H.264 Anime Encoding Guide for the PS Vita
In celebration of the PS Vita’s release, I’ve put together a mini-guide outlining how to encode anime (and videos) for viewing on the new handheld system. This isn’t the only way to do it, but I have found it to be the easiest.
(Note: The following information can also be applied to Apple Devices and other compatible portable media devices, albeit a different preset for the specific device should be used).
The program that I will be employing for this task is a popular encoding software by the name of Handbrake. In this post, I have also included a custom preset I created for the Vita that fiddles around with a number of advanced settings and is specifically tailored towards animation. If you are curious, this wiki goes into greater detail about each setting. My goal with these tweaks was to ensure a maximum picture quality to size/encoding time ratio.
Download link for the AT Playstation Vita preset: http://www.mediafire.com/?ntivnezvwax8x7n
1. Open up Handbrake, search for the Presets menu on the top left of the application, and select Import. Locate the Handbrake settings file provided in this post and press Ok.
2. Next, Handbrake requires a default output destination to be set. Go to Tools -> Options -> General Tab and select a location to be the default path for the output files.
3. All of the settings have been selected through the preset. However, you can fiddle around with the bit rate settings in the Video Tab if you prefer higher or lower quality then the 150mb target I set. The bit rate and mixdown of the audio can also be changed if higher quality audio/surround sound capability is desired. Vita memory cards are retardedly expensive which makes space on the handheld all the more valuable. If you know the show you are encoding doesn’t have much high-motion and/or CG scenes, it may be a good idea to lower the bit rate to save space without sacrificing too much quality.
Here’s comparison between different size/bit rate settings to picture quality.
(@100Mb/450kbs, 200Mb/1034kbs, 300Mb/1616kbs):
4. Next you must select the file to be encoded. Click the Source icon located on the top menu and select video file. Browse for the video to be encoded and press Ok.
5. Soft subtitles are not appropriate for the Vita and a hard sub must be done in order to maintain the same positioning, styling, and fonts as the original subtitles. Go to the Subtitles Tab and select the subtitle track to be used with the video. Check the Burned In box to hard code the subtitles onto the video, and then press Add.
6. Now that all of the setup is done, its time to start encoding the videos. If you have multiple files, they can all be added to a queue with the Add to Queue icon and encoded in succession automatically. If there is only one video to be encoded, press Start. Handbrake will begin to do its work. The encoding is one-pass and shouldn’t take longer then 5-8 minutes for a normal 22min episode on a decently equipped computer.
And that’s it! Enjoy your anime on dat beautiful OLED screen.
-exo
About the Author
exo Co-founder and contributor of AT. Enjoys all types of anime, light/visual novels, and plays RPGs/MMOs, MOBAs, and SC2 (poorly) in his free time.
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Well…this looks pretty simple…I should get a Vita just to try it :P
Haha, yeah you should def consider. The vita is a pretty sick piece of hardware.
I have a Vita and I should definitely use this tutorial when i’m going on a vacation just so I don’t get left behind when it comes to watching anime.
Haha sweet, I’m glad this tutorial will be put to good use. I have to say that anime looks beautiful on the vita, you won’t be disappointed.
I’m not sure if you still are paying attention to this article, but I need to ask a question.
The subtitles work perfectly! I’m very happy because that is a great thing :D, but the problem is that the video itself is in very very poor quality. This might be because I’m using Handbrake ver. 0.9.6? Anyways, I’m wondering how you can increase the quality if possible.
or youcould just download anime directly to your vita and save you the trouble just go to anime shippuden mobile. yourwelcome :)
Im lost. Do you need a computer to use handbrake or just the vita?
If you do need a computer, do you have to download the episodes then encode it?
Yes, you’ll need a computer to use Handbrake. And just like you said, the episodes must be downloaded and put through Handbrake to be encoded into a usable format for the Vita.
It’s been quite a few months since this post was published. 2 questions: Is this method outdated and do you know if this will get the best quality out of any other methods? Thanks.
This method is still very viable. Encoding technology hasn’t changed very much within the past months (although 10bit is getting more popular), but I doubt the Vita will support it any time soon.
As for your second question, all encoders are the same. They just provide an easy to use gui front-end for x264, and so it probably won’t matter which program (method) you use for encoding as it probably come out the same in the end. For the most part, quality is most strongly affected by file size. The higher the bit rate, the higher the quality. Play around with the quality settings and see what works for you.
This was really helpful. Thanks for sharing!
Excellent method .. works like a charm .. i have seen other methods that take long pages and lots of time to setup/tune the settings .. the idea providing the preset is great too.