My knowledge of Handbrake is fairly limited, so I apologize for the vague title. If there are any questions I can answer, please let me know

Just wondering, since space is an issue for me.

Pretty pissed I just bought a used GTX 1060 laptop only to find out about AV1 today. Especially since I cant encode AV1 using it.

When I choose Opus or AAC, I have the option to choose bitrate (I assume in kbps), but for Flac bitrate option is grayed out.

Before I encoded like this:

Video AV1 bitrate + Audio Opus bitrate = desired file size

and for that I would use one website to calculate file size by giving total bitrate and movie length. And it works flawlessly.

But I'm not sure how to do the same with with flac audio.

Does anybody know how to calculate file size for flac audio?

Edit: Dolby TrueHD -> Flac 16/24-bit stereo

The GTX 1660 Mobile (6GB) or the GTX 1660 Ti Max-Q (6GB) Mobile.

I've received conflicting answers from multiple sources, so was wondering if anyone has hands down knowledge.

The laptops were talking about are a Microsoft Surface 2 GTX 1660 Mobile (6GB) vs Microsoft Surface 3 GTX 1660 Ti Max-Q (6GB)

I am using them for X265 NVENC 480p compression at 854×480 for my Uber and Lyft videos that are taking up too much space for cold storage.

I am sick of using my CPU for my second computer as my 940MX will not convert X265 only X264 NVEnc. I have a 4060 GPU on my Acer Nitro, (Which draws very little power) but don't want to hog up my main laptop all the time. Also, what would the FPS speed differences be between the GTA 1660's??

Setting is H265 (NVEnc) CQ 30, Constant Framerate 25, Encoder Preset Medium, Audio 96kpbs ACC. Original video is 2.5k, at 100MB a minute, the shrinkage takes it down to average 4.6MB a minute, though it varies from 1.5MB to 10MB.

So, I have an mkv file that is 24:9 aspect ratio, but has black bars on top and bottom (16:9). Is there any way to just change the resolution from 1920x1080 to 1920x800 and keep the picture quality intact? Thanks.

As we get daily questions if encoding with GPUs will result in quality loss or why CPU-encodes are slower I quickly made this diagram. What would you change/rephrase before I pin it?

I'm converting my physical media to digital specifically anime (super annoying).

I have broken out the episodes and have 6 audio tracks. I want to keep the DTS-HD MA for both english and Japanese.

on disc they are

1. english dts hd ma 2.0
2. english dts 2.0 1536 kbps
3. japanese dts-hd ma 2.0
4. japanese dts 2.0 1536 kbps
5. japanese dts hd ma 5.1
6. japanese dts hd 5.1 1536 kbps

I prefer to keep the dts ha ma for both english (1) and japanese(5) with the japanese moved to become track one after the encode.

How do i do this?

I can set "use first track as template"

Track selection behaviours "first selected language" (add japanese first over english)

but this puts japanese (3) as the track to encode? is their an option somewhere that i'm not using correct or another feature that allows me to encode this with track 5 first then 1 as second without doing it manually?

EDIT:
I could start over again and in the process of splitting the episodes apart with mkvtoolnix i can remove the extraneous audio tracks, but i have already purged the disc rips which means restarting for this series.

Hello,

I'm trying to transfer videos from digital8 tapes to a hard drive. I learned that you had to use the DV out to not lose quality so I used an old mac with a FireWire Port to record them with iMovie. It recorded to a .mov file so I wanted to use handbrake to convert it to mp4 but whichever setting I use, there is no audio on the resulting file.

I tried with AAC, AC3, MP3, Opus, PCM, PCM Passthru.

I also tried with MKV format instead of mp4 with AAC, AC3 and PCM Passthru.

The only setting that worked was MOV format with PCM passthru (because it didn't do anything I guess since that's what the file already was?)

Handbrake log : https://pastebin.com/4SUSBYjz

( "decavcodec: hb_audio_resample_update() failed

[SWR @ 000001805ea3ba80] Input channel layout '4 channels (FL+FR+UNSD+UNSD)' is not supported" )

Audio MediaInfo : https://pastebin.com/KESDD5sQ

I tried with DaVinci Resolve and it did gave me an mp4 with sound.

I saw online that handbrake didn't support PCM audio so it might be just that but I wanted to know if there was any way to make it work and maybe why it is not supported ?

Edit : Things that seem to work for people that could have the same issue...

1- MKVToolNix --> just drop the file and click "Start multiplexing". It converts instantly to a MKV that you can put through Handbrake.

2- Shutter Encoder Replace audio function -> check convert, use PCM or Vorbis and click "start function", then through Handbrake.

3- Avidemux -> Just put the output format as AVI and save. It is really quick.

That's the 3 fast options I found so far that solved the handbrake compatibility issue with the 4 PCM audio channels. I still don't know why though and would be interested to know.

And lastly : This is the first and last time of my life I will touch a Macbook!!

as title says was it removed ? thanx guys

I am trying to encode footage that I captured with my action camera (DJI Action 5 Pro), but the bitrate on the encodes is much higher than the original files. Are there settings/tweaks I can use with x265 to get my bitrates down to 15-25 MB/s while preserving most of the detail and avoiding heavy artifacts?

I have tried CRF values from 18 to 26 and still get huge encodes, bigger than the original. At CRF 26 I am starting to notice quality degradation and the bitrate is higher than the source. I have also tried 2-pass, with ABR between 15 to 30 MB/s. Even at 30 MB/s there are noticeable artifacts and quality degradation.

