www.makemkv.com

Hi, not sure if anyone can advise me. I ripped a UHD disk the other day. The issue was the mkv image came out at 65 gb. I am new to makemkv, so not sure if I'm doing something wrong in the settings. Also what is the best software to shrink the mkv file down to a reasonable size and doesn't take much time.
I'm new to the software, and must sound a bit dim. But this forum is a fountain of knowledge.

Thank you, hope someone can advise me.

GmanEst72 wrote: ↑

Thu Aug 14, 2025 4:53 pm

Hi, not sure if anyone can advise me. I ripped a UHD disk the other day. The issue was the mkv image came out at 65 gb. I am new to makemkv, so not sure if I'm doing something wrong in the settings. Also what is the best software to shrink the mkv file down to a reasonable size and doesn't take much time.
I'm new to the software, and must sound a bit dim. But this forum is a fountain of knowledge.

Thank you, hope someone can advise me.

Except for the "doesn't take much time" requirement:

HandBrake

VidCoder (Windows only, based on the HandBrake engine, "friendlier" GUI, some say)

MakeMKV is just copying what's on the disc. So, if you rip a 4K UHD, you'll get a big file. Regular blu-rays are about half as big. And DVDs are tiny by comparison.

d00zah's suggestions are good ones. There are lots of choices. I use Handbrake and I'd guess it is the most popular.

It is also worth mentioning that UHDs are often in a different colorspace than a regular blu-ray. Depending on your equipment it might look fine, or it might look wrong. https://forum.makemkv.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=163176#p163176

I know many use Handbrake to re-encode/shrink the MKV which MakeMKV outputs. Let me offer another... GPUENCC.exe its included with BD-Rebuilder download. https://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=143716

It is a front end for NVEnc (for Nvidia gpu) and QSVEnc (for Intel GPU) by Rigya (see GitHub). It does an amazing job. I pretty much use the default settings, and select the option to keep the original audio, so it only touches the video. The output looks great on my Sony 77" OLED, and its a smaller HEVC file.

NOTE: Jdobbs includes the Win32 NVEnc which the 50x0 cards don't support, so you'll have to replace with the x64 and rename the exe to make it work, until a new BD-Rebuilder package is released.

For any tool that uses GPU for video encoding (be it NVEnc, QSVEnc, Handbrake, etc), its best to use an Nvidia card with Turing or better encoder chip, or Intel UHD7xx or better GPU.

Hi,
Thank you for your replies, I have a few alternatives to look at. But do you know if you can create an ISO file through MakeMKV. Might be a daft question but was wondering.

Thank you again

GmanEst72 wrote: ↑

Sat Aug 16, 2025 10:39 am

But do you know if you can create an ISO file through MakeMKV.

Disc backups of DVDs will create an ISO. For BD and UHD (and maybe HDDVD?), you'll need to put the generated folders from the disc backup into an ISO with another tool, such as AnyBurn.