[The Godfather]

If you can't wait for the iTunes movie availability, (for most people, the wait could be forever), you need to rip it yourself, and optimize it with Handbrake, FFMPEG, or other similar tools.

Keeping in mind the 2048x1536 native resolution, no one will argue that there are more than enough pixels to present the cinematic experience that Hollywood has prepared for you in the HD release. But the problem is the 100000 remaining pixels, on the sides, top and bottom, what about them?

Letterbox into a 6-7" viewable frame, skip lines, double-pixel, interpolate, or upscale? Vote and comment.

Of course, let's pretend everyone here has a 64GB or better HD iPad.

[mduell]

HandBrake, iPad preset, bump the maxwidth/maxheight to match the new dimensions, non-anamorphic*, raise the RF to 22 or so.

Don't upscale or line double before encoding. Keep the source resolution and let the device do the upscaling after rendering.

For content that doesn't match the AR of the screen, I'm a fan of the compromise crop: change the aspect ratio to the geometric average of the display AR and the content AR by cropping. It still leaves some letterboxing, but makes slightly better use of the screen area.
For 16:9 1080p content (TV), crop 128 pixels from each size to end up with a 1664x1080 picture (1.54:1 AR).
For 2.4:1 1080p content (movies), crop 240 pixels from each side to end up with a 1440x800 picture (1.8:1 AR).

* Loose anamorphic mod 2 for anamorphic sources like DVD, but most HD sources aren't.

[Salty]

I've just been using Air Video.

[The Godfather]

On 802.11N wifi?

[mutelight]

I don't really care about 1080p so I just use AV Player HD and let it handle the transcoding.

You can copy files via USB or WiFi and is supports many formats.

[Camali]

For every avi and DVD that've I've converted the sound effects/music are always louder than the actual dialogue. I use the iPad preset but I can't get the audio quite right. Any suggestions?

[mduell]

Originally Posted by Camali 

For every avi and DVD that've I've converted the sound effects/music are always louder than the actual dialogue. I use the iPad preset but I can't get the audio quite right. Any suggestions?

Use DRC to crush the dynamic range of the audio track.

[mutelight]

Originally Posted by mduell 

Use DRC to crush the dynamic range of the audio track.

This should definitely help.

The problem is that anything that is in Dolby Digital 5.1 and is then downmixed to 2 channels, it misses the dial norm meta data and the single center channel audio is competing against the other 5 channels in the mix so it can become buried.

[OrAaron]

mduell,

I registered for this forum just to thank you. I had actually tried using Air PlayIt to convert videos for the new iPad. The program still has no conversion setting for the new iPad and when I chose "original resolution", I got bunk results every time.

With your instructions, I'm already flipping through screenshots and about to run calculations to see just how much of an experience I can squeeze in by fine tuning my RF.

Thank you, very much.

Aaron

[mduell]

Originally Posted by OrAaron 

With your instructions, I'm already flipping through screenshots and about to run calculations to see just how much of an experience I can squeeze in by fine tuning my RF.

For full HD sources, most people fall into three groups: RF 20 (retards), RF 23 (reasonable people), and RF 26 (the blind). A point or a half point on RF isn't going to make a big difference in your file sizes; every 6 points will double or halve the file size.

[Eug]

When going from high quality 1080p -> 720p, I've used 19ish on some files. RF 23 sometimes has a pretty noticeable drop in video quality. I generally don't go above 20. I guess that makes me retarded.

Oh and I never ever crop.

[The Godfather]

Surely the iPad has the pixels to display full resolution 1920x1080 pictures and a GPU to scale it up to the bigger screen, but does it have the refresh rate necessary to not skip frames?

[mduell]

Originally Posted by Eug 

When going from high quality 1080p -> 720p, I've used 19ish on some files. RF 23 sometimes has a pretty noticeable drop in video quality. I generally don't go above 20. I guess that makes me retarded.

I was only referring to full HD (1920x1080) resolution... if you're going to drop the resolution with the same viewing size, a lower RF is reasonable.

Originally Posted by The Godfather 

Surely the iPad has the pixels to display full resolution 1920x1080 pictures and a GPU to scale it up to the bigger screen, but does it have the refresh rate necessary to not skip frames?

Yes, it can display the 30fps that it can decode. Doesn't support decoding 1080p60 or even 720p60.

[Eug]

Preliminary results are that 1080p high profile works fine now on Apple TV 2. (It didn't work fine consistently before the latest OS update that came when Apple TV 3 was released.)

Because of that, I'm just going to use the High Profile preset in Handbrake 0.9.6 to encode everything, for my iPad 2, my Apple TV 2, my Macs, and my Windows PCs.

Originally Posted by mduell 

I was only referring to full HD (1920x1080) resolution... if you're going to drop the resolution with the same viewing size, a lower RF is reasonable.

The High Profile preset in Handbrake is RF 20, and I'm mostly going to keep it there. I usually don't see a difference, but sometimes I do, especially if I'm viewing it on say my 27" iMac. I never notice a difference on the iPad, but it's easier to encode the stuff just once than to have multiple versions for different devices, and I'd rather err on the side of higher quality instead of smaller file size.

I can definitely understand why people might choose RF 22 though, since at that level, it's still very good.

[mduell]

Originally Posted by Eug 

Preliminary results are that 1080p high profile works fine now on Apple TV 2. (It didn't work fine consistently before the latest OS update that came when Apple TV 3 was released.)

Because of that, I'm just going to use the High Profile preset in Handbrake 0.9.6 to encode everything, for my iPad 2, my Apple TV 2, my Macs, and my Windows PCs.


The High Profile preset in Handbrake is RF 20, and I'm mostly going to keep it there. I usually don't see a difference, but sometimes I do, especially if I'm viewing it on say my 27" iMac. I never notice a difference on the iPad, but it's easier to encode the stuff just once than to have multiple versions for different devices, and I'd rather err on the side of higher quality instead of smaller file size.

I can definitely understand why people might choose RF 22 though, since at that level, it's still very good.

The High Profile preset in HB will leave you high and dry if you ever start with >30fps content (most often 720p60 from TV).

All presets default to RF 20 and it's a bit dated from the program's legacy of only supporting DVD sources, but the presets system doesn't support variable quality based on source resolution. As resolution gets higher, with the same display size (in degrees of arc), you can tolerate a higher RF; RF is more like quality per pixel than total picture quality.

[Eug]

Originally Posted by mduell 

The High Profile preset in HB will leave you high and dry if you ever start with >30fps content (most often 720p60 from TV).

I wasn't aware that 720p60 would pose a problem. What is the limitation? I understand 1080p60 would be a problem though. Mind you, I don't think I've ever encoded anything from a 60 fps 1080p source so far.

[mduell]

Originally Posted by Eug 

I wasn't aware that 720p60 would pose a problem. What is the limitation? I understand 1080p60 would be a problem though. Mind you, I don't think I've ever encoded anything from a 60 fps 1080p source so far.

iDevices don't support >30fps content at any resolution.