3D printing is a technology that has taken the DIYing world by storm in these past couple of years. New companies manufacturing 3D printers and DIY 3D Printer kits have been popping up (and going down, too) like crazy. We* have to admit, in it’s concept, it is a pretty great idea.

We just recently were bit by the 3D printing bug. So, powered by our DIY-ers genes, we decided to purchase one of those cheap 3D printer (Prusa i3) kits. It seemed like a really sweet deal, the whole kit along with 2kg ABS filament coming for 23,500 INR. That, friends, turned out to be a pretty dumb move on our part. The kit was riddled with a horrendous amount of issues. Where do I even begin?!?!:

1. The printed parts were, putting it plain and simply, unusable. Not only was the print quality bad (that I can actually forgive), but even functionally speaking, a lot of the (clamping) holes in the parts were filled. When inquired, the seller told us that it was just the “support structures” that can be easily removed. Who does he think we are, kindergarten children playing with our first Lego sets that he could fool so easily?!?! We dont know if anyone reading this has ever tried drilling into small irregularly shaped parts (that too, made of ABS) before, but trust us, it ain’t easy!!! This itself meant that we had to modify (in some cases, reprint) the 90% of the parts.
   

   
   

   
   

   
2. The hotend(the part that extrudes molten Plastic) was again, unusable. The Hotend is a part that has to be manufactured with utmost precision and tight tolerances. A good Hotend can make an otherwise bad 3D printer OK. But a bad Hotend can make an otherwise (mechanically speaking) excellent printer unusable. A lot of engineering goes into designing a hotend, so most manufacturers just make one following one of the many existing Open Source Designs. So, imagine our surprise on finding that the hotend provided in the kit was not conforming to any of the popular designs found online, and was just a PEEK rod and a brass part (comprising of heater block and 0.4mm nozzle) put together.
   

   

3. The feeder mechanism(the part that pushes the plastic filament through the hotend) was a joke. Leaving the botched print jobs aside, the design was flawed in a number of ways.
4. The filament that we got with the kit was utter shit(if you’ll pardon my French). The quality was really bad and the filament diameter was uneven.
   

   

   
5. The pins in the electronics (Arduino Mega+RAMPS) were not properly soldered in multiple places, leading to a whole bunch of wierd issues.

Despite of all these shortcomings, we decided to go forward and assemble the printer, reassuring ourselves that we have not wasted our money. Have a look at the end result.

Heres a few images of the (horrible) print quality:

Here’s a few images of the (much more bearable) print quality after upgrading to an all metal hotend(which seems to be an E3D V5 clone) and a custom extruder design:

Now, we know many of you might laugh seeing this. We don’t blame you, even we would!!! But trust us, if you know what we went through, you will admit that this is quite an accomplishment! We had to redesign the whole feeder mechanism, and reprint many other parts (on another cheap 3D printer. Someone up there must really hate us!!!) too on account of the botched print jobs.

After suffering through this whole ordeal, we decided to make our own 3D printer. The goals we had set in our mind was:

1. Make it as reasonably priced as possible, while at the same time not compromising one bit on quality.
2. Address many common issues faced by a lot of the cheap 3D printers available on the market.
3. Keep the number of 3D printed parts used down to a minimum. This was as much a necessity (we did not have a 3D printer readily at our disposal) as a goal.
4. The design should be both modular and scalable.

Keep tuned for more details on this build.

*Not the royal “We”. The 3D printer build was a joint project of Saby D’silva and Umang Gajera. Hence, all the usage of “we”.

The post DIY 3D Printer Build Chapter 1: The Nightmare appeared first on OCFreaks!.

Specifications

KZ ED

KZ ES

Packing and Accessories:

The earphones came in separate cardboard boxes. For 14.75$, I really wasn’t expecting a whole lot of accessories (provided that I got 2 earphones at this price). So, I wasn’t disappointed (or pleasantly surprised ;-)) when I opened the box to find only the earphones with multiple pairs of silicone buds.

Packing

ES (on the left) and ED (on the right)

Silicone Buds (Left: ES; Right: ED)

Build Quality:

Both the earphones come with an inline mic and a single button remote. The cables are of fairly decent quality with negligible memory. They are sheathed in a translucent dark brown sleeve. The silicone earbuds provided with these earphones are pretty comfortable and fit snugly in the ear. The driver housing is the only distinguisishing feature (physically speaking) between the two earphones. In ES the drivers are housed in a cylindrical metal casing with a dark grey glossy finish. In ED the housing is a slightly tapered black colored cylinder with a diamond knurled outer surface, a meshed back and a gold finish nearing the nozzle. While The ED also has Red and Blue rings indicating the left and Right positions, the ES has straighforward L and R markings on the housing surface.

Overall, both appear to be well built and somewhat durable.

Driver Housing (Left: ES; Right: ED)

Nozzle (Left: ES; Right: ED)

Performance:

This is the part where the differences between the two start to emerge.

The performance of ES was a letdown. While the bass output was clear and punchy, heavily recessed mids and a bland treble performance ruined the whole deal for me. Compared to what most IEMs at this price range offer, I really wouldn’t call this outright terrible. Just mediocre, reiterating how cheap I got it for.

On the other hand, the ED, boy oh boy did it surprise me. After listening to the ES, I was preparing myself for another disappointment. I am happy to admit that I was wrong in thinking so. The bass was as clear and booming as can be and the mids and sub bass were slightly recessed. The treble output, while not as sharp as I’d like it to be, wasn’t that bad either. And the soundstage was as wide as can be expected in a low cost IEM.

To sum it up, while the ES has a more bassy sound signature, the ED has a more neutral tone that is just slightly prejudiced towards the bass.

Conclusion:

Now, the million dollar question that begs to be asked is are these worth it? About the ES, it really isn’t the only earphone on the market with a sound signature that is biased towards the lower frequencies, so I can’t in my right conscience recommend it. The ED, however, is honestly a pretty good IEM. A quick price check on AliExpress shows the ED priced between 8-15$. Anything below 10$, this earphone is the real deal, a steal. I know I sound like a telemarketer here, but trust me, I wouldn’t be saying this if it weren’t so. Above that however, it comes dangerously close to the price of Soundmagic’s ES18S. Between the two of them at that price point, the ES18S does have a slightly warmer sound signature and has more spark on the treble . Overall, it is the better performer. But then again the ED does surpass the ES18S in terms of build quality. So, it all comes down to preference. With that said, Kudos to KZ Acoustics for making a ridiculously low priced IEM that would put many higher priced ones to shame.

KZ ED

KZ ES

The post KZ ED special edition & ES earphones review appeared first on OCFreaks!.

For many PC enthusiasts looking to upgrade their rigs lately, the wait for AMD’s new Ryzen processors has been a sweet agony. Adding salt to the wound, heartless AMD has been providing potential buyers with juicy tidbits at just the right intervals to keep them from moving on. How much pain can an enthusiast take?!?! Well folks, I’m pleased to tell you the wait is finally over.

AMD has formally announced the release of Ryzen CPUs on a tech event held in San Francisco today, and they would reach the market on March 2nd. Initially, only the three Ryzen 7 CPUs (1800X, Ryzen 7 1700X and Ryzen 7 1700) will be released. The release of the rest of the lineup would follow thereafter.