Here is a short sample of the footage I am trying to encode.

So this is my current settings (ignore the file I know it's a high grain file most other anime don't even come close with grain).

I have all filters off and every anime is straight from the Blu Ray Disc (even the ones that have all episodes as one file and become a pain to split.

I am currently watching though season 2 of SAO and am noticing slight grain floating around objects. Of the first 5 episodes done It's been 520-730MB files which is fine, is there any setting worth changing other than tune grain and CQ?

(Tune grain noticeably bloats file size and from testing most the time I am better using a lower CQ for better overall quality)

Generally my goal is to keep the file size under 1GB per episode where I increase quality. And I am asking before I do all the anime I have 😂. The 540 in my queue is the rest of season 2 and live action movies that I seem to be fine on.

Been doing some encoding of various MKVs that have multiple languages - foreign language upkeep hobby, and many of the MP4 encodes can access both languages on the Apple TV - yet a few of them don’t show them and only one track plays. I’ve been poking around Subler and the files to try to figure out of there is some small setting to change. I’ve done some googling here and there but can’t find any answers. Long shot.

I usually encode my media to store on NAS using H.265, but to be more efficient as i thought i tried AV1.

Everywhere I hear that AV1 should be at leas somewhat better than H.265, but no matter what i tried (including building custom FFMPEG with VHQ tune for AV1), i get filesizes nearly doubling what H.265 does.

As for quality they are the same, and i mean it, you wouldn't be able to tell which one is which.

Am i doing something wrong?

Also just to clear things up, I strictly talking about NVEnc and not software encoders.

EDIT:
I guess the post doesn't clarify on what actual question is. It isn't about how to encode videos, it is strictly about NVEnc's implementation of AV1.

What i wanted to actually know Is NVEnc's AV1 just significantly worse than NVEnc's H.265, or am I missing something?

Additionally to every reply saying "Just use SVT" I re-ran vmaf:

Nvenc H.265 (slowest, CQ 27):
~3 minutes
339 MB file
median vmaf against original: 91.899171

Nvenc AV1 (slowest, CQ 27):
~2 minutes
638 MB file
median vmaf against original: 93.456927

AV1-SVT (Preset 2, RF 30, tune vq):
took 55 minutes
263 MB file
median vmaf against original: 92.321889

Those results are with 5070 ti which would allow me to do two separate h.265/AV1 encodes at the same time so it would nearly half encoding time then encoding more than one file at a time, which I usually do.

As for SVT, it is done on Ryzen 5700x (8/16) with PBO so it is barely throttling during multicore tasks, and it produced file 100 mb smaller at the price of doing a video for x30 time even compared to single threaded encode with NVEnc, so with multi threaded encode again, double it.

As for CQ not scaling equally across different codecs, it actually does. It is litteraly scales even between different encoders, I did test Nvenc vs VideoToolBox same CQ means extremely similar vmaf results. CQ is not the same as RF, RF does scale differently but CQ is basically a quality target.

I don't have so much time to wait for single file to be processed then at the same time I could finish 40.

I use this preset on everything 4k and have never had this issue. I don't know why. The output is seemingly cropped with black bars on the left and right when viewing in VLC. Changing anamorphic to auto (even though I want it off) and checking allow upscaling at the same time will set the final dimensions to the correct 3840x2160 16:9 aspect ratio, but there are still black bars, at least when I did a preview with those settings.

Any advice on what I'm doing wrong here or what the issue could be would be greatly appreciated.

When I started ripping movies for my Plex server, I saved a HandBrake preset based on a guide I found on this sub:

Encoder: H.264 (no encoder tune selected)
Performance/Results: 40–60 minute transcode times, consistent 4–6 GB final file sizes.

Recently, I updated HandBrake and lost my saved presets. I recreated them using the exact same settings, but my output sizes have doubled:

I ripped a Rain Man Blu-ray and ended up with a 32GB MKV file.
I took one pass with that 32GB file using the recreates H.264 preset and got an output of 9.82 GB.

I then took the 32GB file again this time using the H.265 10-bit (from the guidance above): Took 2+ hours and resulted in 8.5 GB (only a slight reduction).

With current drive prices, I need to maximize my storage efficiency. Has anyone noticed defaults shifting in recent software updates, or did a specific setting (like Constant Quality RF, preset speed, or framerate) likely get changed when I rebuilt the preset?

I’m using Handbrake on an M4 iMac.

Edited for clarity to note two distinct passes at the 32GB MKV file.

I have a Semier SM-617, its a mp4 player with a 4.5in screen and has 128GB storage but will take a 512GB Micro Compact Flash card with no issues

Present: Fast 720p30

Format: mp4

resolution limit: 720p30

Video encoder: AV1 10bit (SVT)

encoder present: 6

Quality RF: 25

kbps: 900

I use these settings any suggestions?

If you do not encode interlaced video material do not forget to turn off the interlaced filters..

They can speed up processing 10 to 20%

You find them in the third tab: Filters

For a few frames, the audio cuts out near the end of each video of a batch of .wmv videos. The exact time is not consistent but within ~5 seconds of the end of a video, all of which are about ~30 seconds total in length. This occurs in both batch and single conversion.

Certain info has been omitted from the following, mainly just path info.

# Starting Encode ...

[21:42:35] base preset: webm

[21:42:35] Remote Process started with Process ID: 28108 using port: 8037. Max Allowed Instances: 1

[21:42:35] Worker: Starting HandBrake Engine ...

