Using Handbrake to compress 4K

[Daskew78]

I'm currently in the process of using MakeMKV to rip all my 4K Blu-Rays but I'm unsure what settings to use with Handbrake to compress them.

I want to keep them in 4K with still VERY good audio and video but I am unsure what settings to use. I've tried playing and end up with files larger than the original (not sure how that is possible but it happened so I'm clearly doing something very wrong).

So for example if a 4K film was 60GB with Dolby Atmos, I would be looking to compress that to around 25GB ish and keep the Atmos.

Can anyone help me out with some settings?

Thanks.

[Woodstock]

Handbrake has presets for dealing with 2160p video. But, the HDR10 or other "high dynamic range" found on a lot of the disks will be a problem, because handbrake doesn't "do" HDR right now. And things like Atmos are going to have to be handled as "pass through", because there are no open-source encoders that handle it.

The latest information is going to be available on their forum. Take a few short sections of various titles and encode them with different 2160p presets. View the results to compare. You'll need encode logs to get advice over on their forum, so they can see what you've used, and what the program saw in your source.

[Daskew78]

I thought selecting 10bit was ensuring that the file was encoded with HDR?

[Woodstock]

https://forum.handbrake.fr/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=39004

That's one of many messages over on their forum that explain the issues with HDR content.

[Daskew78]

Thanks for linking me to that Woodstock... I'll have a good search and trail now for the best settings

[harrisbb]

I would recommend looking at this blog's conclusion.

Basically the main takeaways for you would be:

Codec: H.265 10-bit (x265)
Constant Quality: 20
Encoder Preset: Slow

Audio - Codec Auto Passthru