[mythtv-users] Handbreak settings for MythTV?

[David Brodbeck]

On Sun, October 19, 2008 7:47 am, Comments wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> After encoding some of my personal DVDs for use on my iPod, I was
> wondering if there is a preset in Handbreak that produces good output
> for use on MythTV?  Preferably, a setting that would look good at 720p
> and have full surround sound.

The easiest way to get full surround sound is to not re-encode the audio. 
If you give Handbrake the "-E ac3" option, it will pass the DVD audio
through unchanged.  This gives by far the best results for me.

The other settings are mostly a matter of taste.  You may want to encode a
short clip with a few different settings and audition them to find the
trade-off between space and quality that you like.  As a starting point, I
use "-vb 1800" (1800 kb/s bitrate) and "-2 -T" (two-pass, turbo mode) for
my rips.  (But I'm watching on an SDTV.)  If you don't specify a bitrate,
Handbrake defaults to 1000 kb/s.  I felt like I lost some of that nice DVD
sharpness at that setting.