In this event, AMD has also disclosed some new information about these processors that we were not privy to.

52% Better IPC

After the bulldozer fiasco, AMD decided that it would be much better to start with a clean slate. If you go by their words, this approach has worked wonders for them. Their target of 40% improvement in IPC over their previous chips (Excavator) was not only met, but exceeded! The Ryzen CPUs have 52% more IPC than the Excavator chips. Looks like Jim Keller (and his team, of course) has done it again!

Source: AMD

Die Shot

AMD has revealed a die shot of Ryzen processors. Built on a 14nm process node, the 8 core Ryzen CPU consists of 4.8 billion transistors and 2000m of signal wiring. The AMD team responsible for Ryzen has reportedly spent two million engineering hours over the architecture. Looking at the benchmark results (that are revealed till now), it looks like all that hard work has finally paid off.

Source: AMD

Benchmark Demos

AMD CEO Lisa Su showed three demos pitting Ryzen 7 1700X against Intels Core i7-6800K. The demos run included Cinebench, HandBrake, and a 4K gaming session. See how Ryzen fared in these tests below:

Source: pcper

In the 4K Gaming Session, AMD showed a Ryzen (Ryzen 7 1800X) processor and an Intel Broadwell-E (Core i7-6900K) processor running a demo version of Sniper Elite 4 side by side. The average frame rate (70-80 FPS) was similar on both the systems and the differences, if any, were imperceptible.

From all this, it can be seen how Intel has a serious competitor on it’s hands in the form of Ryzen.

Retail Packing and Coolers

AMD also unveiled the retail packaging and their new Wraith Spire Heat Sink Fans for select Ryzen processors. Have a look below:

Source: AMD

Apart from all this, here is some more miscellaneous information about the Ryzen 7 processors and AM4 Mobo Chipsets that AMD was kind enough to share:

Source: legitreviews

Source: wccftech

Ryzen 7 CPUs and AM4 Mobos are now officially available for pre order at following prices:

Amazon:

Ryzen 7 1800X – $499 – Amazon.com
Ryzen 7 1700X – $399 – Amazon.com
Ryzen 7 1700 – $329 – Amazon.com

ASUS ROG Crosshair VI Hero – $255 – Amazon.com
ASUS Prime X370-Pro – $170 – Amazon.com
ASUS Prime B350-Plus – $99.99 – Amazon.com
ASUS Prime B350M-A/CSM – $89.99 – Amazon.com

MSI X370 XPOWER GAMING TITANIUM – $299.99

Gigabyte GA-AX370-Gaming 5 – 194.99$
Gigabyte GA-AB350-Gaming 3 – 109.99$

Newegg:

AMD RYZEN 7 1800X 3.6 GHz (4.0 GHz Turbo)
AMD RYZEN 7 1700X 3.4 GHz (3.8 GHz Turbo)
AMD RYZEN 7 1700 3.0 GHz (3.7 GHz Turbo)

BIOSTAR X370GT7 – $209.99
BIOSTAR X370GT5 – $149.99
BIOSTAR B350GT5 – $129.99

Now, before anyone jumps the gun seeing all this and indulges in their fanboyish whims by pre-ordering, I urge you to remember that the only benchmark results available of Ryzen CPUs as of now are either from AMD themselves (which could be cherry picked) or from unofficial leaks (which could very well be fake). So, it would be better if you wait till some reviews of them show up. You did wait till now, what’s another 1.5-2 weeks.

You can have a look at the Ryzen Launch Event below:

Source(s): pcper, wccftech, legitreviews

The post AMD Ryzen Official Release and Pre Order appeared first on OCFreaks!.

The Indian Space Research Organisation i.e. ISRO has created a history in space research by launching 104 satellites using its Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV)-C37 (XL Variant). PSLV’s 39th flight successfully lifted off at 9.28am 15th Feb 2017 from Satish Dhawan Space Center in Sriharikota. The total weight of all the 104 satellites was 1378 kg.

Check out the official PSLV-C37 Lift off and On-board Camera Video below:

This record was previously held by Russian Space Agency which launched 37 satellites in June 2014. Earlier in the same year America’s Orbital Sciences Corporation had launched 34 satellites in a single mission. In June 2016 ISRO had lauched 20 satellites in a single flight with its PSLV-C34.

The launched satellites include 714kg Cartosat-2 Series Satellite (which will be used for remote sensing) along with 103 co-passenger satellites. The pool of 103 co-passenger Sats on the PSLV-C37 has:
1) ISRO Nano Satellite-1 (INS-1) & INS-2 are from India which are technology demonstration satellites.
2) 96 satellites from USA.
3) One satellites each from The Netherlands, Switzerland, Israel, Kazakhstan and UAE.

In 16 minutes 48 seconds the satellites achieved a polar Sun Synchronous Orbit of 506 km inclined at an angle of 97.46 degree to the equator and in the next 12 minutes, all the 104 satellites were successfully separated from the PSLV fourth stage in a predetermined sequence beginning with Cartosat-2 series satellite, followed by INS-1 and INS-2. In its offical post isro said:

After separation, the two solar arrays of Cartosat-2 series satellite were deployed automatically and ISRO’s Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network (ISTRAC) at Bangalore took over the control of the satellite. In the coming days, the satellite will be brought to its final operational configuration following which it will begin to provide remote sensing services using its panchromatic (black and white) and multispectral (colour) cameras.

Mayilsamy Annadurai (Director, Isro Satellite Centre) said:

We can also hit centuries like our cricketers. In another two months, the number of satellites built by Isro will reach 100. Besides GSLV missions, we have get Chandrayan – 2 ready for launch next year.

You can watch the complete lanuch video below:

Sources: ISRO , TOI Image Source: ISRO

The post ISRO creates history by launching 104 satellites in one go! appeared first on OCFreaks!.

New Update on AMD Ryzen: Official release, Benchmarks and pre-order list

With the launch of AMD’s new Ryzen CPUs inching closer, more and more information is surfacing about them online. Not even two days past the leak about the the full lineup and pricing, Ryzen CPUs have been seen listed for pre-order on multiple online stores, with a Thai retailer revealing the legit box-art. Have a look.

Source: Wccftech

AMD has chosen to go with a “less is more” approach for their box art, consisting of a black background with the Ryzen logo in the middle. A small AMD logo can be seen right below the Ryzen logo, and on the top-right corner of the package. The left side of the box contains a short passage giving the features of the processor. Judging from the thickness of the package, it is fair to say that the CPU cooler will be bundled along with the processor. The coolers look amazing, complete with RGB lighting (apparently the biggest innovation of the year 2016 😀 ) From all the praise the new AMD stock coolers (Wraith) have been getting, this is a good move by AMD, as it could allow the XFR enabled processors to reach higher clock speeds.

The prices listed here are a bit on the higher side. The final pricing is expected to be lower than this(according to the leaks, anyway). A Belgian retailer (Centralpoint.be) also has listed Ryzen 7 CPUs as available for pre-order. Heres the list:

Source: Centralpoint.be via Wccftech

What intrigues me here is that they have two SKU listings for each part, with a €20 price difference between the two SKUs (for the same product), except for the R7 1700, whose two SKUs are priced the same too. Maybe they’ve messed up on the naming.The pricing given here is closer to what the leaked pricing suggests.