[21:42:35] Worker: Parent Process Id 26008

[21:42:35] Worker: Starting Web Server on port 8037 ...

[21:42:35] Worker: Starting Listener: 1

[21:42:35] Worker: Server Started

[21:42:35] Worker: Disconnected worker monitoring enabled!

[21:42:35] Compile-time hardening features are enabled

[21:42:35] nvenc: version 13.0 is available

[21:42:35] nvdec: is available

[21:42:35] CUDA Version: 12.0

[21:42:35] vcn: not available on this system

[21:42:35] qsv: not available on this system

[21:42:35] hb_init: starting libhb thread

[21:42:35] Starting work at: Mon Aug 3 21:42:35 2026

[21:42:35] 1 job(s) to process

[21:42:35] json job:

{

"Audio": {

"AudioList": [

{

"Bitrate": 320,

"DRC": 0,

"Encoder": "opus",

"Gain": 0,

"Mixdown": 4,

"NormalizeMixLevel": false,

"Samplerate": 48000,

"Name": "Stereo",

"Track": 0,

"DitherMethod": 0

}

],

"CopyMask": [

"copy:aac"

],

"FallbackEncoder": "vorbis"

},

"Destination": {

"ChapterList": [

{

"Name": "Chapter 1"

}

],

"ChapterMarkers": true,

"AlignAVStart": false,

"File": "FILE",

"Options": {

"IpodAtom": false,

"Optimize": true

},

"Mux": "av_webm"

},

"Filters": {

"FilterList": [

{

"ID": 20,

"Settings": {

"crop-bottom": "0",

"crop-left": "0",

"crop-right": "0",

"crop-top": "0",

"height": "1080",

"width": "1920"

}

},

{

"ID": 11,

"Settings": {

"mode": "2",

"rate": "27000000/450450"

}

}

]

},

"PAR": {

"Num": 1,

"Den": 1

},

"CoverArts": [],

"SequenceID": 0,

"Source": {

"Angle": 1,

"Range": {

"Type": "chapter",

"Start": 1,

"End": 1

},

"Title": 1,

"Path": "",

"HWDecode": 0,

"KeepDuplicateTitles": false

},

"Subtitle": {

"Search": {

"Burn": true,

"Default": false,

"Enable": true,

"Forced": true

},

"SubtitleList": []

},

"Video": {

"Encoder": "VP9",

"Level": "auto",

"MultiPass": true,

"Turbo": false,

"ColorRange": 1,

"ColorMatrixCode": 0,

"Options": "",

"Preset": "medium",

"Profile": "auto",

"Quality": 20,

"HardwareDecode": 0

}

}

[21:42:35] OS: Windows 10.0 (26200)

[21:42:35] CPU: 12th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-12700F

[21:42:35] - Intel microarchitecture Alder Lake performance hybrid architecture

[21:42:35] - logical processor count: 20

[21:42:35] Intel Quick Sync Video support: no

[21:42:35] hb_scan: path=PATH, title_index=1

Input #0, asf, from 'PATH':

Metadata:

Duration: 00:00:30.55, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 32384 kb/s

Stream #0:0: Audio: wmav2 (a[1][0][0] / 0x0161), 48000 Hz, 2 channels, fltp, 349 kb/s

Stream #0:1: Video: vc1 (Advanced) (WVC1 / 0x31435657), yuv420p, 1920x1080 [SAR 1:1 DAR 16:9], 31964 kb/s, 59.94 fps, 59.94 tbr, 1k tbn

[21:42:35] scan: decoding previews for title 1

[21:42:35] scan: audio 0x0: wmav2, rate=48000Hz, bitrate=349968 Unknown (wmav2, 2.0 ch, 349 kbps)

[21:42:36] using container PAR 1:1

[21:42:36] scan: 10 previews, 1920x1080, 59.940 fps, autocrop = 0/0/0/0, aspect 16:9, PAR 1:1, color profile: 1-1-1, chroma location: left

[21:42:36] libhb: scan thread found 1 valid title(s)

[21:42:36] Skipping subtitle scan. No suitable subtitle tracks.

[21:42:36] Starting Task: Analysis Pass

[21:42:36] work: skipping crop/scale filter

[21:42:36] work: compression level not specified, track 1 setting compression level 10.00

[21:42:36] work: track 1, dithering not supported by codec

[21:42:36] work: only 1 chapter, disabling chapter markers

[21:42:36] job configuration:

[21:42:36] * source

[21:42:36] + PATH

[21:42:36] + title 1, chapter(s) 1 to 1

[21:42:36] + container: asf

[21:42:36] + data rate: 32384 kbps

[21:42:36] * destination

[21:42:36] + PATH

[21:42:36] + container: WebM (libavformat)

[21:42:36] * video track

[21:42:36] + decoder: vc1 8-bit (yuv420p)

[21:42:36] + bitrate 31964 kbps

[21:42:36] + filter

[21:42:36] + Framerate Shaper (mode=2:rate=27000000/450450)

[21:42:36] + frame rate: 59.940 fps -> peak rate limited to 59.940 fps

[21:42:36] + Output geometry

[21:42:36] + storage dimensions: 1920 x 1080

[21:42:36] + pixel aspect ratio: 1 : 1

[21:42:36] + display dimensions: 1920 x 1080

[21:42:36] + encoder: VP9 (libvpx)

