[GUIDE] 720p Handbrake preset for TF101 (HC3.1 Update)

buri73 · May 2, 2011

Update 5/28: Honeycomb 3.1 upgraded TF101 can playback 720p High Profile natively!
Verified with native player and Mobo(HW playback). Modified steps 3-3.1 to reflect HP settings, added HP preset and sample. Enjoy!

Since this question gets asked a lot lately and my post on one of the thread was buried, so I figured a separate thread would be helpful.

Background
As I understand it, Tegra 2 should playback up to High Profile 720p and Main Profile 1080p. However, with limitation on Honeycomb and/or lack of driver release by Nvidia, current crop of HC tablets do not playback anything above Baseline Profile smoothly. Future updates by Google/Nvidia should fix this issue, but it looks like we may have to reencode High/Main profile media for the time being.

Note that there are few software codec players(Mobo/Vital) that are able to playback High/Main profile H264 media files. My experience with these players were less than satisfactory and I wanted to stick with hardware decoding to maximize smoothness.

Guide
HandBrake is an open-source, GPL-licensed, multiplatform, multithreaded video transcoder, available for MacOS X, Linux and Windows. It offers variety of H264 encoding options via GUI and easy to use. Best of all, it is FREE.

You can obtain HandBrake from this link.

Once you have HandBrake installed and have a source file opened, there are only few tabs you need to setup.

1. Select the mp4 container and set the picture width to 1280. Anamorphic should be loose and Modulus 16. Large File Size can be check for better compatibility.

2. Under Video Tab, Make sure the options are set to "H.264","Same as source", and "Constant Quality". You can keep it a RF:20. Optionally, you can change the RF slider for better quality or smaller size. Higher RF number means smaller size but less quality. Also, you can choose "Average Bitrate" or "Target Size" option if you like.

3. Update: For Honeycomb 3.1, Follow step 3.1 for high profile settings. Last Tab but most important, set your advanced options exactly same as picture below. You can play with settings but CABAC, 8x8, and P-Frames has to be checked off to keep it baseline profile.

3.1 This is High Profile settings for HC 3.1 TF101.

That's it. Start your encode and enjoy your 720p on your Transformer.

Included below is my presets and sample movies I encoded using the profiles.
Baseline Sample on Megaupload
High Profile Sample on Megaupload

Noxious Ninja · May 2, 2011

Whoa, baseline can't use B-frames? No wonder it's so much worse than main/high.

I hope 720p high profile support gets fixed soon.

neok44 · May 2, 2011

hows the file sizes after conversion? i have some movies that are 6GB and won't fit on the formats required for android memory.

so i was hoping to do something like this to knock them down to under 4.

buri73 · May 2, 2011

With constant quality, average bitrate comes out to about 2600Kbps for above sample. Source file size for the above sample(130mb) was around 480mb. For better size control, you can try the target size option from video tab.

seshmaru · May 2, 2011

I encoded a 720p 130MB file and it turned out at 146MB with the profile file.

edge929 · May 3, 2011

I used this Handbrake preset on a 986MB 720p high profile 2 hour movie and the resulting file size was 2.48GB. Movie played great with the default video player, just can't get many on an 8GB microSD card.

iAndroidFan · May 3, 2011

I used to use MeGUI to reencode videos for my PSP,and it's good at this job.
I'll have a try according to your post,thanks.

buri73 · May 3, 2011

If you are used to MeGUI, then no need to use Handbrake. Just select the baseline from x264 option and configure the rest to your likings.

klau1 · May 3, 2011

Is badaboom any good for this purpose? Both handbrake and badaboom have cuda acceleration, correct?

buri73 · May 3, 2011

looking at the demo video of badaboom, there is baseline setting under advanced option so I assume it will work as well. It doesn't seem to have detailed options so tweaking doesn't seem possible though. I wouldn't spend $40 on badaboom while handbrake does the job for free.

CyberChulo · May 3, 2011

I've converted it to your settings. However my file is only 1.3GB. When I connect my unit through usb and try to add it by dragging and dropping, it says that the operation cannot continue. My only options are to stop or skip the file transfer.