The Ryzen CPUs are expected to be released at Feb 28th 2017 – the same date AMD will host its ‘Capsaicin & Cream'(GDC) 2017 press event.

Source(s): Wccftech(1) Wccftech(2)

The post AMD Ryzen CPUs listed for online pre-order appeared first on OCFreaks!.

New Update on AMD Ryzen: Official release, Benchmarks and pre-order list

Some new details have emerged about AMD’s new “Ryzen” series of processors, and it is astounding to say the least. This new information is leaked from the internal product listing of a Chinese retailer. Without further ado, here are the details:

Source: Baidu

Here’s a table translated to English and with prices normalised for USD:

Source: Wccftech

Okay, now let’s analyze the details in the table. According to the leaks, AMD would be releasing Ryzen in 4C/4T(R3), 4C/8T(R5), 6C/12T(R5) and 8C/16T(R7) variants. All of these configs are further subdivided into Normal edition and “X”(Whatever cheesy name AMD comes up with) edition chips that are clocked higher, have a higher TDP and have XFR enabled. XFR is AMD’s version of Enhanced Auto Overclocking (to be introduced with Ryzen), that allows the chip to be clocked at frequencies higher than the Turbo boost speed, should your cooling solution be able to handle it. The whole process is automated and does not require any user intervention.

At the top of the chart are the R7 variants (Enthusiast and Professional Grade). Among these, the 1800X and 1700X are 8C/16T CPUs with 16 MB L3 cache and a TDP of 95 W. The only difference between these (apparently) is that the 1800X has a higher Stock Clock and Turbo Boost by a margin of 200MHz, for which it carries 110$ higher price than the latter. Previously leaked benchmarks have shown the 8C/16T Ryzen variants literally obliterating the i7 7700k (Kaby Lake); which is a 350$ chip. Also, AMD themselves have demoed benchmarks (in their new horizon event) showing the same chip (clocked at 3.4 GHz w. Turbo disabled, ie, SLOWER than the released chips) going toe-to-toe against the 1100$ 6900k (Broadwell-E). So, it’s really surprising to see the top of the line Ryzen CPU priced at less than half the price of it’s direct competitor. A price that is in fact closer to the 4C/8T Intel Chip (7700K). At this price point, AMD need not even compete on performance to the Intel counterpart. Any person with a slim budget could sense the much better deal that AMD is offering. But if it does in fact compete, well, it would be a huge icing on the cake for consumers and a big blow to Intel. Below this is the R7 1700 which has a lower Stock Clock of 3 GHz without XFR, and with a lower TDP of 65W.

Moving lower, the R5 variants are mid range CPUs that are either 4C/8T or 6C/12T, with both having “X” edition and Normal chips. These are priced between 175 – 260$. 259$ for the 6C/12T variant with XFR(R5 1600X) and 175$ for the 4C/8T variant without XFR(R5 1300). These would be going against the Core i5 CPUs of Intel, whose top performer is priced closer to the 1600X.

All 8C/16T and 6C/12T CPUs will have 16MB of L3 Cache. Below this, all CPUs will have 8MB of L3 Cache

At the lower end of the spectrum are the R3 variants, that are 4C/4T with and without XFR. The R3 1200X(hope you understand the naming convention. I won’t be going through it again!!!) is priced at 149$ and the R3 1100 is priced at 129$. These would be going against the i3 CPUs.

All the Ryzen CPUs will have unlocked multipliers. Whether or not a system built around Ryzen is OCable will depend on the Motherboard chipset (Motherboards with X370 and B350 chipsets support Overclocking. Those with X320 and X/B/A300 chipsets dont).

One thing I don’t get is why AMD is abandoning (OK, strong word, but you get the point) the sub 100$ market. That could’ve been a huge get for AMD, if it would have released a Dual Core Variant to compete with Intel’s Pentiums. After all, who needs a premium range CPU for office work? I hope for their own sake they do come up with something for this segment.

Coming back to the point of the post, let me say that if AMD does price their CPUs close to what this leak suggests and does compete in performance, Intel would have to seriously up their game (or increase their marketing budget, whatever works for them :-)) to stay relevant in the market.

P.S., how very refreshing it is to see AMD CPUs have a TDP close to that of the Intel CPUs?!?!

Source(s): Wccftech and Baidu

The post AMD’s Ryzen CPU lineup specs and other details out prior release appeared first on OCFreaks!.

The past few years has seen a drift in this scenario, with a few OEMs consistently pushing out high performance earphones that also won’t put much of a burden on your wallets. Soundmagic is one of these brands. It’s E10S has repeatedly been awarded best budget earphone awards from multiple highly reputed sources. This, however, is a review of Soundmagic’s cheapest offering, the ES18S.

Specifications:

Packing and Accessories:

ES18S comes in a thermoformed plastic clamshell package within a printed cardboard cover. With the earphones we get 3 pairs of silicone earbuds, a rather nice black pouch and a clip. Nothing more to say here.

Packing

Accessories

Build Quality:

The ES18S has an inline mic and a single button remote for call accept/end and play/pause. A unique feature in these earphones is a CTIA-OMTP(read more about about 3.5mm audio jack here) switch, which ensures that this earphone would be compatible with all phones sporting a 3.5 mm jack. Although a pretty noble feature, I do have one issue with this. The switch doesn’t really appear to be of that great a quality, and if it gets damaged, it could possibly render the earphone useless. So I’d suggest you to stick with a position, and not to over(ab)use this switch. If you do want to use this earphone in both modes, a better solution would be to use an adapter. This way, the solution would be independent of the earphones, and you could use it with other earphones as well. The drivers used in the ES18s are housed in a Plastic Casing, with small L and R markings. The cable, although silicone, does have a fair bit of memory. I suggest wrapping the cables over under to avoid the cable getting mangled up(I actually suggest doing this with every cable. But in cables with memory, this is especially a must).

3.5mm TRRS Jack

Mic with Single Button Remote

CTIA-OMTP Switch

Performance:

The performance of this earphone impressed me in a lot of ways. But it does have its own quirks. The bass response is too good, and much better than what other earphones (that I’m aware of) offer at this price range. The mids and highs, however, are a slight letdown. It’s not that the ES18S has poor mid frequency and treble performance. The mids are OK, ie, they are not muddied or anything, but they aren’t that impressive as well. The treble response, on the other hand, is actually really good. Just the right amount without being harsh on the ears. So, why did I say it’s a slight letdown?

Well, the bass response is slightly (mind you, REALLY SLIGHTLY) overpowering, and covers the mids and highs in some places. But believe me, unless you’re a treblehead and prefer your highs a little on the harsher side, it’s highly unlikely you’ll ever notice it. With most earphones at this price offering Pathetic (and I do mean Pathetic, with a capital P!) treble response to say the least, I guess I cant really complain much. I suppose SoundMagic took the easy way out here to overcome sibilance.

The Soundstage on these earphones are a bit on the narrower side, but we cant really have everything now, can we?!?! Besides, I really dont think you should be looking for a low end IEM if you really are concerned about the soundstage performance.

The inline Mic in these earphone are average. They provide more than adequate performance for a phone call, which is the primary reason they are included anyways.

Conclusion:

All things said, the ES18S does offer exceptional value for money. Would I recommend these as a High Performance Primary earphone? Depends on what your budget is. Would I recommend these as a cheap on the go earphone? In a Heartbeat.

