Handbrake file sizes

The Black Oil

I've not used Handbrake in a while and am thinking about putting 8 episodes from a DVD boxset onto my iPad. I tried one 56 minute episode and the file was over 3GB. Is this normal? I could have sworn I ripped feature films before and they were not this large. Must be the settings I'm using.

Zcott

Depends on the quality, but a 56 minute episode in good quality would be over 3gb.

The Black Oil

Thanks. That's what they came out as, roughly. Something went awry with the audio and video - all over the place, so back to square one to try and figure it out.

SgtBob

3Gb sounds excessive to me for a 56min SD video.

I would play around with the constant quality setting and also bring the audio from 5.1 to stereo, if it's only gonna be used on the iPad.

I just used handbrake to rip some episodes of Battlestar Galactica, I used the default "High Profile" in handbrake, the Quality slide set to 20, turned on decomb and changed the audio to encode into dolby surround. Most of the resulting files end up 350mb to 450mb. Quality is spot on. The downside of using the constant quality option is that your file sizes can vary, sometime significantly, but I've notice that rarely and usually end up with reasonable size files.

The Black Oil

A few years ago, I ripped the Bourne DVDs I own and they were under a GB each.

SgtBob

Just play around with the settings, or do a bit of google-fu to find some recommended settings. Eventually you'll hit on the settings that suit you, quality vs file size. For my money "constant quality" is the way to go, which means just playing around with the quality slider and you'll find a happy spot.

Here's a bit of info from the handbrake wiki.

The Black Oil

Seem to get the files down to about 1.3GB, but the picture quality is awful, distorted and unwatchable. Also tried on a Windows PC and didn't recognise any tracks despite attempting to scan the disc.

whiterebel

Handbrake has presets available, you may just need to download the latest settings.

The Black Oil

I've been using iPad or Normal profile without success. It's been so long since I last ripped a DVD I can't recall which ones I used.

Here's how the video quality turns out at the moment.

SgtBob

That's very odd. I don't know what to say really. If you are using the built in presets it should come out perfect. Maybe check in the handbrake forums?