Edit- Nevermind. It wasn't finished converting yet! Duh!

combat goofwing · May 8, 2011

the demo clip in the OP is excellent and plays smooth as butter on my E pad and looks brilliant

haupman · May 8, 2011

I have played 1080p AVCHD files via moboplayer and they are flawless. Or am I missing something?

buri73 · May 8, 2011

Players like mobo, rock, and vital are all utilizing software decode playback. While software decoding handles some/most of HD profiles, it certainly is not the end-all be-all answer. Software decoding does a decent job of playback HD on some media, but tends to choke once the decoding process gets complicated. Re-encoding allows you to playback your media files with player of your choice including default player using hardware decoding. Until there is a HC/Nvidia "fix" to allow maximum hardware decoding capabilities of Tegra 2, re-encoding is the best at the moment solution for smooth playback. However, if you are happy with software players, I don't see a reason to waste time on re-encoding.

haupman · May 9, 2011

I made a mistake. When I streamed my AVCHD files from my core i5 laptop, they were great. When I streamed the same files from my Core2Duo laptop there were problems.

combat goofwing · May 9, 2011

dont understand high profile /main profile stuff but i can confirm i used these handbrake settings on a 1920 x1080 .ts of i robot it went from 9.89 gog to 3.27 gig and work flawlessly on my transformer , excellent picture and no audio out of sync, as i plan to us the dock as well then a using the SD card slot for loads of films to take on holiday etc for the kids should not be an issue

my only question now is why in the gallery when you see movie folders and all the movies does it not display the titles underneath?

fastfood8891 · May 9, 2011

buri73 said:
Players like mobo, rock, and vital are all utilizing software decode playback. While software decoding handles some/most of HD profiles, it certainly is not the end-all be-all answer. Software decoding does a decent job of playback HD on some media, but tends to choke once the decoding process gets complicated. Re-encoding allows you to playback your media files with player of your choice including default player using hardware decoding. Until there is a HC/Nvidia "fix" to allow maximum hardware decoding capabilities of Tegra 2, re-encoding is the best at the moment solution for smooth playback. However, if you are happy with software players, I don't see a reason to waste time on re-encoding.

could you maybe explain this a little more? what's wrong with software decoding if it's smoother than hardware? does it use a lot more battery or something?

buri73 · May 9, 2011

combat goofwing said:
my only question now is why in the gallery when you see movie folders and all the movies does it not display the titles underneath?

That's gallery by design. It doesn't show title of any media inside the folders.

fastfood8891 said:
could you maybe explain this a little more? what's wrong with software decoding if it's smoother than hardware? does it use a lot more battery or something?

Like I said above, if you are happy with software decoding then you don't have to reencode anything. Some of high profile/bitrate HD media can not be handled by software alone. That's where re-encoding comes in.

I don't know if this is the best analogy, but software decoding to me is like you buying a hybrid car and only be able to use the gas engine only. With the help of 3rd party modification(software player in our instance), you may get more mileage out of the gas engine, but you are not utilizing the car to it's full potential.

levenite · May 9, 2011

Players like mobo, rock, and vital are all utilizing software decode playback. While software decoding handles some/most of HD profiles, it certainly is not the end-all be-all answer. Software decoding does a decent job of playback HD on some media, but tends to choke once the decoding process gets complicated. Re-encoding allows you to playback your media files with player of your choice including default player using hardware decoding. Until there is a HC/Nvidia "fix" to allow maximum hardware decoding capabilities of Tegra 2, re-encoding is the best at the moment solution for smooth playback. However, if you are happy with software players, I don't see a reason to waste time on re-encoding.

Are you sure there will be a fix? Asus manual says the transformer supports simple profile. Of course, they could lose sales if they do not "fix" it.

malch · May 9, 2011

buri73 said:
looking at the demo video of badaboom, there is baseline setting under advanced option so I assume it will work as well. It doesn't seem to have detailed options so tweaking doesn't seem possible though. I wouldn't spend $40 on badaboom while handbrake does the job for free.

Yep. Handbrake doesn't do CUDA, but it does use multiple cores if you have them available. Last I heard, badaboom's output wasn't all that great anyway.

[GUIDE] 720p Handbrake preset for TF101 (HC3.1 Update)

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