The post SoundMagic ES18S Earphone Review appeared first on OCFreaks!.

Some of you might find it odd that I made a separate post to talk about the settings in the Advanced tab of Handbrake. But rest assured, there’s a damn good reason why I chose to do so. The first tutorial was targeted at beginners. In essence, I’d say that the first tutorial was 80% handbrake and 20% some general info about videos and encoding. This tutorial would be about 20% Handbrake and 80% x264 video encoding and compression, as you need to know a fair bit about how x264 encodes video to completely understand the options in this tab.

Before going any further, let me make this clear; most users won’t need to mess around with these settings. The settings in this tab are just for those few users who like to tweak and fine tune the encoder’s settings for the video. You can get a decent output without using this tab.

x264 Video Encoding

x264 is, as of now, the most popular and widely regarded as the best video encoder out there. No other encoder comes close to it in terms of quality at a given bitrate, and it is compatible with most devices too. Let us see now what it is that makes this codec so good.

Eliminating Redundancies

To those who dont know the various redundancies that exist in a video and why eliminating them is important, check out: Video Redundancies .

To eliminate spatial and temporal redundancies, each macroblock in a frame is scanned first to identify the redundant information. These redundant information are then predicted by using various algorithms and are replaced by the “predicted” blocks, which ultimately results in a much smaller file size. Two kinds of prediction are used by x264 to predict the macroblocks in a frame:

H.264 standard defines 3 types of frames that can be used by the codec. These are:

The way the encoder arranges these frames together is called GOP(Group Of Pictures), starting with the I frame at the beginning. This, in turn is made up of mini GOPs beginning with a P/B frame. Now, consider an I frame to be of size x, a P frame 0.5x, and B frame 0.25x. For the following GOPs:

IIII: Size=4x
IPPP: Size=2.5x
IBBP: Size=2x

The advantages of using predicted frames are quite evident from the above example.

Once the predicted frames are formed (by either Intra or Inter prediction), each block in it is subtracted from the ones in the actual frame to form the residual block. These residual blocks are then transformed using either order 4 or order 8 integer transform to output a stream of coefficients for each block. The transformed coefficients are then quantized, ie, scaled by a value obtained from the Quantization Parameter(QP). The basic idea is to reduce the value of the coefficient as much as possible. The QP defines by what extent each block is to be compressed. Higher QP values mean more compression but lower quality, and lower values mean less compression but higher quality. The quantized blocks are then entropy coded to finally obtain the output video file. This is a form of lossless compression method that is done at the end, to eliminate the coding redundancies.

Rate Factor vs Quantization Parameter

One difference that you can observe when encoding videos (in Handbrake) using x264 in Constant Quality mode is that; while all other codecs will offer you a QP (Quantization Parameter) Slider, x264(and x265) will offer you an RF (Rate Factor) Slider. There is quite an inherent difference between the two.

Constant Quality encoding can be achieved by two ways:

So, which of these is better? Obviously CRF, as it can distribute bits in a much more efficient way than CQP.

Advanced Tab

The settings within this tab are unlocked by checking the “Use Advanced Tab instead” option in the Video tab. These settings allow you to fine tune your video by adjusting the various conversion parameters of the x264 codec. This tab is further subdivided into three sections: Encoding, Analysis, and Psychovisual.

Handbrake Advanced Tab

Encoding

The Encoding section deals with video compression. It offers various ways by which your video bitrate could be further reduced.

Reference Frames:

This setting specifies the maximum number of frames each P frame can use as a reference. The higher this value, the better the compression. But it must be noted that many devices have limitations on the maximum number of reference frames that can be used. So, unless your sure what this value is, keep it at default(3).

Maximum B frames:

This setting allows you to set the maximum number of successive B frames that can be encoded, after which an I or P frame has to follow for reference.

Pyramidal B frames:

Enabling this setting allows the B frames to be used as reference for other B frames wherever possible, thereby increasing compression. Options of None, Normal and Strict are provided.

• None: B frames are not used as reference.
• Strict: One B frame per mini GOP can be used as reference
• Normal: Numerous B frames per mini GOP can be used as reference.

Weighted P Frames:

Enabling this option allows the encoder to detect fades in reference frames, and assign it a particular weight. If this is OFF, the encoder will be unable to see the similarity between frames in cases where a frame is simply lighter or darker from the previous frame, as the entire frame is changing. Turning this ON can improve compression in such cases.

8×8 Transform:

Enabling this option allows the use of 8×8 blocks, rather than the normal 16×16 blocks, for prediction. This can improve compression by quite a lot(at least 5%).

CABAC:

After quantization, the data stream has to be encoded. x264 offers two methods to achieve this: CABAC(Context Adaptive Binary Arithmetic Coding) and CAVLC(Context Adaptive Variable Length Coding). CABAC offers better compression, but requires more processing power to encode and decode than CAVLC. CAVLC, on the other hand, offers inferior compression, but requires less processing power to encode and decode than CABAC.

To turn ON CABAC encoding, tick the “CABAC” checkbox. Unchecking it will use CAVLC encoding, by default.

Analysis

This section contains settings using which you can control how x264 analyzes the source video.

Adaptive B frames:

Using the options in this setting, you can control how x264 makes the decision to use a B frame.

• OFF: B frames will be placed in a fixed pattern.
• Fast: x264 can decide how many B frames to use depending on the complexity of the scene, but the decisions made are suboptimal.
• Optimal: x264 makes an optimal decision on when B frames are to be used. When using a higher number of Maximum B frames with Pyramidal B Frames, it is recommended to use this setting.

Adaptive Direct Mode:

This setting specifies how motion vectors are calculated for each block. Calculating motion vectors for every block is a CPU intensive and time consuming process. x264 has a few tricks up it’s sleeve for this.

• None: Adaptive Direct Mode is disabled. Motion Vectors have to be calculated for each block.
• Spatial: Motion vectors from the neighbouring blocks are used for the current block. This can significantly reduce the encoding time.
• Temporal: The current block is compared with the matched block in a P frame within the GOP. Using this, the motion vector is estimated rather than calculating it for each block.
• Automatic: x264 automatically chooses whether to use Spatial or Temporal for each block.

Subpixel Motion Est(subme):

One of the things that make x264 far superior to other codecs is it’s amazing Motion Compensation capabilities. x264 even supports estimating the motion of a block by a non integer number of pixels, which is called Subpixel Motion Estimation. The advantages that this offers are quite obvious.

