Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

icruise · Oct 31, 2005, 01:36 PM

Does nothing show up for the preview at all? All of my files show previews in iTunes.

badnewsblair · Oct 31, 2005, 01:38 PM

Originally Posted by Icruise

Does nothing show up for the preview at all? All of my files show previews in iTunes.

Just a black square.

And I know that the first frame for all of them is not a black screen.

Stogieman · Nov 1, 2005, 04:12 AM

How do you change the little thumbnail previews that show up in iTunes? All of my mine contain the first frame of the video I converted. I tried clicking on the Picture settings button in Handbrake but that didn't do anything.

icruise · Nov 1, 2005, 05:13 AM

Play the video in question in iTunes and pause it at the scene you want to use as the "poster" for the file. Then right click (or control click) on the video window and select "Set Poster Frame."

brad2897 · Nov 1, 2005, 02:11 PM

So using the guide fly2high shared, what would be the average size of the file on a normal dvd movie? With that in mind which iPod do you all suggest getting? I have 10 gigs of music and a decent DVD collection I'd like to put on it.
Thanks

Brien · Nov 1, 2005, 02:23 PM

Originally Posted by brad2897

So using the guide fly2high shared, what would be the average size of the file on a normal dvd movie? With that in mind which iPod do you all suggest getting? I have 10 gigs of music and a decent DVD collection I'd like to put on it.
Thanks

I'm getting about 360MB for a two hour movie, using h.264, 400kbps encoding.

It seems to be about 80/90MB for ever half hour of video, give or take (at least from what I've experienced - most TV shows I rip are around 85 megs, and most movies, as I stated, are running arouind 350/400MB).

brad2897 · Nov 1, 2005, 02:30 PM

thanks,
i'll probably go with the 30gig then. Most of the regualr songs i listen to are on my nano or other iPod so I might not put too much of my old music on this. thanks again

Brien · Nov 1, 2005, 02:30 PM

No problem.

IFLY2HIGH · Nov 1, 2005, 06:08 PM

What is the memory size the iPod has in it now? It seems like my movies will load into memory and then the drive shuts off and never has to crank back up again, witch is a good thing.

nycdunz · Nov 1, 2005, 07:03 PM

has anyone tried that new app called Podner? its spose to be a real quick and easy way to encode videos for the ipod video using h.264...

Brien · Nov 1, 2005, 09:07 PM

Originally Posted by IFLY2HIGH

What is the memory size the iPod has in it now? It seems like my movies will load into memory and then the drive shuts off and never has to crank back up again, witch is a good thing.

64 MB, as opposed to 32 on previous iPods (though the 30GB iPod still has 32 IIRC).

Stogieman · Nov 1, 2005, 10:36 PM

Originally Posted by Icruise

Play the video in question in iTunes and pause it at the scene you want to use as the "poster" for the file. Then right click (or control click) on the video window and select "Set Poster Frame."

Thanks!

iCol · Nov 3, 2005, 09:28 PM

I have been busy ripping episodes of TV series from my DVD box sets using HandBrake. I have been encoding at 200kbps at 320x240 resolution with 96kbps AAC audio. Granted, the picture quality isn't absolutely perfect, I am getting artifacts to a certain extent, but the movies are more than watchable on the iPod, and only take up about 50MB each. They are taking about 20 mins an episode to rip, which is acceptable to me. And the resulting MP4 files play on the iPod without any changes. Cool.

Using a 1.8Ghz iMac G5 with 768MB of RAM.

badnewsblair · Nov 4, 2005, 03:35 PM

I downloaded Podner last night and tried it once before bed. the final video had no audio. I did go in and change the default settings, perhaps I mucked it up there. But the interface seems very nice and easy to use, especially for making the poster frames!

Hawkeye_a · Nov 5, 2005, 03:05 AM

Arrrgghhhhhh... ive been using the old version of handbrake to convert some of my futurama DVDs using 2-Pass H.264. And now i find out it wont work. arrrgghhhh. i havent got a iPod(5G) yet but plan on getting one. i basically converted the video to a 320X240 h.264 video using Handbrake(2-pass) at around 700kbps(video and audio(128kbps AAC)). took like friggon 3 hours to do one episode !!!!(Ti-PowerBook 550)

Just to confirm, the new version of handbrake from their site, works right ? when using h.264 ?

Also, just curious as to what you guys recommend for TV shows ? i dont want to have to reencode my DVDs later. this is a one time thing, so i dont want the quality to be compromized. I baught the Boundin video off the iTMS, and it looks amazing on my 15" PB screen(full screen) and on my TV. So im assuming h.264 is the way to go...the bitrate of the movie is 708kbps, so the video would be at 580kbps at 320X176. does that seem descent for TV shows that will be played on my Powerbook, future iPod and TV ?

