Handbrake conversion question

[4pdpom]

Hi everyone,

I have followed the guidelines for Handbrake conversion given in the article on this site, but my file came out as a .m4v file and not a .mp4. I chose H.264 (iPod) for the encoder as instructed. The only thing that was not the same as the article was that the Presets menu at the top had all choices grayed out.

Anyone know why this happened? Thanks in advance!

[studogvetmed]

Which version of handbrake were you using and for what operating system?

Can you link the guideline you used?

.m4v and mp4 for "essentially" the same.

Did you have issues getting the converted file into iTunes and onto your iPod?

[4pdpom]

Hi! Thanks for responding. Here's a link to the guidelines I used.

http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/articles/comments/the-complete-guide-to-ipod-video-conversion-win

I was reading on the Handbrake forum that .m4v and .mp4 are essentially the same and someone over there suggested just renaming the file, however, when I tried to rename the file it wouldn't let me change the extension. The weird thing is, when I mouse over the file and see the file properties, it says it is already a MPEG-4 video file, but for some reason the extension it gave it is .mv4. It is not showing the extension when you are just looking at it in the My DVD folder. So, when I tried to rename it "name.mp4" it came out as "name.mp4.mv4" .

Yes, the reason I'm trying to change the file extension is that it won't play in Quicktime and I cannot get it into iTunes or into my iPod.

Thanks again for your help!

D.

[4pdpom]

Whoops! Sorry...in the post above I meant to type .m4v not .mv4. I'm getting so confused! LOL! :p

[4pdpom]

Ok, so I have figured out how to rename the file with the extension .mp4, but it is still not recognized by Quicktime and I still can't import it into iTunes library. I guess the encoding in Handbrake didn't work correctly? It said it was an mpeg-4 file and I thought that was what you needed for the iPod to play?

[4pdpom]

The file even has the little Quicktime symbol next to it now and it says MPEG-4 movie file when you mouse over it. But when you try to open it up I get an error message that say:

"Error 2048: Couldn't open the file because it is not a file that Quicktime understands."

I don't get it.

[studogvetmed]

You are using windows handbrake then? I'm wondering if you somehow used the wrong preset, though you said that the presets were greyed out.

You may have not used the right encoder.

I'd recommend making sure that you have the most recent version of handbrake from their website (they recently had an update) and use the tutorials on their site...

[4pdpom]

Thanks for the advice. I just downloaded Handbrake for the first time yesterday so I think I have the most recent version. I'm not sure why the presets were greyed out. I guess I will go ahead and try to redo it from the start and see what happens using Handbrakes tutorial. I will let you know if I get anywhere with it.

Thanks again! :)

[4pdpom]

Success! Started over with the process and the presets popped up over on the right hand side...not sure why, but was just happy to see them! I started the encoding process and left it run overnight. I think that maybe the issue last time was that I had thought the encoding process was completed, but maybe it was not. It still saved it as a .m4v file, but all I did was change the extension to .mp4 and it opened the movie in iTunes and started to play it and I added it to my library with no problems.

I haven't had a chance to synch to my iPod yet and see if it is working on there, but looks good so far!

Thanks again!

D.

[mvpsandy1]

it takes overnight to complete??? How long does it take to get it to mp4 format?

[bizzyjb]

MP4 and M4V are pretty much interchangeable. The difference is that MP4 COULD in theory be just audio or just video. The idea of naming it an m4v is to denote MP4 video, m4a would be audio only...Personally I think that MP4 makes the most sense for both audio and video, but handbrake seems to default to m4v output...

However, like I said I think they are interchangeable and it's really just about etiquette. Regardless, Handbrake will encode your mp4 or m4v using x.264 in Windows an h.264 on OSX, also completely interchangeable.

If your PC is slow, then yeah...it could take overnight to encode something. My guess though, is that he was encoding something and didn't want to sit there watching it, so he encoded it before going to bed. (Even if it only took 10 minutes to do).

On my core2duo E6750, it takes me about 15 minutes or something to encode a 23min video with deinterlacing, and two-pass encoding. Two-pass slows it down quite a bit but is totally worth it.

[mvpsandy1]

MP4 and M4V are pretty much interchangeable. The difference is that MP4 COULD in theory be just audio or just video. The idea of naming it an m4v is to denote MP4 video, m4a would be audio only...Personally I think that MP4 makes the most sense for both audio and video, but handbrake seems to default to m4v output...

However, like I said I think they are interchangeable and it's really just about etiquette. Regardless, Handbrake will encode your mp4 or m4v using x.264 in Windows an h.264 on OSX, also completely interchangeable.

If your PC is slow, then yeah...it could take overnight to encode something. My guess though, is that he was encoding something and didn't want to sit there watching it, so he encoded it before going to bed. (Even if it only took 10 minutes to do).

On my core2duo E6750, it takes me about 15 minutes or something to encode a 23min video with deinterlacing, and two-pass encoding. Two-pass slows it down quite a bit but is totally worth it.

Good info! Thanks a bunch. Got a little freaked out when I heard the word overnight, but now I am at ease. Thanks again :)

[Paden]

Hi all
I used Handbrake for the first time recently to convert two DVD's for my iPod.
One was a region 2 16:9 movie & the other was 4:3 region 1.
Both converted fine & were both viewable in iTunes however when trying to sync with my iPod the 4:3 movie "was not copied to the ipod, it cannot be played on this ipod", any ideas why this might be?
I used the "convert selection for iPod" in iTunes, after which it synced fine but I don't understand why this step was necessary when the other conversion synced fine first time

Cheers, Paul

[darlingnikki]

Hi,
I have a small problem with handbrake. I have encoded the film Purple Rain, and that was okay but then i encoded the Office christmas specials. Only the first part was encoded and I don't know how to encode the other half (Chapters 14-30.)
I use DVD Decrypter to burn the dvd on to my PC (Windows XP) then Handbrake 0.9.2 with the preset- ipod Low-Rez. Please help, thanks.

[bizzyjb]

Hi,
I have a small problem with handbrake. I have encoded the film Purple Rain, and that was okay but then i encoded the Office christmas specials. Only the first part was encoded and I don't know how to encode the other half (Chapters 14-30.)
I use DVD Decrypter to burn the dvd on to my PC (Windows XP) then Handbrake 0.9.2 with the preset- ipod Low-Rez. Please help, thanks.

I don't know how to help you man...I'm not familiar with that DVD or anything. If it is on one disc, but in two separate titles, then you just have to encode the titles separately. Check to see if the episode is in more than one VTS or title by looking at the pull down in Handbrake that says "Title". Usually the first title is the main video, but not necessarily always.

You can find out just by looking at the ones listed and seeing how long they are...for example if there are two of them that happen to be 00:20:00 or something like that, then the show is probably in two parts.

More likely is that there would just be one that was 00:40:00 or something. One way to find out what titles have the main videos is to watch them with a program that shows the title number...that's what I usually do.

Hope that helps.

[darlingnikki]

Thanks alot for replying and helping. I think what I need to do is the pull down in Handbrake that says "Title", like a fool I didnt realise. If that works I'll let you know. Thanks alot for your help.

[darlingnikki]

Yes that did work, thanks alot for your help.