• SAD(Sum of Absolute Differences): In this, the absolute differences between the pixels in the current block and the corresponding pixels in the block to be compared are taken, and are then added to obtain an SAD value. The block which gives the lowest SAD value will be the considered to be the block using which the motion vector will be calculated. This method can be used either with no Subpixel Motion Estimation(subme 0), or with one iteration of Quarter Pixel precision(subme 1).
• SATD (Sum of Absolute Transformed Differences):Similar to SAD, with the only difference being that the differences of each pixel is frequency transformed before being added. Although this is much slower than SAD, it gives a much better prediction. This method can be used with two iterations of Quarter Pixel precision(subme 2), one iteration of Half Pixel precision interpolated to give quarter pixel precision(subme 3), always with Quarter Pixel precision(subme 4) and with Quarter Pixel precision + Bidirectional Motion Estimation(subme 5).
• RD(Rate Distortion): The disadvantage of using SAD/SATD is that, many a time, the number of bits used for representing a sample would be more than what is actually needed. This could drastically increase the output file size, especially when using Quarter Pixel Precision.
  RD rectifies this issue by measuring the distortion D and the the number of bits R required for each decision, and comparing these with a cost function to make the mode decision. This can be used in either I/P frames(subme 6) or in all frames(subme 7).
• RD Refine: In this setting, RD is used to refine both motion vectors and mode decisions. This again, can be used in either I/P frames(subme 8) or in all frames(subme 9). This is slower than normal RD, but more efficient.
• QPRD(Quarter Pixel Rate Distortion): This setting does an RD optimization on some quarter pixels using a hexagonal search(subme 10). First, the SATD is checked. If this is found to be above the threshold value, then the RD process is skipped. If the SATD is below the threshold value, then RD is used. This process much slower, and requires trellis to be set at 2 and Adaptive Quant Strength > 0.

Motion Est Method:

x264 has a variety of search patterns for estimating how each block of pixels have moved in successive frames.

Motion Est Range(merange):

This value specifies the maximum range in pixels that the encoder searches for a match. For Diamond and Hexagon pattern, this value ranges from 4-16. For Uneven Multi Hexagon and Exhaustive, this value can be extended beyond 16, which can be particularly useful for high motion scenes.

Partition Type:

Each macroblock is broken down to form prediction blocks by the x264 encoder. There are 6 possible ways by which this can be done;

• Intra Macroblock: 16×16, 8×8
• Inter Macroblock: 16×16, 16×8, 8×16, 8×8
• The 8×8 blocks can further be broken down into even smaller blocks.

Each of these partitions are then represented using separate motion vectors. This partitioning is called mode.

A macroblock with less partitions would require lesser motion vectors to represent its motion. However, these motion vectors might not accurately represent the motion, resulting in a large error and hence encoding the error would require more bits. Similarly, more partitions would require more motion vectors to represent the motion information and fewer bits to encode the residual error.

The mode selection for each macroblock is one of the steps which contributes to x264s ability to give a great quality output at a low bitrate, but it is a time consuming process, especially if more macroblocks are partitioned.

By using the options in this setting, you can control how many macroblocks the encoder will partition. Options of Most, None ,Some and All are provided.

Trellis:

Enabling this setting allows x264 to use trellis quantization algorithm for rounding off the transformed coefficients, which can improve compression by a bit. CABAC must be enabled to use this. You can choose to use this either for encoding only or always(for both analysis and encoding). Choosing always can hit your encoding speed.

Psychovisual

Using the settings in this section, you can control the extent to which the encoder will remove psychovisual redundancies.

No DCT Decimate:

DCT Decimation allows the x264 encoder to skip encoding any of the blocks which it views as redundant information. These blocks are the not written to the output file, effectively reducing the bitrate. Checking this option will prevent x264 from skipping such blocks. This is useful if you want to preserve the grain in your videos, which are otherwise removed by DCT decimation.

Adaptive Quant Strength:

Adaptive Quantization is the process of using a different value quantizer for each block. As x264 uses CRF for constant quality(in Handbrake), this setting can be used to control how x264 distributes bits between the flat areas and the complex areas in the frames.

Higher values(>1) means more bits are allocated to the flats than to the complex areas in a frame, effectively reducing the banding artifacts, but causing some ringing artifacts. Lower Values(<1) means more bits are allocated to the edges in a frame, effectively reducing the ringing artifacts, but causing some banding artifacts.

Ringing Artifacts: In the edges of the circle.
Banding Artifacts: Discontinuities in the Gradient inside the circle and in the background.

Psychovisual Rate Distortion:

This setting adjusts the tradeoff between detail retention and actual video quality(the way the computer sees it). Higher values tend to retain the finer details(grain) at the expense of some loss in quality(undesirable blocking artifacts). The encoded video will thus, appear sharper and more detailed as compared to what it would have been if this was set to 0. To use this, subme should be 6 or higher.

Psychovisual Trellis:

This setting can be used to improve the sharpness and retain details by varying the strength function of the trellis quantization algorithm. The slider works similar to the Rate Distortion Slider. Higher values bias the finer details over the quality.

Deblocking:

Does the same thing as the Deblocking Filter in the “Filters” tab, but in a much better way. There are two parameters that you could give as input to x264’s deblocking filter: Alpha and Beta. Alpha value control the amount of deblocking to be applied; higher values would give a softer image. Beta value is the threshold value with which the block is first compared before it is deblocked.

Closing Notes

Well, thats all there is to encoding videos using Handbrake. Always make it a practise to encode a preview first and try playing it on your intended device. Video encoding does take a lot of time, and you wouldn’t want to be that fool who spends hours encoding the entire video just to find that it doesn’t work on your device.

Apart from that, have fun encoding! Hope you found this tutorial helpful.

The post Handbrake Tutorial Part 2: x264 Advanced Encoding & Compression Settings Guide appeared first on OCFreaks!.

In this tutorial, I will show you how to properly transcode videos using Handbrake. I’ve gone over all the settings in as simple and concise a manner as possible, without sacrificing the finer details (no pun intended 😉 ). Hope you find it useful.

General Info about Handbrake and Videos

Why Transcode Videos?:

Well, there could be many different reasons for this. Few that come to mind, off the top, are:

1. Incompatibility of the video codec with your device.
2. Uploading a video with a low bandwidth connection.
3. Reducing file size to save your device memory.

JFYI:

In the words of its developer:

“HandBrake is a GPL-licensed, multiplatform, multithreaded video transcoder.”

What needs to be noted here is that Handbrake is a video transcoder. It wasn’t, isn’t and quite probably never will be a “Video Converter”. I have heard the terms container and codec, converter and encoder (or transcoder) misunderstood and used interchangeably countless times. So, I feel it would be best if I clear that up first.

So, from this it is evident that most video converters are transcoders as well (though in most cases, devoid of many of the features offered by standalone video transcoders like Handbrake), while video transcoders may or may not offer conversion.

Handbrake currently supports two output container formats: MKV and MP4. So, it wouldn’t be right classifying it as a video converter per se, but it most certainly is a video transcoder. And quite a good one at that.

Now enough of all this blabbering! Let’s jump right on to using Handbrake.

First, let’s have a look at the window:

Handbrake Window

To add a file to transcode, simply drag and drop it to the window. Or, you can click on “Source” and browse to the file location to add it. Then set the destination and the output file name. If Batch transcoding (transcoding more than 1 file) is what you’re after, then after you’ve set all the required parameters for transcoding, click “Add to Queue” and add another file. Click “Show Queue” to view all the files in queue to be encoded.

Click on “Preview” to view a 10 second(can be changed) preview of how your output would look like.

Choose either MP4 or MKV container according to your requirements. Tick the “Web Optimized” check box if you want to upload the video to a website.

Now we’ll see the various settings offered by handbrake.

Picture Tab

This tab contains all the settings that you’ll need to modify the Resolution and Aspect Ratio (Width / Height) of your video.

