars cropped out. Previous phones, and I'm assuming the Evo stretches the video vertically distorting the image.

@zhens I'd use the "optimal for source" setting with no Auto or Loose crop.
That will show the black bars and give a resolution very close to to actual but...
The Linux version shows a presentation resolution AND cropped resolution.
On the widescreen Transformer2 I've been testing with last two days, the "Cropped" is 720x480 but the "Scaling" is 848x480 which is what VLC reports.

http://img69.imageshack.us/i/vlcsnap00012j.png/
 
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The main question for me is what the Evo will do with an encoded video that has the black bars cropped out. Previous phones, and I'm assuming the Evo stretches the video vertically distorting the image.

@zhens I'd use the "optimal for source" setting with no Auto or Loose crop.
That will show the black bars and give a resolution very close to to actual but...
The Linux version shows a presentation resolution AND cropped resolution.
On the widescreen Transformer2 I've been testing with last two days, the "Cropped" is 720x480 but the "Scaling" is 848x480 which is what VLC reports.


i started with a true 720p vid, meaning no black bars. i can set it at the same res, 848x480, and have full screen, no bars, but it will cut off some on both sides. our device isn't native 16:9 so that's the problem.

and your numbers are confusing me. if you scaled from 720x480 to 848x480, you would be stretching the video horizontally, and it doesn't look stretched. i bet VLC is set to the source aspect ratio, which is making your screen shot look normal...

keep in mind that if you all are starting with a 720x480 and up-scaling, you are losing some quality as well.
 
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ya it is. i dont think this is good for me, i hit START anyway and its gonna take 8+ hours.. guess my comp is old/slow.

is your source video size 608 x 336? if it is, then it won't go higher. i don't believe that handbrake scales up. at least i'm not finding anything when searching that says it does.

when i imported a 720x480 vid file, i am seeing what you mean. uncheck "keep aspect ratio" and manually enter in the width and height, making sure that all cropping is set to 0. you will have to click custom if it's not and set it to that.

and yes, i'd recommend at least a Core 2 Duo processor. takes mine 2hrs to encode a 1hr 48min vid. what you could do is let it run over night when you go to sleep.
 
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Anybody concerned about encode time should switch to FFmpeg. It has a slight loss in quality but it encoded 3-5x faster on my system.

i started with a true 720p vid, meaning no black bars. i can set it at the same res, 848x480, and have full screen, no bars, but it will cut off some on both sides. our device isn't native 16:9 so that's the problem.

and your numbers are confusing me. if you scaled from 720x480 to 848x480, you would be stretching the video horizontally, and it doesn't look stretched. i bet VLC is set to the source aspect ratio, which is making your screen shot look normal...

keep in mind that if you all are starting with a 720x480 and up-scaling, you are losing some quality as well.
Again, since I don't have an Evo in my Hands, I'll assume that it will fit the largest side to the screen and and not do any cropping/

I'm not sure what HandBrake is doing, it's NOT VLC, I'm sure it has something to do with widescreen DVD. This is where things get complex and anamorphic widescreen may come into play.
After reading and rereading the wikipedia article is has something to do with taking a larger resolution, 16:9, and squeezing it into the standard DVD, 4:3, resolution and letting the player decided which to show. 848x480 is 16:9.
 
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Anybody concerned about encode time should switch to FFmpeg. It has a slight loss in quality but it encoded 3-5x faster on my system.

Again, since I don't have an Evo in my Hands, I'll assume that it will fit the largest side to the screen and and not do any cropping/

I'm not sure what HandBrake is doing, it's NOT VLC, I'm sure it has something to do with widescreen DVD. This is where things get complex and anamorphic widescreen may come into play.
After reading and rereading the wikipedia article is has something to do with taking a larger resolution, 16:9, and squeezing it into the standard DVD, 4:3, resolution and letting the player decided which to show. 848x480 is 16:9.

yes. i know but...nvm. you'll see when you load that on your device. it's going to do one of two things with a video of that size.
1. it will clip off the sides (similar to a standard DVD vs widescreen)
2. downscale to fit the screen, in turn producing black bars on the top and bottom
-according to the OP, it looks like what happens is option 1.

in option 2, you'll end up with the same video as me, where my settings are 800x448.

and i've messed around with a widescreen DVD that does already have black bars. i understand that 848x480 is 16:9 (it's actually off by a little bit 1.77778 - 16:9 to 1.766668 - ~16:9).

what i was trying to say, though, was that i don't understand how you have 720x480 and then 848x480. handbrake doesn't have an up-scaler, that i know of, and even if it did, you would be changing the aspect ratio because you are stretching the width of the video. does that make sense?

if you take a photo that's 400x400 and then resize it, without keeping the aspect ratio, to something like 900x400, it then stretches the image horizontally and it looks distorted.
 
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Like I said: I believe it has to do with the anamorphic widescreen on the DVD itself.
From my understanding the DVD contains the actual 16:9 resolution but it's compressed to 4:3.
The player can uncompress it back to 16:9 without distorting the image. It's the 4:3 that will be distorted.

I really hope it doesn't really cut off the sides. I encode with the letterbox mostly so extra won't make a difference. But yeah 800x448 is the same as 848x480. I'm just being lazy. With "Optimal for source" checked HandBrake will convert a widescreen to widescreen or a normal to normal without me changing the resolution each time :)

Here's a comparison of FFmpeg vs. my tweaked H.264 settings:



I doubt this amount of detail would show up on the Evo's screen.
This one chapter is 3.5mb larger. FFmpeg will be about 722mb/hour vs. 684mb/hour for H.264.
 
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i have unsuccessfully been able to convert a vid that actually plays. i have no idea what's going on, but i'm giving up on handbrake. i can find something else to do this job. the video, when trying to play it back in VLC, just won't play through completely, and the length will be something crazy like 5hrs+.

edit: i'm gonna try MPEG-4 and see what happens with high quality settings.
edit: that was a fail as well. so looks like i'm off to find something else. thanks.
 
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