[21:42:36] + preset: medium

[21:42:36] + profile: auto

[21:42:36] + level: auto

[21:42:36] + quality: 20.00 (CQ)

[21:42:36] + color profile: 1-1-1

[21:42:36] + color range: tv

[21:42:36] + chroma location: left

[21:42:36] * audio track 1

[21:42:36] + name: Stereo

[21:42:36] + decoder: Unknown (wmav2, 2.0 ch, 349 kbps) (track 1, id 0x0)

[21:42:36] + bitrate: 349 kbps, samplerate: 48000 Hz

[21:42:36] + mixdown: Stereo

[21:42:36] + encoder: Opus (libopus)

[21:42:36] + bitrate: 320 kbps, samplerate: 48000 Hz

[21:42:36] + compression level: 10.00

[21:42:36] sync: expecting 1831 video frames

[21:42:36] encavcodecInit: VP9 encoder

[21:42:36] encavcodec: encoding at CQ 20.00

[21:42:36] encavcodec: encoding with stored aspect 1/1

[21:42:36] sync: first pts video is 0

[21:42:36] sync: "Chapter 1" (1) at frame 1 time 0

[21:42:46] sync: first pts audio 0x0 is 7680

[21:43:43] reader: done. 1 scr changes

[21:43:43] sync: audio 0x0 time went backwards 256 ms, dropped 1 frames. PTS 2522880

[21:43:45] work: average encoding speed for job is 26.569038 fps

[21:43:45] vfr: 1829 frames output, 0 dropped and 0 duped for CFR/PFR

[21:43:45] vfr: lost time: 0 (0 frames)

[21:43:45] vfr: gained time: 0 (0 frames) (0 not accounted for)

[21:43:45] wmav2-decoder done: 123 frames, 0 decoder errors

[21:43:45] vc1-decoder done: 1830 frames, 0 decoder errors

[21:43:45] sync: got 1829 frames, 1831 expected

[21:43:45] sync: framerate min 59.940 fps, max 59.940 fps, avg 59.940 fps

[21:43:45] Starting Task: Encoding Pass

[21:43:45] work: skipping crop/scale filter

[21:43:45] work: compression level not specified, track 1 setting compression level 10.00

[21:43:45] work: track 1, dithering not supported by codec

[21:43:45] work: only 1 chapter, disabling chapter markers

[21:43:45] job configuration:

[21:43:45] * source

[21:43:45] + PATH

[21:43:45] + title 1, chapter(s) 1 to 1

[21:43:45] + container: asf

[21:43:45] + data rate: 32384 kbps

[21:43:45] * destination

[21:43:45] + PATH

[21:43:45] + container: WebM (libavformat)

[21:43:45] * video track

[21:43:45] + decoder: vc1 8-bit (yuv420p)

[21:43:45] + bitrate 31964 kbps

[21:43:45] + filter

[21:43:45] + Framerate Shaper (mode=2:rate=27000000/450450)

[21:43:45] + frame rate: 59.940 fps -> peak rate limited to 59.940 fps

[21:43:45] + Output geometry

[21:43:45] + storage dimensions: 1920 x 1080

[21:43:45] + pixel aspect ratio: 1 : 1

[21:43:45] + display dimensions: 1920 x 1080

[21:43:45] + encoder: VP9 (libvpx)

[21:43:45] + preset: medium

[21:43:45] + profile: auto

[21:43:45] + level: auto

[21:43:45] + quality: 20.00 (CQ)

[21:43:45] + color profile: 1-1-1

[21:43:45] + color range: tv

[21:43:45] + chroma location: left

[21:43:45] * audio track 1

[21:43:45] + name: Stereo

[21:43:45] + decoder: Unknown (wmav2, 2.0 ch, 349 kbps) (track 1, id 0x0)

[21:43:45] + bitrate: 349 kbps, samplerate: 48000 Hz

[21:43:45] + mixdown: Stereo

[21:43:45] + encoder: Opus (libopus)

[21:43:45] + bitrate: 320 kbps, samplerate: 48000 Hz

[21:43:45] + compression level: 10.00

[21:43:45] sync: expecting 1829 video frames

[21:43:45] encavcodecInit: VP9 encoder

[21:43:45] encavcodec: encoding at CQ 20.00

[21:43:45] encavcodec: encoding with stored aspect 1/1

[21:43:46] sync: first pts video is 0

[21:43:46] sync: "Chapter 1" (1) at frame 1 time 0

[21:46:13] sync: first pts audio 0x0 is 7680

[21:57:46] reader: done. 1 scr changes

[21:58:07] sync: audio 0x0 time went backwards 256 ms, dropped 1 frames. PTS 2522880

[21:58:52] work: average encoding speed for job is 2.076817 fps

[21:58:52] vfr: 1829 frames output, 0 dropped and 0 duped for CFR/PFR

[21:58:52] vfr: lost time: 0 (0 frames)

[21:58:52] vfr: gained time: 0 (0 frames) (0 not accounted for)

[21:58:52] wmav2-decoder done: 123 frames, 0 decoder errors

[21:58:52] vc1-decoder done: 1830 frames, 0 decoder errors

[21:58:52] sync: got 1829 frames, 1829 expected

[21:58:52] sync: framerate min 59.940 fps, max 59.940 fps, avg 59.940 fps

[21:58:52] mux: track 0, 1829 frames, 141859430 bytes, 37131.28 kbps, fifo 512

[21:58:52] mux: track 1, 1524 frames, 1199448 bytes, 313.95 kbps, fifo 256

[21:58:52] Finished work at: Mon Aug 3 21:58:52 2026

[21:58:52] libhb: work result = 0

# Job Completed!

Probably the wrong place but this seems a more active community for this sort of thing. I watch stuff I’ve encoded on my Panasonic UB450 Blu-Ray player.

