New HandBrake Hardware Acceleration

[alecksjaycubd]

So far it works great! I typically just use the defaults so I'm new to all the options. Is there a way to take the HW Default and have it compress a little more? I'd like to get the file size down a bit.

[mackworth]

There's not a lot of control over the hardware compressors, but you can set the Quality level (Less quality -> small file sizes).

To create a format with a different quality level, say 40, go to Edit>Edit Formats, select theHW Default Format, Duplicate it, then add -q 40 to the Video options line.

A few suggestions for experimenting with different levels on the same file

• Add the quality number to the name of the Format;
• Add the Format name to the output filename template in Adv Prefs to help identify which Format created which file.)
• Set Settings>Advanced>Allow duplicate Downloads to make things easier.

I should note the difference between H.265 and H.264; from the release notes: HB HW Default generates a high-quality H.265 file, while HB HW Small generates a lower-quality but very small H.264 file, about a quarter of the size. There's also the option of -e vt_h265, which I didn't use.

I warn that this can be quite a rabbit hole. Handbrake's guidance is here, but people have very strong opinions, e.g. here and more sources here.

Let me know what you find!

[mackworth]

Oh, I should mention that a simpler path may be to download a Decrypted TiVo file, then use the Handbrake user interface to experiment with different quality levels and encoders.

[alecksjaycubd]

Thanks. I tried removing the '10 bit' from the 265 hoping that would do the trick and it did. Plenty small enough for me. Thanks!

[mackworth]

Great!