Older Noob Seeking Basic Advice

[dcoke22]

I've never tried this before, but what about running the hard drive off another PC in my home network? Once I get it setup, could I play movies through my local wifi or would the access be slow to start and then possibly not smooth? I've never tried to access different hardware via my home network, but just curious if you know if this would work. The only purpose would be to eliminate the HDD noise (buy having it located in another room). My projector is already a little noisy when I'm not actually playing any audio through it.

Sure. At the most basic level, this is how Plex works, sending movies across your local network. The general rule of thumb is the more parts of your network that can be hardwired the better off you'll be.

I'm having a little trouble with getting the right subtitles to display in English ONLY for the non-English parts, but I think I figured it out with help from a "Movie Subtitles" spreadsheet I found online which tells which audio tracks to use, when to enable disable "forced", etc. If you're aware of this spreadsheet, can you tell me if there's an updated version of it? I got mine indirectly through someone else's post.

Is there a similar type spreadsheet to identify which video tracks to use for specific movies? I think you said I can find posts of people discussing specific movies, but one spreadsheet with a database would sure be nice for quick reference, if it exists.

I'm not aware of a spreadsheet for forced subtitles. I am aware of https://thediscdb.com, although I don't know if forced subtitle tracks are called out as such. I use a tool called MediaInfo that shows a bunch of details about .mkv files, including a count of elements in a subtitle track. A movie might have a couple thousand elements in a subtitle track. A TV show is probably many hundreds. A forced subtitle track probably has less than 100. I always try to verify it by watching a relevant clip in the movie, but once I do, I name the track 'Forced' and set the 'default' and 'forced' flags to true in the .mkv file. The MKVToolNix tools are good for this. Setting the flags that way means my Plex plays those forced subtitle tracks by default. I don't have as much experience with VLC, but there's undoubtedly a way you can set the flags in a file so VLC does the right thing by default. If you figure out which track is which in MakeMKV, you can set a subtitle track's default or forced flag to true by highlighting the track and selecting MKV Flags in the properties section. Include a 'd' for setting default to true and/or an 'f' for setting forced to true.

[RobertMoo]

At the most basic level, this is how Plex works, sending movies across your local network. The general rule of thumb is the more parts of your network that can be hardwired the better off you'll be.

huh. Interesting. I think I'll look into Plex more as I thought this was an online server. It would be tough to use ethernet connection in my situation so I might be stuck with wifi.

I'm not aware of a spreadsheet for forced subtitles. I am aware of https://thediscdb.com, although I don't know if forced subtitle tracks are called out as such. I use a tool called MediaInfo that shows a bunch of details about .mkv files, including a count of elements in a subtitle track. A movie might have a couple thousand elements in a subtitle track. A TV show is probably many hundreds. A forced subtitle track probably has less than 100. I always try to verify it by watching a relevant clip in the movie, but once I do, I name the track 'Forced' and set the 'default' and 'forced' flags to true in the .mkv file. The MKVToolNix tools are good for this. Setting the flags that way means my Plex plays those forced subtitle tracks by default. I don't have as much experience with VLC, but there's undoubtedly a way you can set the flags in a file so VLC does the right thing by default. If you figure out which track is which in MakeMKV, you can set a subtitle track's default or forced flag to true by highlighting the track and selecting MKV Flags in the properties section. Include a 'd' for setting default to true and/or an 'f' for setting forced to true.

Again, thanks for your time and offering such detailed feedback. I've read and re-read your posts a few times. I have been experimenting more and getting used to the software, including MKVToolNix, so I have a better idea what you're talking about in real world use. Your advice was spot on.

I don't have as much experience with VLC

If not VLC, what player do you typically use?

Generally speaking, for a regular blu-ray, I compress it to a 10-bit, h.265, 4000 kbps average bit rate file using a two-pass encode using the x265 encoder. I do the audio conversions I spoke about earlier and in general I end up with about a 5GB file from a 30GB rip.

I finally got around to using Handbrake with your settings to reduce video down to about 11% of its original size. 2 hour movie took 2 hours (to the minute) to transcode, so at those settings it seems to be a 1:1 ratio for conversion time. I'm still experimenting to see what looks good on the big screen. One setting you didn't mention was framerate. Do you generally just leave framerate at default settings? (30, with "peak framerate" box checked) Other sources I read suggested matching the framerate to the framerate of the original video. Is there a reason to use "peak framerate" over "Constant framerate"?

I'm mostly using handbrake on MKV formated videos, but handbrake defaults to mp4. Does it matter? Should I keep them as MKVs or does mp4 offer advantages?

Also, you recommended 2 passes, but I only noticed the box for "Mult-pass Encoding." I watched it do 3. Is there a setting for only 2?

Those small file sizes are great, but any recommendations on what handbrake settings to use convert a video to about half it's original size? I'm running a few different scenarios so I can test and compare on the big screen. (hard drive is filling up faster than I expected!)

Can 3D blurays be ripped with MakeMKV? I researched a little, but it didn't seem like VLC could play them.

I know, I keep shamelessly asking more questions! If it's too much, don't feel obligated and just know I appreciate all the help you've already given.

[segfaulted]

I'll jump in and throw some of my own thoughts here.

One setting you didn't mention was framerate. Do you generally just leave framerate at default settings? (30, with "peak framerate" box checked) Other sources I read suggested matching the framerate to the framerate of the original video. Is there a reason to use "peak framerate" over "Constant framerate"?

Those options might matter for things like older TV shows if they mix 24fps/30fps content resulting in variable framerates. For most movies, choosing either option should give the same result. I often use "Same as source" + "Peak framerate" since that should follow whatever the original video uses.

