# Handbrake - Tips on getting reasonable results **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 14, 2011, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/handbrake-tips-on-getting-reasonable-results/567647 "2011-01-14T21:42:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2011, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/handbrake-tips-on-getting-reasonable-results/567647/21 "2011-01-16T21:00:55Z")
> [@Digital\_Stimulus](#): > > Because it’s free, open-source, multi-platform, multi-processor-capable, easy-to-use, and works without issue for many/most people? Those are all the reasons I chose it in the first place. But that last one wasn’t true for me (and for a lot of others too, according to their support forums), and so I went to another product. ---
**Author:** ![Digital\_Stimulus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@Digital\_Stimulus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Digital_Stimulus)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2011, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/handbrake-tips-on-getting-reasonable-results/567647/22 "2011-01-16T23:49:14Z")
> [@mhendo](#): > > That’s right, and i was being somewhat imprecise with my earlier comment… OK. If you don’t mind, I’m going to pursue this a bit, both for my own edification and to address the following: > [@aceplace57](#): > > I’m still debating whether to stick with xvid or go with Handbrake and MP4. The people at Handbrake claim avi is dead… If avi is simply a container, is there a reason it would be ‘dead’? Or, re-phrased, what benefit does, say, mkv (or some other container) provide over avi (to such an extent that Handbrake developers would forsake it)? Also, I was under the impression that MP4 is equivalent to MPEG-4 is equivalent to H.264 encoding. Is that right? Does ‘mp4’ carry with it certain connotations that may be different than H.264 and/or from, say, ‘m4v’? And so, your older DVD player that doesn’t recognize ‘mkv’ files also won’t recognize ‘mp4’ or ‘m4v’ files? **aceplace57** , I suspect that the huge mkv files you’re seeing are either: (1) really high quality or (2) really _badly done_ encodings. ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2011, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/handbrake-tips-on-getting-reasonable-results/567647/23 "2011-01-17T00:28:17Z")
> [@Digital\_Stimulus](#): > > If avi is simply a container, is there a reason it would be ‘dead’? Or, re-phrased, what benefit does, say, mkv (or some other container) provide over avi (to such an extent that Handbrake developers would forsake it)? It’s all there on the Handbrake website: > [@](#): > > AVI is a rough beast. It is obsolete. It does not support modern container features like chapters, muxed-in subtitles, variable framerate video, or out of order frame display. Furthermore, HandBrake’s AVI muxer is vanilla AVI 1.0 that doesn’t even support large files. The code has not been actively maintained since 2005. Keeping it in the library while implementing new features means a very convoluted data pipeline, full of conditionals that make the code more difficult to read and maintain, and make output harder to predict. As such, it is now gone. It is not coming back, and good riddance. ---
**Author:** ![zwede](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/ac91a4/32.png) [@zwede](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zwede)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2011, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/handbrake-tips-on-getting-reasonable-results/567647/24 "2011-01-17T03:07:05Z")
MKV also gives you additional features such as multiple audio tracks (for instance more than one language or a commentary track often found on DVDs) and multiple subtitles. ---
**Author:** ![Digital\_Stimulus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@Digital\_Stimulus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Digital_Stimulus)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2011, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/handbrake-tips-on-getting-reasonable-results/567647/25 "2011-01-17T03:40:25Z")
> [@mhendo](#): > > It’s all there on the Handbrake website: Well, that would require me to actually read the website. 😉 > [@zwede](#): > > MKV also gives you additional features such as multiple audio tracks (for instance more than one language or a commentary track often found on DVDs) and multiple subtitles. So perhaps that’s the explanation for the large mkv files. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/handbrake-tips-on-getting-reasonable-results/567647.md?page=1)