Cheers

wilsonng · Nov 5, 2005, 06:46 PM

I was reading the iPod specs for movies and it said 160 kbps AAC for audio. I'm assuming this is CBR (Constant Bit Rate).

Anybody tried out 160 kbps VBR (Variable Bit Rate) AAC in an iPod movie to see if that would work?

raymond42n · Nov 6, 2005, 11:06 PM

You guys want to see how good your iPod video can be? If you own a Mac, download the Handbrake software for free at http://howto.diveintomark.org/ipod-dvd-ripping-guide, and follow the instructions.

Handbrake converts DVD's to mp4 format. By adjusting the picture settings to 320x240, you can "rip" a dvd to mp4, drag-and-click to your iTunes library, and sync to your iPod video. The conversion process is kinda slow (length of targetted movie plus 30mins), but it's worth it.

Converted video's at video bitrate of 400 and audio bitrate of 128kbps usually yields between 350-500mb ONLY (depending on length of movie).

I got my 60GB iPod video on 31 Oct, and discovered the website (above) on 2 Nov. So far, and after a few errors caused by unfamiliarity with the software, i've loaded 24 movies into my iPod so far (including most Pixar and Dreamworks films, the Die Hard series, Men in Black series, and the Star Wars trilogy). Video reproduction is seamless, and audio reproduction is superlative.

Check it out, and enjoy your iPod. I've shown it to my relatives and friends, and they are all getting iPods asap.

Cadaver · Nov 6, 2005, 11:32 PM

Originally Posted by raymond42n

You guys want to see how good your iPod video can be? If you own a Mac, download the Handbrake software for free at http://howto.diveintomark.org/ipod-dvd-ripping-guide, and follow the instructions.

Handbrake converts DVD's to mp4 format. By adjusting the picture settings to 320x240, you can "rip" a dvd to mp4, drag-and-click to your iTunes library, and sync to your iPod video. The conversion process is kinda slow (length of targetted movie plus 30mins), but it's worth it.

Converted video's at video bitrate of 400 and audio bitrate of 128kbps usually yields between 350-500mb ONLY (depending on length of movie).

I got my 60GB iPod video on 31 Oct, and discovered the website (above) on 2 Nov. So far, and after a few errors caused by unfamiliarity with the software, i've loaded 24 movies into my iPod so far (including most Pixar and Dreamworks films, the Die Hard series, Men in Black series, and the Star Wars trilogy). Video reproduction is seamless, and audio reproduction is superlative.

Check it out, and enjoy your iPod. I've shown it to my relatives and friends, and they are all getting iPods asap.

Guess you didn't read the first two posts in this thread, eh?

cler_babe · Nov 7, 2005, 05:41 AM

i've already loaded fifteen dvds to my G5 but for some reason Batman Begins only converts 52 minutes. i've done it a bunch of times.

and while i'm on the subject. is there something you can do to a movie file that is already in mp4 format that will play in itunes but for some reason isn't picked up by the ipod?

icruise · Nov 7, 2005, 06:09 AM

Originally Posted by raymond42n

You guys want to see how good your iPod video can be? If you own a Mac, download the Handbrake software for free at http://howto.diveintomark.org/ipod-dvd-ripping-guide, and follow the instructions.

Handbrake converts DVD's to mp4 format. By adjusting the picture settings to 320x240, you can "rip" a dvd to mp4, drag-and-click to your iTunes library, and sync to your iPod video. The conversion process is kinda slow (length of targetted movie plus 30mins), but it's worth it.

Converted video's at video bitrate of 400 and audio bitrate of 128kbps usually yields between 350-500mb ONLY (depending on length of movie).

I got my 60GB iPod video on 31 Oct, and discovered the website (above) on 2 Nov. So far, and after a few errors caused by unfamiliarity with the software, i've loaded 24 movies into my iPod so far (including most Pixar and Dreamworks films, the Die Hard series, Men in Black series, and the Star Wars trilogy). Video reproduction is seamless, and audio reproduction is superlative.

Check it out, and enjoy your iPod. I've shown it to my relatives and friends, and they are all getting iPods asap.

Wait, you can put movies on your iPod?!?

raymond42n · Nov 7, 2005, 07:21 AM

Uh-huh. I used Handbrake. 400kbps video bitrate, 128kbps audio bitrate. Changes a dvd-format disk to mpeg4. A converted movie is around 400-500MB in size with the foregoing specs.

My iPod holds the following movies so far: Sixth Sense, Bad Boys 2, the Die Hard trilogy, I Robot, Jerry Maguire, Lion King 1, Lion King 1-1/2 and Lion King 2, Madagascar, Men in Black 1 and 2, Shark Tale, Shrek 1 and 2, Sin City, Spongebob the Movie, Star Wars IV, V and VI, Team America, The Incredibles, Toy Story 1 and 2, the Untouchables and Walk to Remember. Am processing Harry Potter 1 to 3, and LOTR 1 to 3.

