This guide is not meant to teach you how to use Handbrake. This guide is meant to walk you through the specific steps needed to use Handbrake to re-encode your deposition videos such that they conform to the MP4 specs required by OnCue. Failure to follow, or modifications to these steps, may result in files that are NOT COMPATIBLE and therefore may not play properly in OnCue.
* Download latest stable release of Handbrake for your operating system and install.
* Download the Handbrake preset at the bottom of this article “OnCue Spec MP4.json”.
* If you have more than 2 or 3 video files that need to be converted it will be easiest if you move them to a separate folder first.
The first time you start up Handbrake, before loading any videos, we need to change some preferences in the program itself. You only have to do this once, the settings should stick, but you will need to close and restart Handbrake for the changes to take effect.
When you open Handbrake the first time it should look like this.
At the bottom-left of the program window, click on Preferences.
This gets us to the Preferences menu. On the left side click on Output Files.
The first thing to check/change is the Default Path, this is where the converted videos will be saved to on your computer. Make sure it points to a location that your user account has permission to save to.
Second is the File Format. So that the videos retain the same filename as the originals we need to make sure it’s set to “{source}” and nothing else or the files will need to be renamed before using them in OnCue.
Next are three check boxes. In order to keep the filenames the same we need to make sure all three of these are unchecked.
Last is to make sure the MP4 File Extension is set to “Always use MP4”.
Now click the Back button to go back to the main screen.
Now as you recall, in order to make these changes active in Handbrake we need to close and restart the program, so do that now. Once you have opened Handbrake back up you will see this screen again.
Now we will point Handbrake at the video files we want to convert. If you are converting multiple files and have moved them to a separate folder, click Folder (Batch Scan).
* If you are only converting 1 or 2 files you can do this one at a time by clicking on File, but any more than that and you will be better off doing them in a batch.
For the purposes of this guide we are going to assume you are converting multiple files and have moved them to a separate folder. Navigate to where the videos are located on your computer. Select the folder containing the videos and click the Select Folder button.
Before we start converting the videos we need to import the OnCue Spec MP4 preset file. At the top right of the program window there should be a button labeled Presets, click this.
This will open up the Presets pane on the right side of the program.
At the bottom of the Presets pane click the Options button. Now go up to Import from file.
Navigate to the location where the OnCue Spec MP4 preset was downloaded to your computer. Select the file and click Open.
Now in handbrake this preset will be located in the Presets Pane under Custom Presets. You will need to make sure the OnCue Spec MP4 preset is selected every time you load more files into Handbrake to convert.
We are ready to start converting the videos. If you have multiple files you will need to add them all to the Queue. Hit the down arrow next to Add to Queue and go down to Add All.
All that’s left is to hit the Start Encode button and let Handbrake do it’s thing.
Once Handbrake has finished converting all of the videos you may have additional steps before you can use them in OnCue. If the videos started out as MP4 but needed to be re-encoded to meet specs then just move the re-encoded videos back to the _synchedvideos folder within your OnCue database folder structure and you’re done.
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