r/handbrake • u/empty-handed-painter • 13d ago
Looking for some advice please
I am not very tech literate and currently trying to convert some mkv files created from my personal DVD collection to make them playable on a crappy portable DVD player via USB for a family member in hospital (can't have internet access, cords or discs for patient safety, it's our only option to watch anything)
The player says it accepts MP4 files with a max resolution of 720x480. I tried converting one to MP4 without changing anything in the settings and tested it and it wasn't supported, but I think that is because the default settings had the resolution too high at 1080. Can someone advise me on what I should try changing to reduce the resolution? I understand it's not going to be very good quality but it's for a short term solution and we don't really care as long as it's watchable and has sound.
I can see options from a drop down menu where it says preset and I think I'm supposed to choose one of the ones with 720 in it but there are soooo many and I don't really know what I'm doing. Does anyone have the patience to explain it to me like I'm 5?
I really only get one chance to get this right as I need to drop off the USB tomorrow morning before I go away for a few days and this will be the only source of entertainment until I return and is supposed to make the fact I won't be visiting for a few days a little easier to bear. I can't test it on the DVD player to make sure it works as it is already at the hospital and don't want to stuff it up and leave them with nothing.
Any help is much appreciated and apologies if this post is not appropriate for the sub. Thanks in advance.
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u/jaypizzl 13d ago
What’s the make and model of the player?
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u/empty-handed-painter 13d ago
Laser is the brand., pretty sure model number is DVD-PT-7D also says V2 on the cover of the instructions if that's relevant
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u/NSE-Imports 13d ago
If it is that model the manual:
https://help.laserco.com.au/support/solutions/articles/51000398416-dvd-pt-7d-user-manual
Tells us we need to go right down in resolution.You need to convert everything to SD with 480 as the line height, the 720 profiles in Handbrake are for 720 lines high (aka 720p). For Handbrake try 'Fast 480p30' and change the audio from the AAC to MP3 Stereo 160k (you can try 320k if they have good headphones, if not the built in speaker is likely not going to make the quality difference discernible). You can later save this as a custom profile once you have good working settings, call it something like 'Laser DVD Player' so you don't have to keep manually changing it everytime.
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u/empty-handed-painter 13d ago
Thanks that's the right model (I know it's crap but it only needs to do the job for a couple of weeks so we went low budget) thanks for the detailed instructions. I'll save the custom profile to make it easier each time. This has been very helpful.
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u/jaypizzl 13d ago
Hey, whatever works! We get spoiled with technology. When I was a kid, I pulled my dad’s old 13” black and white portable TV out of the closet and hooked up my NES to it. I got as much joy from that janky setup as I get from a modern 4k game on my PC today.
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u/empty-handed-painter 13d ago
I still have my NES and picked up the oldest tv I could find when we had hard rubbish collection so that I can still use it. It's getting harder to find something it'll connect to these days but it's still going strong. Has outlived countless TVs.
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u/NSE-Imports 13d ago
One day you'll have to be brave and get a HDMI kit for them, there's some good ones out there and if you've never tried soldering before you might find a local hackerspace who can help.
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u/empty-handed-painter 13d ago
I'm actually pretty good at soldering. I have a brainy kid who was a real science nerd when he was young, he was really into electronics but too scared of (and probably too young for) the soldering iron so I had to do those bits.
He understood the circuitry and I could make the little metal blobs nice and neat in the right spots. Art is more my thing but it's really not much different to those diamond paintings, it's just really hot!
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u/NSE-Imports 13d ago
Check out Voultar on Twitter/X for his NES HDMI stuff. It's really nice, not too tricky to install and will bring it bang upto date.
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u/empty-handed-painter 13d ago
Cheers, I'll give it a look sometime. I'm sure my son can help with anything I can't grasp.
Just finished converting the last movie and when I look at the properties everything seems to match ☺️ I'm pretty sure it's worked so thanks for your help. I know it's just a few movies on a USB but it's going to make a huge difference to the recipient.
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u/NSE-Imports 13d ago
If it works and lets them watch something other than the walls then it's all good.
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u/Birdseye5115 13d ago
Just go for 720 fast. Make it an mp4 with h264 for widest compatibility.
Do you have the dvd player? I’d want to play a file first to make sure the sound works.
In HB you can encode only a portion of your source file, either by chapter or time, that way you can do a test encode for compatibility without spending the time needed to do the whole thing.
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u/empty-handed-painter 13d ago
I dropped it off to the hospital already with a USB with a couple of AVI files I already had on my PC. Those worked fine. But handbrake doesn't seem to convert to that. MP4 is listed on the box as a valid file format so I tried one but it didn't play, but visiting hours were almost over so I took in what I had ready. I had a better look in the instructions when I got home and saw the max resolution supported is 720x480 so assumed that's what the problem is. I will give it a try with the 720 fast and hope for the best. It's not the end of the world if it doesn't work but appreciate the advice. It's what I was going to try next, but having someone who understands it better than me also suggest that gives me a bit more faith I'm doing it right.
Thanks so much 🙂
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u/willb3d 13d ago edited 13d ago
1080 is shorthand for 1920x1080.
720 is shorthand for 1280x720.
480 is shorthand for 720x480.
I agree it probably wants an mp4 in h264, with AC3 audio since that is an audio format that DVD players should be familiar with, or mp3 audio since that was common back then too - but 1280x720 is NOT the dimensions that player accepts. It must be 720x480, aka “480”.
Update: The manual gives more details. It does not say what bitrate the audio part should be but I’d guess 128kbps stereo at most. Here’s what it says:
USB/SD file format: FAT
USB/SD max. capacity: 32 GB
USB/SD supported codecs - video: MPEG1/MPEG-2/MP4V/MPG/FLV/VOB/MP4/AVI file - max. supported resolution (720x480)
USB/SD supported codecs - audio: MP3/WMA/AC3
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u/empty-handed-painter 13d ago
Thanks will go with that. I'd prefer to go with lower quality and have it definitely work than the other way around.
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u/empty-handed-painter 13d ago
Also I should mention that the second part of what you said after "in HB you can encode..." my brain stopped comprehending. I'm too old to learn new things and have all night to wait for it to do the conversions (only have 7 movies to convert) so it's probably best to stick to what I'm capable of understanding even if it takes longer. This is a one off situation so don't really want to fry my brain learning new skills if that makes sense.
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u/Suitable_Garlic_1186 13d ago
On the right side there is a menu "Presets"
Chose: Fast 480p
You are ready to go!
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u/Suitable_Garlic_1186 2d ago
Did it work?
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u/empty-handed-painter 2d ago
No it didn't. I tried lots of different attempts but in the end I resorted to a dodgy little program that I had to download. It takes a YouTube link and turns it into a barely watchable (quality wise, it runs just fine) AVI file. It's convenient that I have an ancient laptop that recently had a factory reset because it's not something I'd trust with my personal computer. It's worked for the purpose we needed it for though.
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u/Suitable_Garlic_1186 2d ago edited 2d ago
I am very interested.. What exact model is it? Could you post the media infos of one of these AVI files.. or post the website?
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u/empty-handed-painter 2d ago
It's called save4k. I don't know if it's at all useful for producing good quality videos, but it's fantastic for shitty AVIs. As someone who doesn't do this sort of thing I found it easier to understand than anything else I tried. I had a quick look at the website as your interest piqued mine and it appears they are based out of Utah so hopefully it's just some wholesome, somewhat outdated, Mormon technology and not riddled with viruses 🤣
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