Staxrip - Which good x264 settings to encode for Apple devices?

[Maeggor]

Hi everybody!

I know that question probably have solved or asked before buy I have red so many options I don't know waht to choose!

Here is the issue. I want to encode some of my home DVDs to itunes library and I will watch that videos in my iPad, iPhone and Home Theater with XBMC. I have been setting Staxrip but im lossing within so many options. I dont care about the size of the file and not so much about encoding time I want good quality. What do you think about these options?

VIDEO
Quality - 18
Preset - (what is that exactly?)
Device - (should i choose iPhone new, iPod or can i put in disable¿)
Profile - High
Mode - (i heard that is no difference between two passes and quality and this last is faster in encoding)
Frame Options?
Compressibility Check - (Aimed quality for example in 85) and what is CFR value defining 100% quality?

AUDIO
AAC in CBR in 128? What profile to choose? LC?

Thanks!

[IppE]

Preset - (what is that exactly?)
Preset which defines a set of options in x264. The available ones are:
ultrafast, superfast, veryfast, faster, fast, medium, slow, slower, veryslow and placebo
with each one being slower than the previous (obviously) but also result in smaller file (crf) or more quality at given bitrate (2pass & cbr)


Device - (should i choose iPhone new, iPod or can i put in disable¿)
Varies, iPhone is bit of a bottleneck here if you want to have one video that suits all needs, but I'd go with iPhone cause iPad can probably play that file too, let alone XBMC.


Mode - (i heard that is no difference between two passes and quality and this last is faster in encoding)
2pass aims for a target bitrate (Thus the filesize is predictable), quality to target quality (obviously, with this its hard to tell how big the file will be as its totally content dependable), since filesize is no problem I'd go with quality (crf)


Compressibility Check - (Aimed quality for example in 85) and what is CFR value defining 100% quality?
crf 0 makes the encode lossless but you can achieve visual transparency to the source usually with crf around 14-16 (imo)


AAC in CBR in 128? What profile to choose? LC?
Depends on what the source audio is, but I'd go with either ABR 128kbps AAC LC or ABR 48kbps HE-AACv2.
If quality is all you care I'd leave the audio as original unless its LPCM or other uncompressed format which is just silly.