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 Post subject: MKV quality
PostPosted: Mon May 30, 2011 1:45 pm 
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I must be missing something or doing something wrong. I have tried several times to rip my DVDs to mkv files and cannot get decent quality. I am on a Macbook Pro and have tried MakeMKV and Handbrake. They just do not look good when I play them. I have not tried streaming them yet. I put a few test rips on the thumbdrive and played them throught my WDTV and my Roku. I get clearer quality from a m4v file that his a quarter the size. Because of this I have been ripping my DVDs to iso and converting some of them to m4v or mp4 in Handbrake.

My goal is to be able to stream the DVDs in the best quality possible to the TV while having cover art and metadata. iso files are often left out of many players and transoders and mkv files seem to be accepted more. I will still convert a few movies to m4v to play on the iPad while on trips, but would like have my DVDs ripped in good quality without the 7GB iso file size. Are their certain settings I am missing or doing something wrong ripping to mkv that is causing lower quality?


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 Post subject: Re: MKV quality
PostPosted: Mon May 30, 2011 2:23 pm 
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WEED099 wrote:
I must be missing something or doing something wrong. I have tried several times to rip my DVDs to mkv files and cannot get decent quality. I am on a Macbook Pro and have tried MakeMKV and Handbrake. They just do not look good when I play them. I have not tried streaming them yet. I put a few test rips on the thumbdrive and played them throught my WDTV and my Roku. I get clearer quality from a m4v file that his a quarter the size. Because of this I have been ripping my DVDs to iso and converting some of them to m4v or mp4 in Handbrake.

My goal is to be able to stream the DVDs in the best quality possible to the TV while having cover art and metadata. iso files are often left out of many players and transoders and mkv files seem to be accepted more. I will still convert a few movies to m4v to play on the iPad while on trips, but would like have my DVDs ripped in good quality without the 7GB iso file size. Are their certain settings I am missing or doing something wrong ripping to mkv that is causing lower quality?


mkv is nothing more then a container that holds audio and video codecs. It should have zero impact on PQ.

As far as m4v vs mkv, how are you comparing the PQ, are you judging the m4v on your iPad against the mkv on your WD TV Live. The best PQ you will get from MakeMKV as that will give you a lossless mkv. Anything with handbrake (m4v and mkv) should be of lesser quality since you are encoding (all dependent on the profile/settings you choose)

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 Post subject: Re: MKV quality
PostPosted: Mon May 30, 2011 2:34 pm 
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I ripped a mkv and put it on a thumbdrive and played it on the WDTV. I was not impressed with the quality. It was awful compared to the DVD. I then ripped it in m4v and put it on a thumbdrive and played it on the WDTV. Probably not as good as the DVD, but much better than the mkv file. I was at a loss because everyone says mkv is great and looks just as good. Not sure what I did wrong. I will try MakeMKV again and see if I can get anything better. I want to use Plex to stream movies to my Roku box.


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 Post subject: Re: MKV quality
PostPosted: Mon May 30, 2011 2:42 pm 
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WEED099 wrote:
I ripped a mkv and put it on a thumbdrive and played it on the WDTV. I was not impressed with the quality. It was awful compared to the DVD. I then ripped it in m4v and put it on a thumbdrive and played it on the WDTV. Probably not as good as the DVD, but much better than the mkv file. I was at a loss because everyone says mkv is great and looks just as good. Not sure what I did wrong. I will try MakeMKV again and see if I can get anything better. I want to use Plex to stream movies to my Roku box.


If the mkv was encoded then it will depends on t he encode settings used vs m4v. If the mkv was created by MakeMKV I can't see why the quality would be worse unless there is something wrong with the way your WDTV live is processing the mkv (which once again it is just a container). I use mkvs all the time and have no PQ issues (both lossless and encoded)

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 Post subject: Re: MKV quality
PostPosted: Mon May 30, 2011 10:25 pm 
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I have a WD TV Live and it plays MKV files and the quality is good. I use makeMKV ever since dbone1026 pointed me in that direction.

If you have the original WD TV the one that does not have a LAN port the issue may be with that unit itself for reading the forums on the WD Site

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 Post subject: Re: MKV quality
PostPosted: Tue May 31, 2011 7:31 am 
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Why dont you try using handbrake to create the mkv for you instead of makemkv? Like everyone says - mkv and m4v are only containers. MakeMKV could be using a different version of ffmpeg than handbrake (or its not using ffmpeg at all).

This way - you could use the same settings (I always use the latest nightly build, I always choose a modified High profile preset with loose anamporphic for the picture, an RF of 18 for DVDs and 21 for Blu Rays, deinterlace and decomb are on default, AC3 passthhrou track and aac track, Subtitles burned in if its a DVD (blu rays are another process to get burned in subtitles), my modifications to High profile are Ref Frames = 6, Maximum B-Frames = 6, no DCT Decimate is checked, and my motion estimation method is uneven multi-hexagon)

Hope that helps you...


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 Post subject: Re: MKV quality
PostPosted: Tue May 31, 2011 8:36 am 
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TedC wrote:
Why dont you try using handbrake to create the mkv for you instead of makemkv? Like everyone says - mkv and m4v are only containers. MakeMKV could be using a different version of ffmpeg than handbrake (or its not using ffmpeg at all).