All the movies work like a dream!

icruise · Nov 7, 2005, 08:07 AM

Uh, yeah...

Hawkeye_a · Nov 7, 2005, 04:01 PM

So like.. anyone care to share some opinion ?

ive been fooling aroudn with encoding some Seinfeld DVDs using handbrake (h.264 baseline 2-pass).

resolution:320X240
bitrate

565kbps video, 128kbps audio)

I noticed some rather nasty artifacts when there's a dark(almost black) space in the scene(very blocky). And way to decrease this ? apart from increasing the bitrate ?

Cheers

P.S>> once again, i want to encode video for the iPod and to watch when plugged intoan SD TV. and recommendations ?

CharlesS · Nov 7, 2005, 04:35 PM

Movies from DVD's what?

Cadaver · Nov 7, 2005, 11:08 PM

Originally Posted by Icruise

Uh, yeah...

I'm not sure he's getting the sarcasm.

icruise · Nov 7, 2005, 11:53 PM

Originally Posted by Cadaver

I'm not sure he's getting the sarcasm.

You think?

Liquidity X · Nov 8, 2005, 07:51 AM

Man I have just ripped 2 dvds with H.264 baseline and must say it looks MUCH better than the 480 mp4 files I originally made with handbrake also. I used the same bit rate (768) and 2 pass encoding and my machine does it almost in real time, averaging around 23 fps with movies taking about 2 hours to encode. I can rerip one of them in mp4 and upload links to 30 second samples so you guys can compare them to see what one you like more if yah want.

foenix · Nov 8, 2005, 08:36 AM

That would be great if you could do that, i would really like to see the difference between the H.264 baseline and the 480 quality. I ripped a show with the IpodCoverter gaget with the conclusion that it looks O.K but not enough for me. (I'm a perfectionist)

Liquidity X · Nov 8, 2005, 07:20 PM

Ok will do ASAP.

icruise · Nov 8, 2005, 10:11 PM

There seems to be a pretty big difference in quality depending on the source material. For example, I used the same settings (2-pass h.264 at 250 KBps) to encode episodes from Star Trek and Blackadder. Star Trek looks great and Blackadder looks pretty crappy in many places. I think it's because of the way Blackadder was filmed. It's a lot darker overall. I haven't tried re-encoding at a higher bitrate yet. Just keep that in mind when making comparisons.

Liquidity X · Nov 9, 2005, 01:12 AM

Examples are up. www.liquidityx.com

foenix · Nov 9, 2005, 05:18 PM

Wow, Thanks For thoose great examples. From what i saw i can draw some conclusions. The h-264 baseline and the 480 looks almost similar at smaller size, but when used at full screen many things stood out for me. In the H-264 baseline i noticed that the lighting was much better, the other version seemed a lot darker to me which is bad, especially for play on the iPod. I also noticed it was a bit sharper which also made it look amazing. I am begging to become impressed with this baseline, as it compresses very well with better-thatn-decent quality. Now, As a PC user, any possible way to achive the H-264 baseline without Handbreak?

icruise · Nov 9, 2005, 05:31 PM

Just use Videora iPod convertor (version 0.9 or later). It's functionally very similar to handbrake (although the interface isn't as nice). I have a gaming PC that doesn't see that much use and my PowerBook is my main computer, so I've relegated the PC to converting video with the Videora program recently. It's a lot faster than using the PowerBook. I've been doing an entire season of a TV show per day. I just set it up (still a little labor intensive, since you need to rip the episodes individually with DVD Encryptor) and let it work for the rest of the day.

wilsonng · Nov 10, 2005, 12:47 AM

Just to let everyone know, HandBrake 0.7.0 has been officially updated to create h.264 baseline for the iPod video. It was updated on November 11, 2005.

Here's the home page...

http://handbrake.m0k.org/

brokenjago · Nov 10, 2005, 12:58 AM

Wait, November 11th?

Something isn't right.

wilsonng · 01:22 AM

oops, my bad.. It was released on November 4, 2005. Coffee pot broken this morning.

Had to get coffee from the office break room.... It must've been de-caf they put in there.

Those bastards.... I'll get even with them....

brokenjago · Nov 10, 2005, 01:20 AM

Liquidity X · Nov 10, 2005, 07:57 AM

yah we know , thats what I used to do the video samples in

nycdunz · Nov 14, 2005, 03:48 AM

Originally Posted by Liquidity X

Man I have just ripped 2 dvds with H.264 baseline and must say it looks MUCH better than the 480 mp4 files I originally made with handbrake also. I used the same bit rate (768) and 2 pass encoding and my machine does it almost in real time, averaging around 23 fps with movies taking about 2 hours to encode. I can rerip one of them in mp4 and upload links to 30 second samples so you guys can compare them to see what one you like more if yah want.

