first time using handbrake

[Craig Alan]

this came in at under 4 gigs. so we have twice as much space if needed for better quality.

Mac Pro, macbook pro, Imacs (i7); Canon 5D Mark III/70D, Panasonic AG-HPX170/AG-HPX250P, Canon HV40, Sony Z7U/VX2000/PD170; FCP 6 certified; FCP X write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Eric Strand]

Craig – I typically adjust the Constant Quality slider, where it says RF: 20, to between 18 – 20. From what I’ve read and personally experienced, this is the range that typically gives appropriate bitrate settings. The other important slider is where it says x264 Preset: VeryFast, adjust the slider to the right to Medium or Slow.

You can also change the x264 Tune drop-down to Film if you desire. Jan Ozer, a noted compressionist does not use this option, but many other people do. I haven’t really noticed but difference either way but.

@ericstrand11

[Craig Alan]

Thanks. I have a lot of headroom in terms of size is there an adjustment to bit rate that would increase quality and not go over the 8 gig limit?

Mac Pro, macbook pro, Imacs (i7); Canon 5D Mark III/70D, Panasonic AG-HPX170/AG-HPX250P, Canon HV40, Sony Z7U/VX2000/PD170; FCP 6 certified; FCP X write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Craig Alan]

I just tried those setting on a 3.66 gig file which got reduced to 94MB and it looks really good. I made the slider really slow. Does this increase file size or just improves quality?

Mac Pro, macbook pro, Imacs (i7); Canon 5D Mark III/70D, Panasonic AG-HPX170/AG-HPX250P, Canon HV40, Sony Z7U/VX2000/PD170; FCP 6 certified; FCP X write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Eric Strand]

I wouldn’t go any lower than “slow”; the tradeoff between the amount of time it takes to encode and the quality boost you get is not worth it.

Using a bitrate calculator shows that you can go up to a bitrate of 11,500 kbps and be under 8GB with an 1.5 hour video.

@ericstrand11

[Craig Alan]

Thanks Eric, I encoded the 1.5 video in handbrake and it looks very good. I stayed with your suggestions and didn’t play with a manual bit rate setting. Changing it to slow it came in just over 4gigs and looks to my eyes very close to the original. At least on a 21.5 inch computer screen. We’re throwing in a bunch of stills as a bonus so we’ll have plenty of room for those, though we might need to compress them as well.

Mac Pro, macbook pro, Imacs (i7); Canon 5D Mark III/70D, Panasonic AG-HPX170/AG-HPX250P, Canon HV40, Sony Z7U/VX2000/PD170; FCP 6 certified; FCP X write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.