[G Tablet Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] reynwrap582:
Handbrake 0.95 Profile

I've been messing around with Handbrake, converting a ton of movies (all 4-6GB 720p MP4s/MKVs). Like roebeet, this was modified from the iPad profile in Handbrake 0.95 (the very latest version, released a few days ago).

After messing with all sorts of resolutions, qualities, etc., I came up with a profile that works very well for me and reduces most 2-hour movies down to 1 to 1.5GB and look pretty darn good on the GTablet, and in testing, all have played flawlessly in Act1 Video Player (Rockplayer seemed to play them fine too).

You should be able to import the settings I'm using if you're using Handbrake .95 (older versions won't work, I hear).

Basically, it:

Resizes the videos down to 1024 x XXX (keeping aspect ratio)

Adds weak Denoising (film grain GREATLY increases file size, if you like film grain and don't mind bigger filesizes, turn this off, or bump it to Medium for smaller sizes/more softening)

Changes video codec to MPEG-4 (FFmpeg)

Uses a Constant Quality/Quantization Parameter (QP) of 6. Anything higher tended to get ugly. For movies I really care about, I bounced this to 4 for some added quality. 6 will give you some slight banding/blocking in gradient areas and minor compression artifacts in hard contrast areas but I can hardly see it on the GTablet screen (though it's pretty clear on my 32" monitor, of course).

Didn't touch the audio, lower the sample rate and mix it down to Stereo to save a tad more space (not much).

That's really about it. Render time on my Core i7 w/8GB is somewhere in the neighborhood of 1-2 hours for a 2-3 hour movie. I queue a bunch up and start it right before bed, and it'll chew through 5-6 by morning.

Why Constant Quality/QP instead of bitrate? It's more adaptive, putting the higher bitrates in the scenes that need higher bitrates to maintain quality/reduce artifacts while reducing bitrates in scenes that don't need it as much. It's like CBR vs VBR in MP3s. Because of this some movies -will- be larger. Avatar, for example, is still well over 4GB (no denoising, QP 4) whereas Scott Pilgrim is 1.5GB with the same settings (though it is about 25% shorter).

You'll want to tweak these settings to your tastes, but I was very pleased with this setup and I can get 10+ movies on a 16GB card, which is plenty.

If you're really most concerned with getting lots of movies of acceptable quality, raise the QP to 8-10 (anything higher was plain awful IMO), reduce audio bitrate & mixdown to stereo, reduce resolution to 848 x XXX, bump denoising to Medium/High. USE THE PREVIEW BUTTON at the top. It will give you an XX second rendering of the settings you've selected. This will save you a tremendous amount of time screwing stuff up.

I attached a file, just remove the .txt so the extension is .plist, open Handbrake, click Presets > Import and select the file.

Then select the Preset, select your source, select Destination and Start or Add to Queue. Now that I have my settings decided, I can queue up a dozen movies in a few minutes. Select source, confirm destination, click Add to Queue, repeat until movies are all queued.

Alternately you can copy the following text into a blank text file and rename the extension .plist

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist>
<array>
<dict>
<key>AudioList</key>
<array>
<dict>
<key>AudioBitrate</key>
<string>160</string>
<key>AudioEncoder</key>
<string>AAC (faac)</string>
<key>AudioMixdown</key>
<string>Stereo</string>
<key>AudioSamplerate</key>
<string>Auto</string>
<key>AudioTrack</key>
<integer>1</integer>
<key>AudioTrackDRCSlider</key>
<real>0.0</real>
<key>AudioTrackDescription</key>
<string>Unknown</string>
</dict>
</array>
<key>ChapterMarkers</key>
<integer>0</integer>
<key>Default</key>
<integer>0</integer>
<key>FileFormat</key>
<string>MP4 file</string>
<key>Folder</key>
<false />
<key>Mp4HttpOptimize</key>
<integer>0</integer>
<key>Mp4LargeFile</key>
<integer>1</integer>
<key>Mp4iPodCompatible</key>
<integer>0</integer>
<key>PictureAutoCrop</key>
<integer>1</integer>
<key>PictureBottomCrop</key>
<integer>0</integer>
<key>PictureDeblock</key>
<integer>0</integer>
<key>PictureDecomb</key>
<integer>0</integer>
<key>PictureDecombCustom</key>
<string />
<key>PictureDecombDeinterlace</key>
<integer>1</integer>
<key>PictureDeinterlace</key>
<integer>0</integer>
<key>PictureDeinterlaceCustom</key>
<string />
<key>PictureDenoise</key>
<integer>3</integer>
<key>PictureDenoiseCustom</key>
<string />
<key>PictureDetelecine</key>
<integer>0</integer>
<key>PictureDetelecineCustom</key>
<string />
<key>PictureHeight</key>
<integer>0</integer>
<key>PictureKeepRatio</key>
<integer>0</integer>
<key>PictureLeftCrop</key>
<integer>0</integer>
<key>PictureModulus</key>
<integer>0</integer>
<key>PicturePAR</key>
<integer>2</integer>
<key>PictureRightCrop</key>
<integer>0</integer>
<key>PictureTopCrop</key>
<integer>0</integer>
<key>PictureWidth</key>
<integer>0</integer>
<key>PresetBuildNumber</key>
<string>2011010300</string>
<key>PresetDescription</key>
<string>No Description</string>
<key>PresetName</key>
<string>GTablet</string>
<key>Type</key>
<integer>1</integer>
<key>UsesMaxPictureSettings</key>
<integer>1</integer>
<key>UsesPictureFilters</key>
<integer>1</integer>
<key>UsesPictureSettings</key>
<integer>2</integer>
<key>VideoAvgBitrate</key>
<string />
<key>VideoEncoder</key>
<string>MPEG-4 (FFmpeg)</string>
<key>VideoFramerate</key>
<string>Same as source</string>
<key>VideFrameratePFR</key>
<integer>0</integer>
<key>VideoGrayScale</key>
<integer>0</integer>
<key>VideoQualitySlider</key>
<real>6</real>
<key>VideoQualityType</key>
<integer>2</integer>
<key>VideoTargetSize</key>
<string />
<key>VideoTurboTwoPass</key>
<integer>0</integer>
<key>VideoTwoPass</key>
<integer>0</integer>
<key>x264Option</key>
<string />
</dict>
</array>
</plist>