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ghart999 · 2012-01-21, 00:32

Sorry if this is the wrong forum, but I am getting to know some of you very well and respect your opinions.

I want to start ripping my entire blue-ray collection to mkv files using DVDfab to rip to m2ts files and then handbrake to encode to mkv files. I am just curious, for people that do the same, what size files they find provide excellent quality, full 5.1 audio yet with the smallest file size. I plan to encode both the primary 5.1 audio channel (whether DTS-HD, TrueHD, DTS, or DD) as well as the 2-channel stream. Well I guess that is another question, if I only encode the 5.1 stream will I be able to play the file on a 2-channel system via HDMI? Meaning will the audio stream down convert for me?

Back to the main question, I also plan to rip in full 1080p. I was hoping I could get away with 2GB per hour for video. But I did not know if this would produce quality video and audio (especially 5.1).

Any thoughts or advice would be greatly appreciated.

grantd · 2012-01-21, 01:30

What you're going to find is that video encoding of any kind is extremely subjective. What I'd personally do is create a small test clip using a rather involved scene and try a bunch of different bit rates and see what you personally like on your equipment. If the file is kept fairly short it shouldn't take too long to do the encodes. You can test the audio on couple of those at the same time.

blank · (This post was last modified: 2012-01-21, 01:59 by blank.)

I tried with Batman the dark knight..
I ripped with makeMKV, I only kept 1 soundformat (5.1 DTS HD if I remember correct) 1 subtitle (as I am not English, subtitles are good to have) and the movie is 28.5GB

I then excluded the video/picture part of the MKV, as I found that handbrake was not good at HD sound formats, and I wanted to keep this.

I handbraked the video, and afterwards included the video in the main MKV file again..
so that only video part was touched..
afterwards the file was about 8-9GB I cant remember, but the sounds was still in HD, adn I couldn't see any difference in the movie/picture quality.. (I think I just kept the normal settings, but sorry, I can't remember)

my PC is a i7 930 with 24gigs ram, and SSD disk.
and the handbrake operation took about 2 hours alone.. it takes about 45 minutes for makeMKV to rip the movie, and 10-15 minutes for exclude and include the files in MKV.
so a good 3-3½ hour per movie..
I got about 70 Bluray movies..
so I stopped after this one, and have everything "uncompressed"

Handbrake does support batchjobs, so if you dont mind leaving your PC running for a few days, and 100% CPU load, then there is only very little manual work left..

I hope this answers some of your question, or atleast help you a bit regarding the sound..

blank · 2012-01-21, 01:37

some more info I found.

Batman: Video only was 6GB
and sound was 1,6GB
and the total was a bit below 8GB.

ghart999 · 2012-01-21, 01:40

Thanks Blank, that helps. So you can actually just encode the video and leave the audio lossless? I did not know you could so that. Is this done in makemkv or handbreak?

blank · 2012-01-21, 01:44

I used MKVtoolnix to extract the video part..
http://www.videohelp.com/tools/MKVtoolnix

this only works with MKV files though, I am not sure if this will work if you use DVDfab.

I am very sensitive with the sound, and I didn't find a way for handbrake to leave the sounds "uncompressed" so this was the solution that worked for me..
again.. I only did it with one bluray movie, as it just takes to long time, and right now, I am only using 3.5TB of 7TB total in my NAS, so still got plenty of space.. Big Grin

ghart999 · 2012-01-21, 01:48

So makemkv converts the Blue-Ray disc to an mkv file? Then you extract the video and audio streams with MKVtoolnix. Then you encode the video with handbrake. Then you merge the uncompressed audio stream with the compressed video stream with some like mkvmerge?

Do I have this correct?

Now to use something like makemkv, don't you need a program to break the copyright protection like AnyDVD?

blank · 2012-01-21, 01:59

yes. that is correct..

makeMKV will break the copyright protection for you.
if you have any issues with copyright protection, write on the forum at http://www.makemkv.com/ and usually he will make a fix within short time..

so far, I have ripped 277 DVD's, and 70 Blurays, and a couple of series without any issues. so I am very pleased with the program..

ghart999 · 2012-01-21, 02:02

Excellent. Thanks again.

One more for you. Lately many blue-rays have multiple m2ts files for the main movie (e.g., star wars series.) It is a pain to have to deal with this. When using makemkv, I assume you only end up with a single mkv file? That would be reason enough to switch from using DVDFab.

**thethirdnut** · (This post was last modified: 2012-01-21, 05:02 by thethirdnut.)

What work's well for me:

a) take orig m2ts and transcode video only - remove audio - using Handbrake Constant Quality RF = 19
b) using MKVmerge merge the following:
-- transcoded handbrake *.mkv [will be x264 video-only stream]
-- original m2ts selecting:
------- original HD audio [DTS-HD or Dobly TrueHD]
------- PGS streams [subtitles]

This'll then give you a new mkv having the transcoded video, original audio & subtitles.

If you run into rips with multiple *.m2ts files - Director's Cut for instance - use BDInfo to analyze the disc and then look at the *.mpls files in the PLAYLIST folder...might have to use TsMuxer to re-encode new full m2ts file...then start back at point a).

T800 · 2012-01-21, 05:38

When I first started ripping my HD disc collection about 3 years ago I was doing something very similar. Comedies/Dramas were re-encoded to 720p with standard DD/DTS. Action films were re-encoded to half size 1080p but kept the HD audio. At the time it made sense. Now it doesn't. Why spend hours changing the video to lesser quality that can be judged quite easily with A and B comparison to save space but keep the audio which imo is superior to DD/DTS but nowhere near as easy to directly compare and can take up quite a bit of space itself?
Maybe it was the DTS-HD MA I liked to to see light up on my receiver! :-)
Now my opinion is if I want a perfect quality movie I rip and leave untouched. If I want decent version of a HD movie a 720p DD/DTS 4GB version should suffice.

I ended up ripping my entire collection again and trashing the re-encodes. It does take up twice as much space but I prefer the best quality I can get.

T800 · (This post was last modified: 2012-01-21, 05:44 by T800.)

@ thethirdnut

I used makemkv first then re-encoded that mkv and remuxed the streams together with tsmuxer. Makemkv takes care of all the multiple m2ts for you.

bluray · 2012-01-21, 05:53

ghart999 Wrote:Lately many blue-rays have multiple m2ts files for the main movie (e.g., star wars series.)

It's known as seamless branch, and you can use BDinfo to verify m2ts files for main movie.

I tried roughly 8 BD converters last year. The fastest BD converter was DVDFab. I thought that you might enjoy this guide- How to rip Blu-ray to MKV with H264 video and DTS-HD audio using Staxrip.

I'm too lazy to convert BD to smaller file. I'm into BD ISO now, because I want to enjoy all the original menu options!

**thethirdnut** · 2012-01-21, 06:33

@T800, @bluray

Definitely all agree on keeping the HD audio. AC3 sounds horrible compared to the other codecs.

For when I started this, however, I did A/B tests with the original vid and different Handbrake encoding settings. I settled on the CQ RF 19 setting since I honestly couldn't tell the difference at that point standing 2' from the plasma.

It does take up extra time and effort, however, you typically do get a file 40-50% of original.

T800 · 2012-01-21, 10:43

I did mine about 1' away from a monitor. A file half the size of the original was very good, in some scenes it was the same, in others either the background or foreground was less detailed.