Handbrake Picture Tab

Anamorphic:

Anamorphic is the property of scaling the width of a video by a factor in order to correct its Aspect Ratio.This setting is a bit complicated to explain. So, I feel it’s best if I explain it in a later part. For now, just understand this;

If your video doesn’t appear squished on your device, and you want to keep its resolution as it is, keep this option to Strict and let Handbrake handle the rest.

If your video doesn’t appear squished on your device, and you want to reduce its resolution, keep this option to loose and reduce the resolution. Keeping it to none with “Keep Aspect Ratio” enabled will work too. But if the video source itself is anamorphic, then that property will be lost.

Modulus:

Most video encoders divide each video frame into macroblocks, which can be said to be an array of pixels. A macroblock generally consists of 16×16 pixels. This means that both the width and the height of the video would have to be divisible by 16. The downside here is that you’d almost never get a perfect resolution and aspect ratio. For example, imagine a video that has an aspect ratio of 1.84 and is 640 pixels wide. The standard resolution for such a video would be 640×348 (approximately). But since the height and width both must be divisible by 16, the resolution would be reduced to 640×336, thereby creating an effective aspect ratio of 1.9. By using the Modulus option, you get to decide the multiplying factor for the resolution, at the expense of some overhead. By setting the value of modulus to 2, you would be able to preserve the aspect ratio of the 640×348 video as it is, as the height and width now just needs to be divisible by 2. But to achieve this, 4 additional horizontal pixels would be padded and encoded (348 is not divisible by 16. Next closest number divisible by 16 is 352. 352-348=4). But these would get cropped off during playback, and in most cases won’t be visible.

Cropping:

You can use this setting to crop off a part of your video file. Just set this to Custom, with all settings 0, if you don’t want to do so. You can also leave it to Automatic. But in some very rare cases, Handbrake will crop off a portion of your video file even when not needed, or it may miss a portion to be cropped. So, as the saying goes, Better be safe than sorry!

Filters Tab

This tab contains settings that you’ll need if you are dealing with a noisy and/or distorted source file. Before encoding the video, Handbrake would run it through these filters to rectify the source.

Handbrake Filters Tab

Detelecine, Deinterlace and Decomb:

Only worry about these settings if your source is a broadcast content(analog broadcast content, to be precise).

Interlacing is the process of dividing each frame into two fields, with each field containing alternate horizontal lines of the frame, making it suitable for broadcast (For more info, see: Interlaced Video). By this, the content can be broadcasted at twice the frame rate as that of progressively scanned video (For more info, see: Progressive Video), without any additional bandwidth. The downside to this is, you’ll get combing artefacts if you try viewing this on your computer monitor.

So, in order to rectify this, you’ll need to enable either the “Deinterlacing” or the “Decomb” Option. The difference between these two is that while Deinterlacing would deinterlace each and every frame of the video, Decomb would check which parts of the video have combing artefacts and would fix just those frames. I recommend using the Decomb option in default mode, as Deinterlacing could reduce the video quality in case the frame isn’t entirely interlaced. But if your video seems to be interlaced entirely (rarely does this happen), using Deinterlacing at Fast setting can save time on your encode. It’s always better to keep these settings off if your video isn’t interlaced.

(a). Original Interlaced Frame
Notice how the frame is Divided into two fields, one containing the odd lines and the other containing the even lines. In scenes with fast motion or in which the camera position is changed quickly, both the odd and even fields can be seen separately, which is called Combing Effect. This effect can be seen clearly in the above frame.

(b). Decombed Frame(Default Preset)
The combing artefacts are removed, while keeping quality loss to a minimum.

Telecining is the process of converting a video shot in one frame rate into a frame rate that is suitable for broadcasting. Extra frames need to be added to such videos. There are two ways by which this could be achieved.

1. Duplicating certain (not all) fields (interlaced frames), called Hard Telecine.
2. Showing those fields a bit longer than usual by repeating them during playback, called Soft Telecine.

Hard telecined video needs to be Detelecined before viewing it on a computer. You can tell if a video is hard telecined or not by analysing it frame by frame. If you obtain a pattern of frames with combing artefacts and then some without it, I’d say you’ve got a Hard Telecined Video. For example, one pattern, commonly observed in NTSC content, is 2 interlaced frames and 3 normal frames (or 2 duplicated fields in 8 fields). For PAL content, in very rare cases, this pattern is 2 interlaced frames and 23 normal frames (or 2 duplicated fields in 48 fields).

Just leave this filter on default for such videos. Else keep it off.

Denoise:

If you’ve got excess grain or blur in your video, you can use this option to reduce it, but at the expense of loss of finer details. Handbrake version 0.10 and above has added support for NLmeans denoising filter, which although takes more time in encoding, gives better results than hqn3d filter(the one used in pre 0.10 versions). If you don’t mind the extra time, use this in ultralight (or light if your video is too grainy) preset. Otherwise, use hqn3d in weak preset. Keep this option off if you if you feel your video is fine as it is.

(a). Original Grainy Frame
The frame is a bit grainy.

(b). Denoised Frame(hqn3d; medium)
The grain is reduced, but there is a noticeable loss of detail(for instance, the wrinkles).

Deblock:

This filter can be used to remove visible sharp edges between adjacent macroblocks. Only use this option as a last resort. Even the smallest changes in this can affect the quality drastically. For all intents and purposes, I recommend you to steer clear off this option. There is only so much one can do to rectify a bad source. But in case you really need to use this option, don’t exceed the setting of 5.

(a). Original Blocky Frame
The sharp edges between macroblocks are clearly visible in this frame. These are called blocky artefacts.

(b). Deblocked Frame(Setting:5)
The blocky artefacts are removed, but so are the details. Overall, the whole image looks softened.

Video Tab

This tab contains settings related to your Video encoder.

Handbrake Video Tab

Video Codec:

For MP4:

• x264(H.264/AVC Standard): Always choose this if your device supports it. It offers the best quality for the size.
• MPEG 4 Part 2(H.263 Standard): Faster encoding and better support for old devices than x264. But the quality will be lower.
• MPEG 2 Part 2(H.262 Standard): Faster encoding than MPEG 4. But the output file will be much larger and of inferior quality. Only use this if your device doesn’t support even MPEG 4.
• x265 (H.265/HEVC Standard): This is a relatively new encoder. It uses the H.265 standard, which is an improvement over the H.264 standard. x265 offers the same quality as x264 at much lower bitrates, i.e., the output file size will be much lower. But support for this encoder is quite minimal, especially in mobile devices. VLC(for Windows PC, that is) currently offers support for this codec, but I have seen playback issues with some x265 videos on mobile devices. So, I recommend you to check if your device supports this codec, before making the decision to use this.

For MKV:

• x264, MPEG4, MPEG2 and x265: Same as MP4.
• Theora(VP3): VP3 is a relatively old codec that was intended to compete with MPEG 4. Theora was evolved from this codec and it offers various improvements over its predecessor, On2’s VP3. However, it doesn’t compare to x264 in terms of quality at a given bit rate. But where Theora really triumphs is that it is truly open source and not subject to any patents. This in itself makes it a favourable choice to those who want to distribute content, as they aren’t required to pay any royalty fee. x264, though open source, is still subject to the patents held by MPEG consortium for the H.264 standard. And distributors of H.264 encoded content are, by law, required to pay a licensing fee.
• libvpx(VP8): libvpx can be said to be an improvement over the somewhat dated Theora encoder. It offers much better quality, and like Theora, is completely free. It still doesn’t offer the amazing quality of x264, but it has become successful in closing that gap. And I mean BY A LOT. So, it’s a great alternative if you want to distribute content.