I'm mostly using handbrake on MKV formated videos, but handbrake defaults to mp4. Does it matter? Should I keep them as MKVs or does mp4 offer advantages?

MKV has more versatility with what codecs it can carry, but compatibility will really depend what player device/software you use. MP4 is more compatible with various players, but conversely it supports certain types of standard codecs.

One good point of comparison is with subtitles. MKV allows subtitles to be packed independently from the video stream, allowing you to toggle on or off during playback. If you choose MP4, subtitles will either have to be permanently baked into the video, or excluded entirely.

You've also asked about 3D video, so this is a bit of a tangent... MP4 will not able to natively contain the MVC video stream used for the second eye. You would need to re-encode the 3D video into a side-by-side (or top-down) arrangement if you wanted to go with MP4. MKV allows you to keep the original 3D video data without having to re-encode, however the compatibility for that is also very dependent on what player you're using. Many users who save their remuxed 3D movies for use on a hardware player would use M2TS instead of MP4 or MKV.

In case the word is unfamiliar: remux (or remultiplex) means you repackage the video+audio streams into a different container format without re-encoding the video or audio data. That means there's no loss of quality, and it's relatively fast. Going from blu-ray -> MKV like what MakeMKV does, or doing MP4 <-> MKV without re-encoding are examples of remuxing.

Those small file sizes are great, but any recommendations on what handbrake settings to use convert a video to about half it's original size? I'm running a few different scenarios so I can test and compare on the big screen. (hard drive is filling up faster than I expected!)

Doing a bit of rough math here. Suppose you have a 30gb rip with one audio track. I'll guestimate the video is 90% of the filesize, so 27gb for video. You wanted to halve the size, so that'll be 13.5gb across a 2.3 hour movie (8300 seconds). You get 13500/8300 = 1.626 megabytes/sec, then multiply by 8000 to get kilobits/sec which is about 13000 kbps. That'd be the video's average bitrate to use in Handbrake.

I personally don't use multi-pass/avg.bitrate encoding. Instead, I go with "Constant quality" with RF 18 which yields pretty good quality while reducing the filesize, and finishes in less time.

Can 3D blurays be ripped with MakeMKV? I researched a little, but it didn't seem like VLC could play them.

Yes, MakeMKV can rip the frame-packed h264 + MVC video from a 3D blu-ray and store it in MKV. However, VLC has no support for MVC so you'll only get to view the h264 portion like a normal 2D movie.

If you want to watch a 3D blu-ray, I'd go with mpc-hc + lavfilters (with the MVC plugin) + madVR which will work on a Windows PC. If that's too inconvenient, I mentioned re-encoding the 3D video into side-by-side which can be done using the BD3D2MK3D toolkit. You can watch the resulting SBS encode as a normal video which will work on a 3D screen or even a VR headset.

[dcoke22]

Regarding frame rate in Handbrake, I think I'm usually at 60 FPS with Peak Framerate checked. With Peak Framerate checked, Handbrake uses the frame rate setting as an upper limit on FPS and below that level it does 'same as source'. The result is 99.9% of the time, my encodes are effectively 'same as source'. That behavior & interface is a little convoluted in my view, but that's how it is documented and how it works.

Handbrake Framerate Docs

Like segfaulted, I prefer the .mkv file format. It is more versatile and my playback setup can handle it just fine.

On my computer, I generally use MPV as my playback program. I do most of my work on a Macintosh, but (perhaps a bit ironically), I also do most of it via the command line. MPV is easy & quick to launch via the command line. I even run the command line version of Handbrake. There's nothing wrong with VLC; it is just my personal preference to use MPV.

I have almost no experience with 3D video.

Handbrake: Constant Quality vs Average Bit Rate

Regarding average bitrate or constant quality. If you read Handbrake's documentation, they're pretty clear about their preference for people using Constant Quality. It is probably a sensible default for most people. I have several friends who encode things that way and their output is reasonably good. I'm sure segfaulted's RF 18 videos look very good. I think Handbrake's default for 10-bit h.265 is RF 22. A setting of RF 18 is higher quality (again, Handbrake is counterintuitive here).
There's no perfect answer for transcoding videos to a smaller file size. By its very nature, you're making a tradeoff to get the smaller file size.
In your case, since you're willing to have larger files, I might try 10-bit h.265 multipass encodes at 8,000kbps or maybe 10,000kbps. I'd probably also try RF 20 and RF 18 and maybe RF 16 and RF 14 as well. My guess is you'd probably be hard pressed to tell the difference between any of them.
On occasion I find one my transcoded videos has some flaw that I have to fix by adjusting a setting and running it through Handbrake again. It is relatively rare; most of the flaws I notice are also in the blu-ray source material. (The Star Trek: Picard blu-rays are my current favorite blu-rays to hate because of the egregious color banding present on them.) The current encoding settings I use mean I rarely end up with a flaw, have good enough quality and small enough files. Having more bits or a higher quality RF setting would reduce the number of instances of transcoding induced flaws and improve the visual quality (perhaps beyond my ability to perceive) at the expense of larger file sizes.
Don't let anyone tell you you're doing it wrong. There's no way to prove one particular way is more correct than another.

This is why I keep my rips in addition to my transcoded output. Today, my playback devices can play h.265 content pretty well. 5 years (maybe longer) ago, h.264 content was the sweet spot. h.264 is still well supported, but one can get the same quality in a smaller file or higher quality in the same size file with h.265 today. In a few years time, it'll probably be AV1.
Unless I rebuy every movie I own as a 4K UHD (the number of copies of Star Wars that I own not withstanding), I'll probably be watching regular blu-rays for a long time. And I'll probably be transcoding them into the sweet spot for my playback system right up until the point where the file size doesn't matter.