Program for Encoding BluRay / DVD

Sean^DCT4

What is the best application you have come across for making backups of your BluRays / DVD's. I want to convert some BluRay's to .mkv and keep the HD quality. Same goes for DVD to .avi / .mkv?

_AVALANCHE_

http://makemkv.com/

or

http://www.dvdfab.com/hd-decrypter.htm

and either

http://handbrake.fr/

or

http://sourceforge.net/projects/megui/

for fiddiling with them after, if you wanted to.

Speaking of which, has anyone any good setups (presets) for handbrake or megui for the best possible results?

Voodu Child

_AVALANCHE_ wrote: »

Speaking of which, has anyone any good setups (presets) for handbrake or megui for the best possible results?

In Megui just start with x264 DXVA High-Def preset.

Change speed to slow if you really want to eek out more compression.

Use tune-film for most sources (live action obviously).

I use RF17-18 when encoding from a Bluray disc to 720p. With RF encoding the idea is that you're aiming for a quality rather than a general size, so i've found my encodes could be anywhere from 4000-9000kbps depending on source.

I normally use Spline36 downscale to maintain detail but without edge-ringing.

If you are aiming for very small sizes then you will probably want a neutral or even soft resizer, and also you'll want noise/grain reduction. Degrain filters are a whole thread all by itself. And a higher RF, more like 20.

_AVALANCHE_

Hi Voodu,

Here's a question for ya, Transformers 3 is 32GB with Dolby 5.1, while still keeping it in 1080p, what (if anything) can be shaved off that by reencoding it?

I've a little 5min 1080p clip that I've been meaning to play around with but I don't be on the computer that much to mess with all the options.

Voodu Child

_AVALANCHE_ wrote: »

Hi Voodu,

Here's a question for ya, Transformers 3 is 32GB with Dolby 5.1, while still keeping it in 1080p, what (if anything) can be shaved off that by reencoding it?

Just find the video bitrate and re-encode it using 2-pass at a lower bitrate. And accept the fact that it will take hours and you will lose some quality.

As soon as you perform any re-encoding you reduce the quality. So its just a case of whether you can perceive the quality hit. It depends how big your TV is, how close you sit, how good your eye is etc.

Unfortunately TF3 is encoded with AVC and the best current consumer codec is AVC (ie x264). So you're re-encoding within the same generation of video codecs...there's very little compression to be gained.

For the sake of argument, say that TF3 is 30 Mbit/s, and you want to re-encode at 15Mb/s. Well I would use x264 preset slower or even very slow (basically they increase things like ref frames and motion search)...note that the encode will take many many hours depending on your CPU.

Light degraining (maybe just spatial) will improve the compressibility but you have to remember that degraining itself is a reduction in quality.

In a few years HDDs will be much bigger and you'll wonder why you spent hundreds of hours compressing your Bluray collection just for the sake of a few TB (assuming you have a lot of Blurays). It happened to me with DVDs a few years ago.

Sean^DCT4

What do you use to encode Voodu Child? MeGUI or Handbrake? Or something else?

Voodu Child

Sean^DCT4 wrote: »

What do you use to encode Voodu Child? MeGUI or Handbrake? Or something else?

I use MeGUI when I want the best results. Its not the easiest to use but it gives you more control over filters, different types of scalers etc. The x264 GUI options are more comprehensive and up-to-date also. I don't think Handbrake has even started giving the --tune options in the GUI yet. Even the presets for specific devices or compatibility are better.

Sean^DCT4

Voodu Child wrote: »

I use MeGUI when I want the best results. Its not the easiest to use but it gives you more control over filters, different types of scalers etc. The x264 GUI options are more comprehensive and up-to-date also. I don't think Handbrake has even started giving the --tune options in the GUI yet. Even the presets for specific devices or compatibility are better.

Just downloaded MeGUI and had a quick look. I'll have a play about with it in the new year and see how I get on. Thanks for the tips.

Sean^DCT4

Just finished backing up my first few DVD's. Takes around 7 - 9 minutes to encode the VOB files using handbrake on automatic settings. I'm getting between 700 - 1000MB and the sound and video quality is really good.

Khannie

That's about right for DVD's with X264 encoding though I'd tend to aim for the 1G to 1.4G mark myself. For the Blurays you should be looking at the 7-10G mark, depending on movie length and whether or not you retain full 1080p and full surround sound. You could have 720p encodes at around the 3G mark from a bluray source that still look and sound excellent.

Expect the blurays to take a whole lot longer to encode.