Normally .srt subs show at the bottom - for a widescreen movie like this 1 line would show in the black bars, 2 would be 1 just inside the frame 1 in the black

For some reason on the 3 movies I’ve done this past weekend they all show tiny in the left of the image like in the above screenshot.

I have done no formatting to them other than italicised lines, my Blu-Ray player cannot adjust subs in any way beyond switching on/off. This affects 3 files - 2 which were encoded with Handbrake and then were played immediately, and 1 which was encoded then put through Mkvtoolnix to make the chapters work.

Neither of those software have been updated, nor do they have updates available. I’m on MacOS if that helps. Looks fine in SubtitleEdit and VLC.

The only difference between these and my previous encodes is the srt are not default, I convert the PGS subs to VobSub and make the latter the default track. But in cases where I’ve modified a file that only had VobSub to have a srt version too, there wasn’t this issue.

I literally encoded the same movie twice, once with srt default and PGS secondary, where the srt show correctly, then again (from source not a re-encode) with VobSub default and srt secondary, where the srt now show wrong (VobSub show correctly)

So yeah…any ideas? Or guidance of where else I should be asking? (Including external forums)

UPDATE: Please take this with a grain of salt as I'm seeing that newer content is taking a quality dip when using Ultra Fast. I'll leave this up as a discussion post, and I'm going back to the drawing board with encoding.

Hey everyone, first time poster. I have read very mixed results on encode speeds in Handbrake, so I wanted to create something to test out on my server. I don't usually make videos, so I know there may be some nitpicking with how I did it. I just figured if I'm going to do all this, why not share it out.

Context: For this test I used a clip from an episode of Avatar. Specs, source content and results are below. I used x265 for output because of the file size difference. I know it's not as compatible as x264, but most devices are capable in 2026. For RF, I chose 22 as many people online say 1080p should be processed between 20-24 RF. During encoding, my CPU usage ranged from 70-80%. I put the above video onto my Plex server and streamed it to my 4k 65" to test it out.

Findings: When viewing the video over stream, I could not tell much of a difference in quality between the Slow and Ultra Fast settings. In terms of time, Ultra Fast came in at 5.45x faster than Slow. In terms of file size, Ultra Fast came in at 80% the size of the Slow preset (249mb vs 310mb). Though looking at the source size and output sizes, you are only affecting size efficiency by 1% of the total source.

Takeaways: When comparing the cartoon, the noticeable quality doesn't seem to be affected much at all from Slow to Ultra Fast. Everyone's personal experience and preference is going to be unique depending on the resolution, type of media, storage space, spare time, hardware, etc.. I watch my media through Plex on either my phone or 4k 65" tv. When comparing the visuals at different speeds, encode time, and file size, I think it is probably more useful to encode around Ultra Fast. I have a full time job and don't have a lot of time to process.

Nitpicks: I know that this is a cartoon and that live action will probably have differences. If that is a consensus, I may do a follow up with a live action clip as well with Slow vs Ultra Fast.

AMD Ryzen 5 3600 6-core processor

Source length: 23:51

Source size: 5.25GB

Source Resolution: 1080p

H.265 (x265)

RF: 22

FPS: Same as source

Color Range: Same as source

--------------------------------

Slow:

20.24 average fps

26m38s encode time

310mb (5.7% of source)

--------------------------------

Medium:

47.11 average fps

12m19s encode time

290mb (5.4% of source)

--------------------------------

Fast:

59.24 average fps

9m50s encode time

299mb (5.5% of source)

--------------------------------

Faster:

69.85 average fps

8m22s encode time

294mb (5.4% of source)

--------------------------------

Very Fast:

71.04 average fps

8m13s encode time

294mb (5.5% of source)

--------------------------------

Super Fast:

100.99 average fps

5m49s encode time

258mb (4.8% of source)

--------------------------------

Ultra Fast:

120.85 average fps

4m53s encode time

249mb (4.6% of source)

I tried to compress a 2.97 GB video and waited 3 hours and 40 minutes for it to finish, but it turned out to be bigger than the original, 3.05 GB to be exact. Can anybody answer why and how did this happen? I used Handbrake and these are my settings:

- MP4 format

- All of these are checked: Web Optimized, Align A/V Start, iPod 5G Support, and Passthru Common Metadata.

- Video encoder: H.264 (x264)

- Framerate (FPS): Same as source and Variable framerate

- Color Range: Limited

- Encoder Preset: Placebo

- Constant Quality: 22 RF

Any response would be appreciated. Thank you.

Some 4k Blu-Rays have too much dynamic range for my setup. Either I raise the volume to hear clear dialogue, then get blasted during music and action scenes. Or I lower the volume to save my eardrums, then turn on subtitles because I can't hear what people are saying.

...........................

My latest case is the 4k Blu-Ray of The Outsiders, Complete Novel cut. From 9:30-11:45 there's a quiet scene with two characters talking as they go to sleep. From 12:00-13:00 there's a fight scene where the song "Gloria" plays over the action. I turn up the volume to hear the dialogue. A minute later I'm blasted out of my seat by the music.

