Handbrake Encoding Guide | Small Size MKV

[Nguyen Trung Hoa]

getting handbrake
go to "http://handbrake.fr/"
click "community" and go to "Forums"
click any forum section and on go to "Nightly Builds"
note: we are using Nightly Builds because its more updated so less bugs and more updated encoding tools

installing handbrake
on the Nightly Builds thread go to the download page and you will be taken here "http://build.handbrake.fr/"
click "WindowsGUI" read install instructions and supported windows operating systems and system requirements
then download "WindowsGUI" after that click "Back to Dashboard" on the left side upper part
then click "WindowsCLI" and then download the .zip file
after that make sure you have .Net 3.5 Sp1 installed even if you have .Net 4 installed already
then install WindowsGUI and then follow the install instructions that i pointed out earlier to put WindowsCLI to its place
then after all installations run Handbrake

setting up handbrake
click menu "Tools" -> "Options"
click "Browse" button to select a "Default Path" directory
ive chosen the desktop location its personal preference so you can choose yours
then go to "CLI" tab check "Start window minimized" and set "Priority Level" to "Low"
then go to "Advanced/Other" tab then check "Enable in-GUI encode status (experimental)"
then uncheck "Show CLI window (Allow you to cleanly exit encode with ctrl-c)"
then click "Close" button

encoding with handbrake
click "Source" select "Video File" then browse for your file to be reencoded
click "High Profile" on "Presets" pane
click "Container" drop down box select "MKV"
note: we select MKV to select Vorbis audio later on when encoding with audio because AAC of Handbrake
is not NeroAAC so Vorbis audio wins in here for good quality on low bitrate
go to "Picture" tab (Resolution tab) and select "Loose" on "Anamorphic" drop down box
if your source video is 4:3 video (a square looking video when you watched it)
then set "Width" to "512" and it will automatically calculate
the "Height" for it that is usually 384 (so its 512x384 for 4:3 video)
if your source video is 16:9 video (a rectangle looking video when you watched it)
then set "Width" to "640" and it will automatically calculate
the "Height" for it that is usually 360 (so its 640x360 for 16:9 video)



go to "Video" tab set "Video Codec" to "H.264(x264)" then set "Framerate (FPS)" to "Same as source"
then choose your encoding mode on "Qaulity" i prefer "Constant Quality" or CRF
if you prefer "Constant Quality" take note that filesize will vary but quality will
be almost consistent through out the video for a given CRF value
and its a faster way of encoding too because its 1-pass
"Constant Quality" or CRF values good ranges are from 24 - 28 i prefer value of 26
in CRF the higher the value the lesser the quality but lesser the filesize
in CRF the lesser the value the higher the quality but higher the filesize
in CRF filesize will be less too if you set a low reolution thats why we set Resolution that
is in average 360p like 640x360 (for 16:9) or 512x384 (for 4:3)
if you prefer "Target Size" or "Avg bitrate" make sure to check "2-pass encoding"
and check "Turbo first Pass"
note: in "Avg bitrate" good values are betweeen 300-450 bitrate



go to "Audio" tab click "Remove" button repeatedly to remove all the audio on the queue
select an audio on the "Source" drop down box or leave it as "Automatic"
on "Audio Codec" drop down box select "Vorbis"
on "Bitrate" drop down box select "40" (this means you will encode the audio in 40 bitrate)
click "Add Track" so that your audio and its settings will be on encoding queue



NOTE: for multiple-audio for example dual-audio first remove all audio on the queue by clicking "Remove" button repeatedly
then click "Add Track" 2 times and the queue will have 2 entries of audio now select the first entry
mark by number 1 on the "Track" column and set the "Source" drop down box to what you like the first
audio to be and also take note that "Track" number "1" is the default audio when you play the encoded/output
file later, after that select "Vorbis" on the "Audio Codec" and set "Bitrate" to "40" and then your
first entry's settings has been set you do thesame steps on what you did on entry number 1
with the second entry on the queue that is represented by "Track" number "2"



go to "Advanced" tab and set the values as follows
-Reference Frames = 5
-Maximum B-Frames = 5
-Motion Estimation = Uneven Multi-Hexagon
-Subpixel ME & Mode Decision = 7
Note: lower than 6 will make your encoding slightly fast but the quality will suffer a lot
-Deblocking = 1 and 2
-Adaptive Quantization Strength lower the slider to value 0.6 you will see the value changing
on the white box that has encoding settings below the "Reset All" button
the value of "aq-strength" will change as you move the slider
-Psychovisual Rate Distortion move the slider to the left until the value "psy-rd" on the white box
i described earlier will be set to 0.4
-Psychovisual Trellis set the slider of this all the way to the left to make its value 0 (zero)
Psychovisual Trellis is not good for anime



note: if you want to know more about the advanced settings just hover your mouse to a settings
drop down box or checkbox or slider until a tooltip appears
note: if you like to save this settings as preset just click "Add" on the "Presets" Pane then you
may select "Set Default" too
then press "start" button to start encoding
alternatively you can click "Add to Queue" then start encoding from there
the "Add to Queue" function is good if your gonna encode a lot of videos

so thats it happy encoding with Handbrake :-D

additional steps if your output has no subtitles:

to mux the soft subs of a source video to your reencoded video
download MKVtoolnix either google it or get it here
http://www.bunkus.org/videotools/mkvtoolnix/downloads.html#windows
i prefer the zip file download because i like it portable
after download extract it and double click mmg.exe (this is mkvmerge GUI)
- click "add" button browse your source video then click "Open"
- in "Tracks, chapters and tags" uncheck everything except the entry that has "S_TEXT"
- click "add" button browse your reencoded video then click "Open"
- by looking at "Tracks, chapters and tags" this time the entries that has check is
the video of the reencoded video file hinted by the word "V_MPEG4" and audio of
the reencoded video file hinted by "A_AAC" or "A_VORBIS"
or any audio file and last the subtitles hinted by "S_TEXT" word
- select "S_TEXT" subtitle then at "General track options"
choose "yes" on the drop down box of "Default track flag"
- on "Output filename" click "Browse" to select a save location and the
filename for the new mux file after that click "Start muxing"



for those who want to take advantage of their multicore cpu like dual-core, triple-core, quad-core
go to menu "Tools" -> "Options" -> "CLI" -> Priority Level set to "Above Normal" or try even higher values
if that doesnt work then dont use any filters on "Video Filters" tab because a lot of this are not multi-cored or multi-threaded optimized yet
and another option is to force it on the command string box on the advanced tab do it like in the picture

type in the command string box (the white input box below "Reset All" button on the "Advanced" tab) "threads=N" without the double quotes where N is the number of threads you like for example a dual-core cpu can handle up to 3 threads if my memory serves me right but we will use 2 threads so type it like "threads=2:" without the double quotes and dont forget the colon ":" at the end of threads=2


to speed up more the reencoding of fansub anime
go to "Video Filters" tab and set it all to "Off"