Placebo setting in Handbrake...

[compl3x]

Is this just the slowest setting or is it something else? Why did they call it "placebo"? Just curious.

[MikeChipshop Member]

I have no idea. But we all know what placebo means, maybe it's a joke? :s

[Phouchg]

Quite like Insane preset for MP3 VBR - for self-proclaimed snobs that can supposedly hear/see differences between that, lossless and the next lowest one to brag about their many dollar gear (including "my iPhone"), refusing blind test or other hardware, because they supposedly have "a tuned ear", and losing de facto, because nobody should give a sheet - lossy encoding is called lossy for a reason and exists for a reason.

[compl3x]

So, essentially, it's an impractical setting so extreme it is used by no one besides people who pretend to have an almost super-human ability to detect the slightest differences in quality?

[TheLegendOfMart]

Yup.

For my rips I go custom settings, 5 ref frames, 3 bframes, cabac, 8x8 transform, weighted pframes on, uneven multi hex, subpixel 8, motion est 24, psy trellis 1.0, all partitions using RF18 and they look great. 15FPS~ on a quad i5 chip.

[jamieakers]

I wonder whether they're saying it's like the placebo drug so it has no effect, or whether it's some comparison to the 90's band Placebo.

[Phouchg]

It's easier to detect quality loss with visual material, so my rant about audiophiles may not fully apply. But it does enable all the most slowest options supported, so impractical it is. Probably useful for testing equipment (or general testing of codec - that it gets all options right) or something.

[SierraSonic]

The setting everyone should use, why not enable the best possible settings no matter what?

[TheLegendOfMart]

Two reasons:

A) Placebo has 16 reference frames and 16 B-Frames which is not compatible with a lot of standalone devices, at most you should be using 5 reference frames and 3 bframes if you want to play back the video on tablets, streamers, etc..

B) Performance cost, you are looking at sub 1fps if you use the placebo preset regardless of your CPU and a couple of days to transcode a HD movie.

At the very most you should be using slow preset, 5ref frames, subme 8, etc.. and saving yourself hours and hours of transcoding for no perceivable quality loss.

If you want a perfect copy then just leave the bluray source as it is remuxed into MKV.

[compl3x]

Awesome, thanks for the responses. Especially TheLegendOfMart :)

I think the slow preset will do me just fine. :spindj: