What handbrake settings do you use?

[desura]

The newest release has support for x265 which is supposed to bring around a 30% improvement over x264.

What settings do you use for handbrake? quality 18?

 

[rh71]

I've seen releases months ago that had x265 support and it took a crap-ton longer to encode without a huge size benefit. So I've stayed with x264. Has this changed?

I just tried the latest release and it's still super slow - over 25 minutes for a 2min40sec video done at 720p 3000kbps (my usual setting). x264 takes 6 minutes in comparison. I'll report back on the size difference once x265 is done.

Maybe x265 is optimized for a more modern processor than a Q6600?

 

[ch33zw1z]

I almost always encode for a Roku, so High Profile

 

[Yakk]

HQ with surround, currently testing 18 or 20 quality.

 

[JAG87]

x265 10bit medium preset (get ready to wait an eternity) RF 23 for 1080p, RF 25 for 2160p. I don't encode 720p, but if I did I guess would go with RF 21.

These values aren't meant for absolute transparency, but I find the difference in quality from an average screen size and viewing distance to be negligible enough that it doesn't warrant more bitrate.

 

[rh71]

I just tried the latest release and it's still super slow - over 25 minutes for a 2min40sec video done at 720p 3000kbps (my usual setting). x264 takes 6 minutes in comparison. I'll report back on the size difference once x265 is done.

Just to follow up, there was virtually no size difference on a 2:40sec video despite the 5x longer encode time (over 30 mins). Both are right around 62MB. I know x265 is supposed to be much better (I've seen 42min tv episode files half the size of a x264 file). But in order to achieve that, it seems it would have to be a very large file to begin with - and I'm not prepared to encode for eternity as mentioned above.

I'm curious how long it takes you guys typically to encode something. Say a 5 min or 45 min video. It'd be the only reason I would spend $500+ to upgrade my machine these days.

 

[sdifox]

What would be the point of encoding a 2:40 video?

 

[jkauff]

x265 is still a very young project. Yes, you get a considerably smaller file (depending on settings), but storage space is cheap, and as others have mentioned x265 takes lots of time and computing power to do its work.

I'm satisfied to stick with x264 for archiving. The "slower" setting, combined with a CQ setting of 18 for SD, gives me the quality I want with reasonable encoding times. I don't normally encode HD discs (unless I want one on my iPhone); I rip them with MakeMKV and store them as native sources.