This way - you could use the same settings (I always use the latest nightly build, I always choose a modified High profile preset with loose anamporphic for the picture, an RF of 18 for DVDs and 21 for Blu Rays, deinterlace and decomb are on default, AC3 passthhrou track and aac track, Subtitles burned in if its a DVD (blu rays are another process to get burned in subtitles), my modifications to High profile are Ref Frames = 6, Maximum B-Frames = 6, no DCT Decimate is checked, and my motion estimation method is uneven multi-hexagon)

Hope that helps you...


Actually two different things. MakeMKV does not do any sort of encoding (as opposed to handbrake). An mkv created by MakeMKV should always be superior to an mkv created by Handbrake simply by the fact that it is lossless

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 Post subject: Re: MKV quality
PostPosted: Tue May 31, 2011 11:45 am 
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I use Handbrake for all of my MKV conversions and I have zero issues with PQ when played over SageTV. The key is not to scrimp on the video bit rate. You can conceivably dumb down the process so that the bit rate is low enough to give you a bad result. I typically set my video bit rate to 1500 or better. By the same token, bit rate settings can be set too high - case in point my iPad 2 can't handle the higher bit rate encodes. My point here is to consider the playback device. TV and PCs typically like the higher bit rates, portable players not so much.

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 Post subject: Re: MKV quality
PostPosted: Tue May 31, 2011 12:16 pm 
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TechVet wrote:
I use Handbrake for all of my MKV conversions and I have zero issues with PQ when played over SageTV. The key is not to scrimp on the video bit rate. You can conceivably dumb down the process so that the bit rate is low enough to give you a bad result. I typically set my video bit rate to 1500 or better. By the same token, bit rate settings can be set too high - case in point my iPad 2 can't handle the higher bit rate encodes. My point here is to consider the playback device. TV and PCs typically like the higher bit rates, portable players not so much.


The best preset I have used that works with a larger variety of devices is the Universal preset. This covers iPad/iPod/iPhone and all media players as well (if you choose m4v instead of mkv). The only adjustments I make are:

- remove the second AC3 track that the preset adds (pointless, and just takes up space),
- adjust the bitrate of the audio track (the default rate makes the volume come out too low I find, especially if playing on a mobile device where you are limited to how much you can raise the volume)
- If 1080i content set Detelecine and Decomb under Video Filters to default. This gets rid of the "looking through blinds" effect of interlaced content

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 Post subject: Re: MKV quality
PostPosted: Tue May 31, 2011 9:12 pm 
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dbone1026 wrote:
- adjust the bitrate of the audio track (the default rate makes the volume come out too low I find, especially if playing on a mobile device where you are limited to how much you can raise the volume)

I always have this low volume issue and had no idea it was a bitrate problem, would you mind sharing your setting for a decent volume on iphone/ipod?


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 Post subject: Re: MKV quality
PostPosted: Wed Jun 01, 2011 8:06 am 
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ironfan72 wrote:
dbone1026 wrote:
- adjust the bitrate of the audio track (the default rate makes the volume come out too low I find, especially if playing on a mobile device where you are limited to how much you can raise the volume)

I always have this low volume issue and had no idea it was a bitrate problem, would you mind sharing your setting for a decent volume on iphone/ipod?


Go into the Audio tab. Handbrake likes to default to a bitrate of 160, try changing it to the highest setting (I think 320 for AAC and 640 for AC3)

Attachment:
HB.JPG
HB.JPG [ 92.91 KiB | Viewed 12778 times ]


Also if that doesn't help much, you can try clicking on the advanced button and adjusting the audio gain. I would mess around with to see what works best. I have tested cranking up the audio gain and the only side effect is the bass gets pretty distorted in certain scenes that have heavy bass

Attachment:
HB2.JPG
HB2.JPG [ 104.23 KiB | Viewed 12778 times ]

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 Post subject: Re: MKV quality
PostPosted: Thu Jun 02, 2011 9:24 am 
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Thanks, I'll give it a try.


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 Post subject: Re: MKV quality
PostPosted: Thu Jun 02, 2011 10:15 am 
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I tried upping the bit rate but that didn't really help. Unfortunately I can't increase the audio gain as I don't have an advanced audio button in my 0.9.5 version which seems to be the latest version. So is the advanced audio in a beta version, or do you have to pay for that feature?

Thanks again for all the help.


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 Post subject: Re: MKV quality
PostPosted: Thu Jun 02, 2011 10:19 am 
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ironfan72 wrote:
I tried upping the bit rate but that didn't really help. Unfortunately I can't increase the audio gain as I don't have an advanced audio button in my 0.9.5 version which seems to be the latest version. So is the advanced audio in a beta version, or do you have to pay for that feature?

Thanks again for all the help.


I am using one of the later nightly builds:

https://build.handbrake.fr/view/Nightlies/

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 Post subject: Re: MKV quality
PostPosted: Thu Jun 02, 2011 10:22 pm 
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dbone1026 wrote:
I am using one of the later nightly builds:
https://build.handbrake.fr/view/Nightlies/


Ahh, I see. Thanks for the info.


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