r/handbrake

I want to turn a video with 4K resolution to 3840x1600

I’ve been trying this for different speeds and different ref setting and this has been consistently the case. How can I compare the quality of these different settings?

I have a large AVI file which was ripped from a single old VHS Home Movie tape. It plays entirely fine, with correct video and audio when I use Windows Media Player or VLC.

NB The AVI is a collection of clips taken by an old camcorder around 20 years ago. I now want to try to edit down these clips to make a useful library of smaller files.

The problem is that when I import the AVI into Adobe Premiere OR convert it to MP4 using Handbrake some (and only some) of the clips in the original AVI have their audio slowed down. Other clips remain perfect.

It's a very weird problem and I'm not sure what is causing the issue as everything is fine when I play the AVI in it's entirety - any ideas?

I've been converting DVDs to MP4 videos and have succesfully done about 10 so far. However, I have to DVDs that are giving me trouble. HB goes through and encodes everything with no errors but when the job reaches 100%, the time elapsed just contunes increasing and the ETA stays 00:00:00. I have to cancel the job to get it to stop. A finished file is created but is almost double the length of the source and has the scenes out of order. The only settings I've changed are:

Interlace Detection: Off

Deinterlace: Yadif

Preset: Bob

Framrate: 59.94

The log even tells me the job has finished successfully even when I cancel the job.

Hi, I’ve been encoding with x264 for a while using this config:

• Preset: VerySlow
• 2‑pass, 4700 kbps
• tune: film
• Everything else same as source
• Config: aq-mode=3:qcomp=0.7

This gave me great results for micro 1080p.

Now I want to switch to AV1. I tested with Blade Runner 2049, and the encode took about 4–5 hours (similar to my x264 2‑pass times). But I’m not sure if my settings are optimal, because the output file size didn’t quite make sense to me.

First test:
AV1 10‑bit, preset 4, tune=vq, CRF 14, plus some advanced settings I can’t fully recall.
Result: 2 GB for a 2h40min movie.

Current test:
CRF 10, with these advanced options:
enable-qm=1:enable-variance-boost=1:film-grain-denoise=1:film-grain=12

(Left it encoding this morning, it said 5h) (btw, I use a ryzen 5 5600, it is not a best, thats why it isn't making sense to me)

Does anyone have suggestions for a good AV1 encoding setup that would be roughly equivalent to my old x264 quality (VerySlow, 4700 kbps 2‑pass, tune film)? I’m targeting transparent or near‑transparent quality for 1080p.

Thanks in advance!

I read previous people talking about reducing cores under the video tab. Trying to render some stuff with a 14900K with the oversised NZXT cooler, 4 intake and 3 exhaut fans and its hitting 95 degrees here and there. I want to be at 85 degrees or less.

How do you limit performance in rendering in the current version of Handbrake?

Does anyone know why, when I encode a video with HandBrake, the final file doesn't contain any information about the bitrate ?

im no expert but im pretty sure the total bitrate is above zero

Help! I'm a relative novice here but I'm about to start digitizing my physical media collection and I'm running into a bit of a wall. Basically I just want to preserve the audio options from the disc in the files I make.

I see handbrake pushing me towards mixing everything down into AAC Stereo by default - in 2026 isn't that insane? I have a 5.1 setup and want to maximize that, and maybe some day I'll have a 7.1, but obviously I don't want to kneecap myself if I'm watching on my phone or wearing headphones or something that is truly stereo.

I'm also a bit lost on all the Dolby options.

Is there a braindead, flexible, future proof option I should choose or could bake into a preset?

Thanks!

I have recorded a lot of self-vlogs in 4k60 with my Pocket 3 and I realize I do not need really to keep them at that resolution. I use handbrake to compress them in Mac using the VideoToolbox video encoder and 85% of the time, the converted file is smaller than the original. The only issue that I have is I have to keep my M1 Max on and do the conversion.

I have thought about delegating the conversion (handbrake via docker image) in my ugreen nas (4800plus) but the "best quality" using Intel QSV results to file larger than the original and felt the video looks worse vs the converted quality in Mac. Is there any specific setting that I should consider to at least match the Mac's output.

Just curious, why would I keep/remove the default tweaks for H265 MKV 2160p60 4K preset:

>strong-intra-smoothing=0:rect=0:aq-mode=1:rd=4:psy-rd=0.75:psy-rdoq=4.0:rdoq-level=1:rskip=2

I realised that removing rskip=2 and/or rect=0 (please confirm?) more than doubles the encode speed on Slow preset.

I'm not sure what the other parameters do – could someone tell me, based on their experience or using or removing them? Thank you.

I’m trying to understand how often reference picture list modification is actually used in HEVC/H.265 bitstreams.

In HEVC, after the temporary reference picture lists (RefPicListTemp0/1) are derived using the default rules, the spec allows overriding/reordering them when lists_modification_present_flagis enabled.

In practice, for HEVC-encoded video, how common is it to see ref_pic_list_modification_flag_l0 == 1 and/or ref_pic_list_modification_flag_l1 == 1? Are these flags frequently set in real streaming/VOD encodes, or are they relatively rare?

Also, in what situations does list modification typically show up?

An AI assistant told me that it’s more likely with many reference pictures or hierarchical B (pyramid) GOP structures, and that L1 modifications are more common than L0. Is that actually correct? If not, what’s the more accurate way to think about it?

(As a note: the AI has given me incorrect answers a few times before, so I’d appreciate guidance from people with real bitstream/encoder experience.)

Why can't I encode an MKV to match the same colours as the original source?

[Source]:

No extra bloom or contrast; colours are rich and standard HDR-looking.

[Encode 1 - Colorspace: Off]:

• H.265 10-bit (x265)
• RF 23.5
• Preset: Slow
• Tune: grain
• Color Range: Same As Source
• Colorspace: Off
• Additional Options: strong-intra-smoothing=0:rect=0:aq-mode=1:rd=4:psy-rd=0.75:psy-rdoq=4.0:rdoq-level=1:rskip=2

Results: contrast seems too high with added bloom effect.

[Encode 2 - Colorspace: BT.2020]:

• H.265 10-bit (x265)
• RF 23.5
• Preset: Slow
• Tune: grain
• Color Range: Same As Source
• Colorspace: BT.2020
• Additional Options: strong-intra-smoothing=0:rect=0:aq-mode=1:rd=4:psy-rd=0.75:psy-rdoq=4.0:rdoq-level=1:rskip=2

Results: Colours look faded/washed out