I had some trouble with a converted Movie File, i converted a Movie to x264 mp4, 1240x720, as this is the resolution mostly said for the IPad.

The movie itself had a lower resolution.

Well converting worked, took 4 hours, but after this my PC went CPU 100% once i opend the folder with the mp4 in it...

My question is: Should i rather set resolution and anything to default/automatic instead of forcing the IPad resolution? And if yes will the IPad display the movie as a tiny Window or full screen?

I recommend using 640x480, h264, at least 1500kbps video (I use 2000kbps), and 128kbps audio. By keeping it at 640x480 you should still be able to sync the same videos with a video iPod. If you don't have a video iPod then use 720x480 as this is the native resolution of dvds.

Even if you don't use 1280x720 the video will still fill up the screen. The iPad screen is 1024x768, so only use settings larger than that if you plan to hook up your iPad to an HD tv. Videos smaller than 1024x768 get stretched to fill the screen, but if you use the hq settings I listed above (with 2000+kbps video) you won't even notice the stretching... the videos look just like the dvd.

I plan to hook up with an HD TV, but im happy as long as the original DvD Quality will be displayed on the IPad, no worries about the HD TV, maybe in a few years i get a double size HDTV, at least then i would have to reconvert any Movie and thats a hell lot of work i just wont do.
A little less quality on the HDTV is ok for me.

Thanks for the answer.

H264 is a good choice, but you should always choose a resolution the same or lower than the original - going up doesn't make it better.

Also, the resolution you chose is probably too high anyway.

Higher resolution takes longer to convert and the disk size is correspondingly larger.

Remember the maximum resolution the iPad can display is 1024 x 768, so always choose a resolution that will fit to one of those number.

For example, if you converted to 720p (1280×720) you would have some zoom factor to play with during the video, so you could choose between wide screen and black bands at the top and bottom, or full screen with some details of the movie cut off of the left and right.

Eddit: Oh, and as lilman pointed out, choosing too low of a bitrate will make even high resolution video look crappy.

I got it now, it makes sense that theres only trouble by setting the resolution higher than the sourcevideo.
Made a conversion with XMedia yesterday, the audiostream plays a bit later than the video, so the conversation fails imo, tried handbrake today morning, will have a look once i got home in a hour.

Now im so close to the final stettings, yet again in trouble.

Ive converted a DvD to MP4 640x480 1500kb/s - tooks 2,5 hours
currently converting DvD to mp4 720x480 2500kb/s - takes about 3,5 hours i think. (remaining time judging)

NOW they both are mp4.
IF i set up for 720x640 2500kb/s AND go for h264 it takes about 10 hours!!!! (remaining time says)

I really wonder what the system is doing taking so much time.
I guess ill stay with the 720x640 2500kb/s mp4.

I still think you're making them way too big. Take a look at the iPad tech specs (copied and pasted from Apple).

H.264 video up to 720p, 30 frames per second, Main Profile level 3.1 with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats; MPEG-4 video, up to 2.5 Mbps, 640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per second, Simple Profile with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats; Motion JPEG (M-JPEG) up to 35 Mbps, 1280 by 720 pixels, 30 frames per second, audio in ulaw, PCM stereo audio in .avi file format

The higher the resolution and the higher the bit rate, the longer it will take. If you like tweak, have fun until you get it just right, then come back and tell us.

Otherwise, just use the same resolution as the input video (max 1280 x 720) and stick with about 1000 - 1500 kbps and I think you'll be happy.

In any case, I'm sure the whole forum would like to hear if you find the sweet spot.

Planning to test out diffrent convertions with ipad and HDTV connected with AV Component to the IPad. I just cant tell before 28th may+ since there will be no IPad before in Europe.
I will tell the results then.

Originally Posted by Lifet1me

Now im so close to the final stettings, yet again in trouble.

Ive converted a DvD to MP4 640x480 1500kb/s - tooks 2,5 hours
currently converting DvD to mp4 720x480 2500kb/s - takes about 3,5 hours i think. (remaining time judging)

That seems kinda slow. Are you using an older computer for conversions? I'm using Wondershare which has support for multiprocessors, and it can convert two 22min episodes from a dvd simultaneously using 640x480 (for 4:3) or 853x480 (for 16:9) h264 2000kbps in under 20mins... and that's on my laptop.

Originally Posted by Lifet1me

IF i set up for 720x640 2500kb/s AND go for h264 it takes about 10 hours!!!! (remaining time says)

Why are you using 720x640, your dvd is 720x480 so you are estimating pixels in the height. You don't get better quality when your output resolution is bigger than your input resolution; if anything you're just wasting filespace and potentially increasing processing runtime during video playback.

Note that above I'm using 853x480 for widescreen movies which seems like I'm estimating pixels. It's kinda tricky to think about, but 720:480 for widescreen movies isn't really 16:9 (720/480 = 1.5, not 1.777), so when I was using 720x480 I was getting black bars at the top and bottom of my output videos. Now that I set it to 853x480 (853/480 = 1.777) I no longer get black bars in the output video. Your processing program may figure this out for itself when converting widescreen movies, but if it doesn't try using the 853x480 setting.

Originally Posted by Lifet1me

Now im so close to the final stettings, yet again in trouble.

Ive converted a DvD to MP4 640x480 1500kb/s - tooks 2,5 hours
currently converting DvD to mp4 720x480 2500kb/s - takes about 3,5 hours i think. (remaining time judging)

NOW they both are mp4.
IF i set up for 720x640 2500kb/s AND go for h264 it takes about 10 hours!!!! (remaining time says)

I really wonder what the system is doing taking so much time.
I guess ill stay with the 720x640 2500kb/s mp4.

One thing I noticed about what you're doing is you've got the aspect ratio of those rendered vids all over the place. If ur converting a NTSC dvd, then it starts out as 720x480 which is an aspect ratio of 1.5 (720/480). When you converted it to 640x480 it changed the aspect ratio to 1.333, a video at 720x640 has a ratio of 1.125. This is probably one of the reasons why its taking so long, because not only is the computer rendering at a new size, but the ratio has been changed.

I just did a little test and it took a lot longer to render when I changed the aspect ratio from the original video. You might try keeping the ratio the same and render again and see if that helps. I mean, I'm not fully positive but at least from what I tested, keeping the aspect ratio the same made the render a lot faster.