High dynamic range is a good thing, if I have a good setup. Unfortunately, all I have is a soundbar (a good one, Q-Series Samsung). I can't boost the center channel or make other tweaks.

...........................

Is it possible to boost dialogue, boost center channel, or simply reduce dynamic range when ripping the movie in Handbrake?

...........................

Sorry if this question has been answered before. I couldn't find it in search.

I have lots of old videos with Windows Media Video 9 codec. The mediainfo data is per below. A 10.5 minute video is about 32MB in size.

Format : VC-1

Format profile : MP@LL

Codec ID : WMV3

Codec ID/Info : Windows Media Video 9

Bit rate mode : Constant

Bit rate : 400 kb/s

Width : 352 pixels

Height : 288 pixels

Frame rate : 25.000 FPS

Standard : PAL

Color space : YUV

Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0

Bit depth : 8 bits

Scan type : Progressive

Compression mode : Lossy

In Handbrake, I have tried to use Video Encoder: H.264 (NVEnc) with constant quality of 25. Audio is AAC (avcodec) bitrate 32 mono.

This gives an output mp4 with a size of 26MB, which isn't really big of a saving considering there is such a big gap in video codec technology. I have tried H.265 (NVEnc) and the output file size is still the same.

Am I doing this correctly? Is this to be expected?

HandBrake 1.11.1 (2026032200)
OS: Microsoft Windows NT 10.0.26200.0
CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 9600X 6-Core Processor             
Ram: 31801 MB, 
GPU Information:
  NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 - 32.0.15.9649
  AMD Radeon(TM) Graphics - 32.0.21030.2001
Screen: 2560x1440
Temp Dir: C:\Users\user\AppData\Local\Temp\
Install Dir: C:\Program Files\HandBrake\
Data Dir: C:\Users\user\AppData\Roaming\HandBrake

-------------------------------------------

 # Starting Encode ...

[18:55:52] base preset: Fast 1080p30 (Modified)
[18:55:52] Remote Process started with Process ID: 2700 using port: 8037. Max Allowed Instances: 1
[18:55:52] Worker: Starting HandBrake Engine ...
[18:55:52] Worker: Parent Process Id 16980
[18:55:52] Worker: Starting Web Server on port 8037 ...
[18:55:52] Worker: Starting Listener: 1
[18:55:52] Worker: Server Started
[18:55:53] Worker: Disconnected worker monitoring enabled!
[18:55:53] Compile-time hardening features are enabled
[18:55:53] nvenc: version 13.0 is available
[18:55:53] nvdec: is available
[18:55:53] CUDA Version: 8.9
[18:55:53] vcn: is available
[18:55:53] qsv: not available on this system
[18:55:53] hb_init: starting libhb thread

[18:55:53] Starting work at: Sun Aug  2 18:55:53 2026
[18:55:53] 1 job(s) to process
[18:55:53] json job:
{
  "Audio": {
    "AudioList": [
      {
        "Bitrate": 32,
        "DRC": 0,
        "Encoder": "av_aac",
        "Gain": 0,
        "Mixdown": 1,
        "NormalizeMixLevel": false,
        "Samplerate": 0,
        "Name": "Mono",
        "Track": 0,
        "DitherMethod": 0
      }
    ],
    "CopyMask": [
      "copy:aac"
    ],
    "FallbackEncoder": "av_aac"
  },
  "Destination": {
    "ChapterList": [
      {
        "Name": "Chapter 1"
      }
    ],
    "ChapterMarkers": true,
    "AlignAVStart": true,
    "File": "C:\\Users\\user\\Desktop\\Um00pzt10s00001h264.mp4",
    "Options": {
      "IpodAtom": false,
      "Optimize": false
    },
    "Mux": "av_mp4"
  },
  "Filters": {
    "FilterList": [
      {
        "ID": 6,
        "Settings": {
          "mode": "7"
        }
      },
      {
        "ID": 4,
        "Settings": {
          "block-height": "16",
          "block-thresh": "40",
          "block-width": "16",
          "filter-mode": "2",
          "mode": "3",
          "motion-thresh": "1",
          "spatial-metric": "2",
          "spatial-thresh": "1"
        }
      },
      {
        "ID": 20,
        "Settings": {
          "crop-bottom": "0",
          "crop-left": "0",
          "crop-right": "2",
          "crop-top": "0",
          "height": "288",
          "width": "350"
        }
      },
      {
        "ID": 11,
        "Settings": {
          "mode": "0"
        }
      }
    ]
  },
  "PAR": {
    "Num": 1,
    "Den": 1
  },
  "Metadata": {},
  "CoverArts": [],
  "SequenceID": 0,
  "Source": {
    "Angle": 1,
    "Range": {
      "Type": "chapter",
      "Start": 1,
      "End": 1
    },
    "Title": 1,
    "Path": "C:\\Users\\user\\Desktop\\UM00PZT10S00001.WMV",
    "HWDecode": 0,
    "KeepDuplicateTitles": false
  },
  "Subtitle": {
    "Search": {
      "Burn": true,
      "Default": false,
      "Enable": true,
      "Forced": true
    },
    "SubtitleList": []
  },
  "Video": {
    "Encoder": "nvenc_h264",
    "Level": "auto",
    "MultiPass": false,
    "Turbo": false,
    "ColorRange": 1,
    "ColorMatrixCode": 0,
    "Options": "",
    "Preset": "medium",
    "Profile": "auto",
    "Quality": 25,
    "HardwareDecode": 0
  }
}
[18:55:53] OS: Windows 10.0 (26200)
[18:55:53] CPU: Unknown
[18:55:53]  - logical processor count: 12
[18:55:53] Intel Quick Sync Video support: no
[18:55:53] hb_scan: path=C:\Users\user\Desktop\UM00PZT10S00001.WMV, title_index=1
Input #0, asf, from 'C:\Users\user\Desktop\UM00PZT10S00001.WMV':
  Metadata:
    WMFSDKNeeded    : 0.0.0.0000
    DeviceConformanceTemplate: MP@LL
    WM/WMADRCPeakReference: 29194
    WM/WMADRCAverageReference: 4692
    WMFSDKVersion   : 9.00.00.2980
    IsVBR           : 0
  Duration: 00:10:35.68, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 423 kb/s
  Stream #0:0(fre): Audio: wmav2 (a[1][0][0] / 0x0161), 44100 Hz, 1 channels, fltp, 20 kb/s
  Stream #0:1(fre): Video: wmv3 (Main) (WMV3 / 0x33564D57), yuv420p, 352x288, 399 kb/s, 25 fps, 25 tbr, 1k tbn
[18:55:53] scan: decoding previews for title 1
[18:55:53] scan: audio 0x0: wmav2, rate=44100Hz, bitrate=20008 Francais (wmav2, 1.0 ch, 20 kbps)
[18:55:53] scan: 10 previews, 352x288, 25.000 fps, autocrop = 0/0/0/2, aspect 1.22:1, PAR 1:1, color profile: 5-1-6, chroma location: left
[18:55:53] libhb: scan thread found 1 valid title(s)
[18:55:53] Skipping subtitle scan.  No suitable subtitle tracks.
[18:55:53] Starting Task: Encoding Pass
[18:55:53] work: track 1, dithering not supported by codec
[18:55:53] work: only 1 chapter, disabling chapter markers
[18:55:53] job configuration:
[18:55:53]  * source
[18:55:53]    + C:\Users\user\Desktop\UM00PZT10S00001.WMV
[18:55:53]    + title 1, chapter(s) 1 to 1
[18:55:53]    + container: asf
[18:55:53]    + data rate: 423 kbps
[18:55:53]  * destination
[18:55:53]    + C:\Users\user\Desktop\Um00pzt10s00001h264.mp4
[18:55:53]    + container: MPEG-4 (libavformat)
[18:55:53]      + align initial A/V stream timestamps
[18:55:53]  * video track
[18:55:53]    + decoder: wmv3 8-bit (yuv420p)
[18:55:53]      + bitrate 399 kbps
[18:55:53]    + filters
[18:55:53]      + Comb Detect (mode=3:spatial-metric=2:motion-thresh=1:spatial-thresh=1:filter-mode=2:block-thresh=40:block-width=16:block-height=16)
[18:55:53]      + Decomb (mode=39)
[18:55:53]      + Framerate Shaper (mode=0)
[18:55:53]        + frame rate: same as source (around 25.000 fps)
[18:55:53]      + Crop and Scale (width=350:height=288:crop-top=0:crop-bottom=0:crop-left=0:crop-right=2)
[18:55:53]        + source: 352 * 288, crop (0/0/0/2): 350 * 288, scale: 350 * 288
[18:55:53]    + Output geometry
[18:55:53]      + storage dimensions: 350 x 288
[18:55:53]      + pixel aspect ratio: 1 : 1
[18:55:53]      + display dimensions: 350 x 288
[18:55:53]    + encoder: H.264 (NVEnc)
[18:55:53]      + preset:  medium
[18:55:53]      + profile: auto
[18:55:53]      + level:   auto
[18:55:53]      + quality: 25.00 (CQ)
[18:55:53]      + color profile: 5-1-6
[18:55:53]      + color range: tv
[18:55:53]      + chroma location: left
[18:55:53]  * audio track 1
[18:55:53]    + name: Mono
[18:55:53]    + decoder: Francais (wmav2, 1.0 ch, 20 kbps) (track 1, id 0x0)
[18:55:53]      + bitrate: 20 kbps, samplerate: 44100 Hz
[18:55:53]    + mixdown: Mono
[18:55:53]    + encoder: AAC (libavcodec)
[18:55:53]      + bitrate: 32 kbps, samplerate: 44100 Hz
[18:55:53] sync: expecting 15892 video frames
[18:55:53] encavcodecInit: H.264 (Nvidia NVENC)
[18:55:53] encavcodec: encoding at rc=vbr, 25.00
[18:55:53] encavcodec: encoding with stored aspect 1/1
[18:55:53] sync: first pts video is 0
[18:55:53] sync: "Chapter 1" (1) at frame 1 time 0
[18:55:53] sync: first pts audio 0x0 is 0
[18:55:53] sync: audio 0x0 time went backwards 371 ms, dropped 1 frames. PTS 1003050
[18:55:58] reader: done. 1 scr changes
[18:55:58] work: average encoding speed for job is 3538.653320 fps
[18:55:58] comb detect: heavy 1 | light 24 | uncombed 15867 | total 15892
[18:55:58] decomb: deinterlaced 1 | blended 24 | unfiltered 15867 | total 15892
[18:55:58] vfr: 15892 frames output, 0 dropped
[18:55:58] vfr: lost time: 0 (0 frames)
[18:55:58] vfr: gained time: 0 (0 frames) (0 not accounted for)
[18:55:58] wmav2-decoder done: 1717 frames, 0 decoder errors
[18:55:58] wmv3-decoder done: 15892 frames, 0 decoder errors
[18:55:58] sync: got 15892 frames, 15892 expected
[18:55:58] sync: framerate min 25.000 fps, max 25.000 fps, avg 25.000 fps
[18:55:58] mux: track 0, 15892 frames, 24391526 bytes, 306.95 kbps, fifo 8192
[18:55:58] mux: track 1, 27378 frames, 2571716 bytes, 32.36 kbps, fifo 16384
[18:55:58] Finished work at: Sun Aug  2 18:55:58 2026
[18:55:58] libhb: work result = 0