Framerate:

Framerate is the number of frames displayed per second (fps). Keep this option to same as source unless, for some reason, you need to change it.

x264 Exclusive Settings:

x264 Preset: By using this slider you can adjust the level of tradeoff between encoding speed and filesize and/or quality. The extreme left setting will finish encoding quicker but the filesize will be larger for the quality. The extreme right setting will take much longer to encode, but it will offer the lowest filesize for the quality.

x264 Tune: Options of None, Film, Animation, Grain, Still Image, PSNR, SSIM, Fast Decode are provided. Choose any one of these options according to your requirements. (For example, Film if your source is a movie, Grain if you want to retain grain, etc. PSNR and SSIM will offer you maximum quality the way a computer will see it, and is not generally recommended to use.)

H.264 Profile: Four profile options are provided: Main, Baseline, High, Auto.

• Main: Less CPU intensive, Fast Encode, Fast Decode (Playback), Large Filesize.
• Baseline: More CPU Intensive, Slower Encode, Slower Decode (Playback), Lower Filesize.
• High: Most CPU Intensive, Slowest Encode, Slowest Decode (Playback), Lowest Filesize.
• Auto: Selects the Profile most suited for your settings automatically.

H.264 Level: Each H.264 level provides a set of constraints like max bit rate, frame size, etc for encoding. For the full list of constraints for each level, see: H.264 Levels

Handbrake offers two methods for Encoding Video: Constant Quality and Average Bitrate.

Constant Quality: In this method, you have no control over the output file size. For most cases, this is the better option of the two. The output file is most likely to be of better quality and lower size using this method. In this method you can control the quality of the video by using the quality slider. The extreme right value (lowest number) represents the highest possible quality (lossless, output will be bigger than the source if the source itself is lossy), while the extreme left value(highest number) represents the lowest quality (extremely lossy).

Average Bitrate: Unless you REALLY know what you’re doing, don’t use this option. This option gives you control over the file size, but at the expense of quality. All you need to do is take what your estimate is of the output file size (in kb), divide it by the duration of the video(in seconds), and enter it in the box labelled “Avg bitrate(kbps)”. However, the problem here is that, more often than not your estimated file size will be either too large or too low.

If you use this setting, do remember to check the 2-pass Encoding and Turbo First Pass check boxes. The reason for this is not every portion of the video has the same bitrate (thus, the term “Average”). Some portions require higher bitrate (fast action scenes), while some appear fine at lower bitrates (scenes with less motion). So, if 2-Pass encoding is turned on, Handbrake will encode the video a second time, allocating bits to different parts of the video in a much better way than the first time.

But obviously, this will require much more time than a single pass encode. This is rectified by turning on Turbo First Pass, which will encode the first time much quicker and less efficiently (since the actual output will be that of the second pass, the first encode can be thought of as redundant). It still requires more time than a single pass encode, but the overall time will be much lesser than what it would be if this option is kept off.

Audio Tab

This tab contains settings related to your audio encoder.

Handbrake Audio Tab

Audio Codec:

For MP4:

• libav AAC: Encodes your audio to AAC using ffmpeg’s libav codec library.
• FDK AAC/AAC-LC: Encodes your audio to AAC-LC using the FDK Encoder. Generally much better results are obtained using FDK than by using libav.
• FDK HE-AAC: Encodes your audio to HE-AAC using the FDK encoder. More suited for lower bitrate audio files (<80kbps) for streaming.
• LAME MP3: Encodes your audio to the extremely popular MP3 format using the LAME encoder. Higher bitrates are needed for achieving the same quality as AAC-LC.
• libav AC3: Encodes your audio to AC3 using ffmpeg’s libav codec library.
• Passthru(AAC, MP3, AC3, DTS, DTS- HD): These would pass through the source audio settings as it is to the output file.
• Passthru(Auto): This setting will sense your source format, and pass through your source audio settings as it is to the output file. Use this option if you don’t want to transcode your audio.

For MKV:

• Libav AAC , FDK AAC/AAC-LC, FDK HE-AAC, LAME MP3, libav AC3, Passthru(All): Same as MP4.
• Vorbis: Vorbis can be said to be the audio equivalent of Theora. It is a free and open source codec that isn’t subject to any patents. Audio encoded in Vorbis is almost identical to AAC, and can be used as a viable alternative to AAC to distribute content.
• libav FLAC: 16 bit and 24 bit FLAC options are available by using ffmpeg’s libav codec library. These options are lossless, so the filesize will increase by a lot.

Mixdown:

Options of Dolby ProLogic II, Dolby Surround, Mono, Stereo, 5.1ch, 6.1ch, 7.1ch, None and Automatic are provided. Choose any one of these options according to your requirements.

Sample Rate:

Number of Audio samples per second. Keep this setting at auto for best results.

DRC:

Dynamic Range Compression. This setting is used to alter the difference between the lowest and loudest sounds in the audio file. Use this setting at greater than 0 if you feel the lower volume parts in the audio file are too low in volume, while the louder parts are too loud. Generally, a value between 1 and 2 is sufficient for most files. At default, this value is kept at 0 (DRC OFF).

Gain:

This setting is used to increase the volume of the entire audio file. The value should be in dB. Never keep this setting at more than 10 dB. It will distort your audio at the really loud places. To calculate this value: Suppose you need 2 times the volume of your source file in your output. Then:

You can also add an additional audio track by using the “Add Track” option. This is particularly useful if you have an audio track in your preferred language, and would like to add it to your video.

Similarly, you can also delete existing tracks that you don’t need.

Subtitles Tab

You can add Subtitle tracks to your video file by clicking on “Import SRT”. Your subtitle needs to be in SRT format for this to work.

Handbrake Subtitles Tab

Handbrake can softcode(mux) or hardcode(embed) the Subtitle track to your Video, according to your wish. Softcode means that the subtitle file won’t be “written” to your video, whereas in hardcode, it is. The advantage of softcode is that you can turn the subtitles OFF whenever it is not required, or switch to another subtitle track in a different language. The disadvantage is, it won’t be displayed if the device does not support the subtitle format.

You can also adjust the offset time for the subtitle, which would delay or advance the start time of the subtitle track, according to your requirement.

Chapters Tab

You can use the options provided in this tab to edit existing chapter markers in your source file, import existing chapters from a csv file to your output file, or export the chapters in your source file to a csv file.

Handbrake Chapters Tab

Presets

Handbrake has numerous built in presets which you could use to simplify your encoding task. You can also create your own custom preset by clicking the “Add” button, or remove existing presets by clicking “Remove”.

Handbrake Presets

Recommended Settings:

I’ll only provide the recommended settings for Constant Quality method, as it’s just not possible to provide the average bitrate without having a look at the video. The average bitrate differs a lot from video to video, and I don’t think it is right to give you a “safe” bitrate, which could leave you with a file that is much larger than required.

For Mobile Devices:

For HDTVs (Or Monitors):

For Web:

Take note that these settings that I’ve given are not foolproof. It is quite possible ymmv. It all depends on your source file. It is always a good practice to see what happens when you encode using a slightly different setting.

