Recommended Program to Transcode MKV's produced by MakeMKV

[Whzifs9YwTxu]

I am in the process of using MakeMKV to rip all of my DVD's to my Raid5 4.2tb eSATA drive system.

I really like MakeMKV as it allows me to retain the Director's commentary and the chapter marks.

The only problem is even though I have the 4.2tb I have already used up 3.5tb of it.

The reason is that the producers of the TV DVD series disks used the whole 7.8gb of the DL-DVD for just four episodes.

As an example a TV Show from the 60's called the The Champions produces a file with a size of 1.86gb (1.69gb for the MPEG2 Video) for a single episode of 47m 30s. Needless to say this is way overkill.

I have seen MKV's for modern TV 16:9 TV shows in 720p format having a size in the range of 700mb-1.1gb.

I have a purchased program called VideoReDo that can transcode these MakeMKV's to the required size but it removes any secondary audio and the chapter marks.

So my question is what FREE Windows Program do forum members recommend that can transcode MKV's produced by MakeMKV like the one described into a MKV (Format: Advanced Video Codec) while retaining any additional audio tracks and any subtitle and chapter info.

I know I could demux the audio/subtitle/chapter info, transcode with VideoReDo and then remux but that is painfully slow and tedious but I am looking for a simple solution.

Thanks

Here is the Media Info Dump:

Video
ID : 1
Format : MPEG Video
Format version : Version 2
Format profile : Main@Main
Format settings, BVOP : No
Format settings, Matrix : Default
Codec ID : V_MPEG2
Codec ID/Info : MPEG 1 or 2 Video
Duration : 47mn 30s
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 5 099 Kbps
Nominal bit rate : 8 500 Kbps
Width : 720 pixels
Height : 576 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 4:3
Frame rate : 25.000 fps
Standard : PAL
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Interlaced
Scan order : Top Field First
Compression mode : Lossy
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.492
Stream size : 1.69 GiB (91%)
Language : English

[Romansh]

HandBrake can convert MakeMKV's output; it can preserve multiple audio tracks and multiple DVD subtitle tracks. You can even pass DTS and AC3 audio through to the output (though you'll have to convert LPCM, but the nightly builds can convert it to 16-bit FLAC so it's lossless from most DVD LPCM tracks).

Blu-ray support isn't quite as good yet, as Blu-ray subtitles aren't supported (for now).

[Bionic71]

I'm using VidCoder 64bit, works fine.
http://vidcoder.codeplex.com/

[robpdotcom]

I have a purchased program called VideoReDo that can transcode these MakeMKV's to the required size but it removes any secondary audio and the chapter marks.

After you use VideoRedo to transcode, you can use MKVmerge to re-add the secondary audio and chapters.

Personally, I use Handbrake for progressive sources, and VideoRedo for interlaced (I prefer NOT to deinterlace when transcoding, and I could never get Handbrake to keep interlacing).