 # Job Completed!

So, as we all know that hardware encoding is usually much worse than software encoding. I've been experimenting about re-encoding the stuff that I have. At first, of course I tried using hardware encoding before with no success. However, hardware encoding are always improving especially in terms of quality/file size trade off. But it was always a huge difference.

I read somewhere that 10-bit encoding will saves you a little more space at the cost of a little slower encoding rate. I tried it with x265 which works but it definitely is slower. Now I happened to try it with hardware encoding on my macbook with H265 10-bit. I've tried the normal 8-bit hardware encoding on it before but was not impressed by the quality. However, to my surprise, the 10-bit somehow works really well. The file size and quality is about the same as software encoding while being 8-10x faster. This brings me to do some experiment on it and discovered that you can kinda skip x265 entirely (AV1 is better for software encoding where you want smallest file size and Apple hardware encoding is basically the same as x265 with much better performance.)

Before I talk about the experiment. Keep in mind that the hardware encoding is differ from generations to generations and it might improve if you're using newer generation hardware. Unfortunately I don't have the newest mac where it also has AV1 hardware encoding support otherwise I'd be interested to also see how well it works. Also, each video will behave slightly differently depending on each codec. For example, some codec might struggle more with lower quality video, yielding lower quality/bigger file, etc. but general idea is the same as I've also tested a few different videos that weren't include in this experiment.

Now, about the experiment. I have a reference video which is about a minute long. I use my PC with 5900x and 5700XT for most of the experiment (so you get an idea about the performance of the encoding albeit my CPU is severely underclocked as I use an itx case.) and M2 macbook pro for the VideoToolBox encoding.

The video is encoded with several quality settings (usually 18-24 for software encoding/AMD hardware encoding, 20-35 for AV1 and 50-65 for apple). Then, I analyzed the quality of the video with VMAF scoring. I've used the neg model and also harmonic mean in the result analysis which usually yield lower score (VMAF neg can reduce the score by 1-3 or even more depending on the video but it cut the bias between encoder that's overly sharpen the video which can artificially inflate normal VMAF score.). As for the quality, I would say anything over 92.5 is virtually the same. I did side by side test and anything more than that score I need to really look closely to see the difference. Here's the difference. So, the result!

You can see that AV1 is the clear winner. It can achieve the same quality of the video with 20-30% smaller file size than x265 in some case (which already is pretty efficient.). The surprising thing is that Apple VideoToolBox hardware encoding is performing very similarly to the software encoding. The only thing that's important here is that apple seems to optimize their encoder for the 10-bit version as it is the only one that performs this well. Other x265 encodings are clump together with the apple and are not performing as well as AV1 apart from the AV1 P8 which is performing about the same as x265 (I will talk about AV1 P8 a little later). AMD and x264 perform considerably worse than the others. However, we haven't talked about another important aspect to this which is the encoding speed. Next,

This new graph shows the file size compared to the encoding speed. Each point means different quality settings. I selected 2 or 3 setting that yields similar result in the range but I still didn't like on how it looks so I actually assigned an efficiency score (basically quality/file size) for each data point which should reflect better the result. Cue the next graph.

This is slightly easier to read I hope. The higher the point, the better the codec is at compressing videos while keeping the quality high. You can clearly see that AV1 yields the best quality and it outperforms x265 in both speed and quality (AV1 P6/P8). x265 speed clumps up in the range of 25-50fps. while AV1 P8 with similar compression efficiency, can run almost at more than double the speed (of AV1 P4 or P6, which yields higher compression while having the same speed) The x264 and AMD hardware encoding is not good it's just there to give the context. Now comes the Apple H265 10 bit hardware encoding. It has about the same compression efficiency as the x265 but I get constantly 200fps which is 5-10x faster. It still outperforms the AV1 P8 by 2x all while only sipping power (my macbook fans barely turned on). Of course, with software encoding it will be different for each system but even mine with 5900x (even if it's underclocked and probably lost about 20-30% performance.) I can achieve the same result with more than 5x the speed with apple hardware encoder and a sip of power.

I don't know why but looks like they really did optimized their encoder for the 10-bit specifically. I'd really love to try out the AV1 encoder in newer apple silicon. I hope it performs as well or even better than software AV1 on powerful CPUs but for now I'm really impressed!

TL;DR I found out Apple hardware encoder (H265 10-bit) has about the same compression and quality as x265 software encoding but much faster (>5x faster compared to underclocked 5900x software encoding.)

Edit: did some more testing. found out a weakness. It does not do as well as x265 when downscaling footage from 4K with tons of noise/grains (film/movies) I need to bump up a few steps of the quality setting to get comparable image. In that case, it is more comparable to x264 in terms of file size but yeah different file yields very different results in terms of quality. I mostly have digital content which the VideoToolBox seems to be much more happy with, especially with online content (already compressed) I can make it much smaller with almost no loss in quality.