That’s the reason I’ve given you these settings. So that you have a starting point, from where on you could tweak the settings according to your requirements.

Anamorphic Revisited:

If you haven’t dozed off till now, well, good job! Now it’s time to reap your metaphorical reward (remember, I told you I’d explain Anamorphic in detail in a later part. This is the “later part”!).

Things could get a bit complicated here, but I’ll try to keep it as simple as possible.

Quite a few times, you may come across a video file that will be displayed in a squished or stretched form in your computer. You check the resolution and the Aspect Ratio of the video, but that seems correct. So, what is the problem?

In order to fully understand this, you need to know about Display Aspect Ratio (DAR), Storage/Frame Aspect Ratio (SAR/FAR) and Pixel Aspect Ratio (PAR). So, here goes:

Most analog broadcast content are not in 4:3(Standard Definition) or 16:9(Widescreen) aspect ratio. The resolution of NTSC content is 720×480(AR=1.5) and that of PAL content is 720×576(AR=1.25).

Now, imagine what would happen if PAL or NTSC content is viewed on a computer monitor (or any digital display, for that matter). As monitors generally have an aspect ratio of 4:3 or 16:9 these images would look distorted horizontally.

In order to compensate for this, NTSC contents are scaled horizontally by a factor of about 0.9(or 1.2 for widescreen) to obtain a resolution of approximately 640×480(854×480 for widescreen), while PAL contents are scaled horizontally by a factor of 1.07(or 1.45 for widescreen) to obtain a resolution of approximately 768×576(or 1024×576 for widescreen). This factor is known as Pixel Aspect Ratio (PAR), as it can be said that each pixel is scaled by this factor to fit the display screen.

Anamorphic is the property of scaling the width of a video by a factor (PAR) in order to correct its Aspect Ratio.

To apply anamorphic property to a video:

1. Set the Anamorphic Option to Custom.
2. Then you’ll be able to tweak the PAR, Source Resolution and the display width values.
3. The resolution shown in the Width and Height boxes will be the actual resolution of your output. The Aspect Ratio that you get from this resolution is the SAR. The resolution that you get by scaling the width by the PAR value is the Resolution at which the video file will be displayed on your screen. The Aspect Ratio that you get from this resolution is the DAR.
4. Keep changing the PAR and viewing the preview, till you obtain an output preview that is satisfactory.

Anamorphic is also widely used to preserve the resolution of widescreen movies in DVDs. This is what the tag “Enhanced for Widescreen” means in a DVD. Films used to be shot at an aspect ratio of 4:3 or 1.33. From there, this value underwent a series of changes, from 1.66, 2.59, 2.35, 1.85, 2.20, 2.76, etc. Even today, there is no standard Aspect ratio at which films are supposed to be shot, and much of it depends on the choice of the director. There are three ways to accommodate such films on a standard display:

1. Stretch the video to fit on the screen, while preserving the Aspect Ratio. So, for wider Aspect Ratios the sides of the picture gets cropped off, while for taller Aspect ratios the top and bottom of the picture gets cropped off. This method is called Pan and Scan.
2. For wider aspect ratios, movies are encoded with black bars on the top and bottom of the frame. This is called letterboxing. And for taller Aspect Ratios, black bars are added to the sides of the frame. This is called Pillarboxing. This method was popular before anamorphic. It isn’t required now as modern displays and DVD players add black spaces by itself to fix the Aspect Ratio.

Both these methods are rendered useless now with the advent of Anamorphic.

3. By using anamorphic property, the PAR of the movie is adjusted to view it in both 4:3 as well as 16:9 displays. This method is the one that is most widely used now. Pan and scan crops off a part of the frame, while Letterboxing/Pillarboxing reduces the effective resolution, as part of the resolution is comprised of just black lines. So, anamorphic in this sense, offers the best of both worlds. It preserves the Resolution and the Aspect Ratio while keeping the video frame intact.

(a). Original Frame
2.35 Aspect Ratio; PAR=1

(b). The Frame as it would be stored on an Anamorphic Disk
The SAR Output. The frame appears squished.

(c). The Frame as it would be displayed on a 16:9 Display
Black bars are added to the top and bottom of the frame while playback, to compensate for the wider Aspect Ratio of 2.35(letterboxing).

You’ll need to crop off the bars if you want to convert a pillarboxed/letterboxed source to anamorphic.

Closing Notes

I’ll be ending this tutorial here.

For the “Advanced” tab, I’ll be making a separate post. Part 2 Coming soon!

The post Handbrake Complete Tutorial Part 1: How to Transcode & Compress Videos appeared first on OCFreaks!.

When Sir Tim Berners Lee invented the World Wide Web, he wanted it to be open and neutral. This was the way he dreamt it to be, and it most definitely is the way it’s supposed to be. Come today, and this idea is being threatened by a bunch of selfish money grubbing nitwits.

Net neutrality is the simple idea that all internet traffic should be treated equally by the ISPs, with no preferential treatment given on any basis. The idea is to keep the internet open and free to all. The threat looming over this is due to the greediness of a few network providers, who leap at any opportunity they get to make some extra cash.

In India, it all started back in December 2014, when Airtel decided that it was fair game to exclude VoIP from it’s standard data plans, and offered separate packs for it. As expected, Airtel drew flack from all four corners for this act, and they were forced to roll it back.

Later in February 2015, Facebook with Reliance Communication, launched Internet.org in India, a platform that aimed to provide free net connectivity to users via an app. The catch? You could only access the websites which they have partnered up with.

And now, Airtel announced it’s Airtel Zero Plan, by which App and Web developers could pay a fee to make their app or site toll free for the end users. Sounds great, right? Airtel is calling it a win-win solution, which benefits the users as well as the developers, and they wouldn’t be wrong in thinking so.

But I urge you to see the bigger picture. The Internet wouldn’t be place it is now if it weren’t for the existence of many websites that have made a significant mark. But most of these sites had humble origins. Even the mighty Google had its origins in a garage. So, it really isn’t right to assume that all new startups will have the sufficient means to consistently pay for the plan. And as end users, we would naturally be inclined to use the free alternative. So, such biasing would eliminate competition as we know it completely. And this is not all. Now, Airtel has announced this plan. If this goes on track, then it’s safe to assume that other providers will follow suit with similar plans of their own as well. So, to level the playing field with the bigwigs, the startups will have to pay the tariff to all the network providers, which is next to impossible. So, we’ll have apps that will be toll free in one network, and carry a hefty toll on others. And whats to stop the network providers from throttling the websites not on the platform in the future?

Right now, the final say in whether to pass this plan or not rests in the hands of TRAI. But that is not the only issue. Internet.org has already been passed and has an Android app. And trust me, newer threats will emerge. So, in light of all this, I urge all the fellow netizens to respond to TRAI of this here: Save the Internet. All it takes are a few clicks, and it gives you the satisfaction of knowing that whatever the outcome, at least you did your part.

Here ends the rant!

Link to TRAI’s consultation paper on OTT : Consultation Paper on Regulatory Framework for Over-the-top (OTT) services

Also, read this worderful article by Sir Tim Berners Lee on Net neutrality: Net Neutrality is critical for Europe’s Future.

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