768kbps? isn't that pretty high? i rip at h.264 at 400kbps... and 2pass encoding? i heard this was useless on a screen that small... 2 pass encoding is only good if you're going to work with high resolution video, but on the ipod's 2" screen 2pass encoding would be a waste....

from what i was told at least... somebody correct me if i'm wrong...

icruise · Nov 14, 2005, 04:08 AM

Originally Posted by nycdunz

768kbps? isn't that pretty high? i rip at h.264 at 400kbps... and 2pass encoding? i heard this was useless on a screen that small... 2 pass encoding is only good if you're going to work with high resolution video, but on the ipod's 2" screen 2pass encoding would be a waste....

from what i was told at least... somebody correct me if i'm wrong...

768kbps is a pretty high bitrate, it's true, but 2-pass encoding is worth it. As I noted above, I can definitely see a sort pixelation or momentary fuzziness when going from one shot to another when I don't use 2-pass encoding. It doesn't happen every time, but enough to be annoying.

Oh, and the iPod's screen is 2.5" and good enough to pick out fine details like this.

Liquidity X · Nov 14, 2005, 06:56 AM

I rip for iPod and TV playback.

Brien · Nov 15, 2005, 01:26 AM

Is anyone else having an issue with HandBrake not working? Handbrake goes through encoding DVDs, quits, and the files are nowhere to be found.

icruise · Nov 15, 2005, 09:21 AM

The program actually "quits"? If that's the case, then something is wrong, because it should stay running even after finishing.

Does it only happen with certain files or every time?

Brien · Nov 15, 2005, 12:11 PM

Every time. (Using the newest release of HandBrake, too.)

joel_v · Nov 22, 2005, 07:59 AM

handbrake is the gun..

I had about 10 full length movies on my ipod, before i returned it (cause of a dead pixel), but i used handbrake to rip all of my dvds. It worked like a charm!

All you need to do, is follow that guide; http://diveintomark.org/howto/ipod-dvd-ripping-guide/

msb0014 · Nov 25, 2005, 10:36 PM

Holy crap this works, I just put U2 live in Chicago, 1 Mr. Show Episode and 1 Simpsons episode on my iPod!!!

Cadaver · Nov 26, 2005, 05:44 PM

Originally Posted by msb0014

Holy crap this works, I just put U2 live in Chicago, 1 Mr. Show Episode and 1 Simpsons episode on my iPod!!!

Fun, huh?
I've got "Batman Begins," "Sin City," "Dodgeball" and "Team America World Police" on my iPod, along with half a dozen music videos and about 2700 songs.

wataru · Dec 26, 2005, 05:54 PM

FYI for anyone having problems with Handbrake stalling at 99.99% or 100%: Copying the DVD's VIDEO_TS folder to your hard drive and running Handbrake on that worked perfectly for me.

demibob · Dec 26, 2005, 10:44 PM

Originally Posted by raymond42n

Uh-huh. I used Handbrake. 400kbps video bitrate, 128kbps audio bitrate. Changes a dvd-format disk to mpeg4. A converted movie is around 400-500MB in size with the foregoing specs.

My iPod holds the following movies so far: Sixth Sense, Bad Boys 2, the Die Hard trilogy, I Robot, Jerry Maguire, Lion King 1, Lion King 1-1/2 and Lion King 2, Madagascar, Men in Black 1 and 2, Shark Tale, Shrek 1 and 2, Sin City, Spongebob the Movie, Star Wars IV, V and VI, Team America, The Incredibles, Toy Story 1 and 2, the Untouchables and Walk to Remember. Am processing Harry Potter 1 to 3, and LOTR 1 to 3.

All the movies work like a dream!

how did you convert madagascar
when i try it the sound doasn't work
i managed to convert lord of the rings and 6 other films so they could be seen on my ipod but episodes of freinds worked on itunes but not the ipod
how can i convert madagasca
im ussing handrake 0.7 im not sure if thats the newest versionor not

Eug Wanker · Jan 30, 2006, 03:17 PM

Guys (and gals), the good news is that it may soon be a bit easier to encode video for the iPod using Handbrake. The guy who codes Handbrake just got an iPod that can do video (finally).

I haven't bothered up until now do this iPod-encoding thing because I don't have a video-capable iPod yet. I may get one later but in the meantime I've been encoding TV episodes (off DVD) using Handbrake: 1.5 Mbps, 624x352, 2-pass encoding, de-interlaced, with Main profile H.264 and 128 Kbps AAC.

For some reason I can't do 640x360. Presumably it's because 360 isn't a multiple of 16 I'm guessing. This is for my laptop, not the iPod. Quality is excellent though at 624x352.

It's too bad that 320x240 iPod video looks crappy on a laptop...