What is the best possible outcome for ?TV?

[Nicholas.D]

I have a new Apple TV and I have been re-encoding the files from makemkv into .m4v files for my Apple TV.

I want to make sure that I get the highest possible quality when going from the 1080p Blu-Ray rip to the 720p ?TV version.

Currently:

Handbrake - 2Pass (Turno 1st Pass) - 5000Kbps Video Bitrate - Convert any DTS to AC3 first then remux to .mkv file using MKVToolnix (Mac)

Most movies are between 4 and 5.5 GB. I do not believe I can get any better quality out of the video, however if there are different tweaks that I could make to Handbrake that anyone knows of please share.

Also - Is there a better alternative to Handbrake? Compressor? Any from the Mac App Store? I used to ise VisualHub but since it has been discountinued and not updated for awhile I need to find an alternative and handbrake seems to be the winner at this point.

Any other ideas?

[Romansh]

Remux to MKV??? The AppleTV doesn't support the MKV container natively…

[Nicholas.D]

Sorry order wrong.

If the mkv file is DTS audio I will strip out the dts file convert it to AC3 and then remux it back into the mkv before I convert with Handbrake

[Romansh]

What's wrong with HandBrake's AC3 encoder? Quality isn't top notch, but it's improved a bit in the nightlies (Justin Ruggles ported the Aften code back to FFmpeg).

[skittle]

Handbrake uses x264 which is leaps and bounds better than what compressor can output. Apples H.264 encoder is well known for being crap.

Default handbrake settings should be ok.

[hahafunny]

i use the handbrake default AppleTV 2 settings - 720p except i bump the quality thingy (not sure what it is called) from 20 to 17 sometimes 16 and i get much more detail... more natural shadows and gradients and smoother detail on things like smoke etc.... otherwise at 20 smoke and some shadows and gradients look a bit jaggy or pixel-ish.... noisy....

slightly larger file size but looks much better to me...