Best compression while maintaining quality

[deanhatescoffee]

I was just curious what programs (Handbrake, VidEncoder, etc) and settings MakeMKV users are using to compress MKV files. I'm especially interested in learning what compression settings people are using for 1080p Blu-ray conversions. I'm OK with sacrificing some quality to save 20GB of disk space, but what are some recommendations that would allow me to maintain high video quality and achieve a reasonable file size?

[setarip_old]

Hi!

I'm especially interested in learning what compression settings people are using for 1080p Blu-ray conversions.

The hands down winner is BD Rebuilder, to use with your ripped (by MakeMKV or other) Blu-ray disc BEFORE using MakeMKV to convert the main movie to an .MKV file...

[JasonX]

That requires a re-burn to physical media, but for those of us that use a NAS over a physical disc library this isn't really an answer.

I'd imagine the question relates to achieving a .MKV format but optimally compressed video that doesn't affect quality visibly.

I hear Handbrake quite often on this topic, but perhaps one day MakeMKV will include some popular transcoding and compression options (MP4, 2-pass light weight compression leveraging multiple CPUs for speed etc.)

[setarip_old]

@JasonX

Hi!

That requires a re-burn to physical media

No - There's nothing in the use of either BD Rebuilder or MakeMKV that REQUIRES burning to physical media. All activity, files and folders can be saved directly to hard drive, without burning to disc...

perhaps one day MakeMKV will include some popular transcoding and compression options

And again, NO, as those are directly contrary to the stated purpose of MakeMKV - and besides, there are presently enough other programs to address those desires...

[mogazz]

I am using handbrake+foobar2000+(sometimes)eac3to+mkvmergegui.

I encode the video with handbrake (1920x1080, high profile x264, constant quality = 19). Depending on the source, CQ=19 can be overkill, but that way I cannot see the difference between the encoded file and the source. But that's me...

When the BD comes with DTS audio, I demux it (with mkvmerge) and encode it to AAC with foobar2000. If it comes with trueHD audio I encode it to flac with eac3to and them to AAC with foobar 2000.

If the audio tracks are in AC3, I mux them directly.

After all that I am with the audio tracks, the video track and subtitles tracks (downloaded SRTs). I mux them with mkvmerge.

[Smithcraft]

Pretty much the same settings at mogazz.

However, I don't bother with muxing, and just let Handbrake handle it all, and I also crop the black bars out. I do change the order of the audio tracks if an HD audio track is present since OS X doesn't play nice with HD audio(or so they say at the Plex forums).

SC

[72Devilz]

I have been processing all my 1080p MKV files in Handbrake at the High Profile setting 3500Kbps data rate and 2 pass selected. To the casual eye the resulting files are on par with the original media when played on my 1080p sets through the AppleTv (3). I also process the same file as Baseline Profile at SD resolution, 2 pass for playback on the original AppleTv and other legacy devices. As for handling PGS subs without resorting to multiple tools I use the Turbo.264 HD to preprocess my MKV to burn in the PGS sub set of my choosing which I have detailed here: http://www.makemkv.com/forum2/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=4814

[Skyman1]

perhaps one day MakeMKV will include some popular transcoding and compression options

And again, NO, as those are directly contrary to the stated purpose of MakeMKV - and besides, there are presently enough other programs to address those desires...

[/color][/quote]

That's correct 100%!
but for this reason that I will never buy this program after the 30 days trial.

Too many steps for a person that it's not able to use other program... MakeMKV is very good because it's easy and user friendly, I tried to use other program... like HandBrake but it's not quite easy to use as MakeMKV... and will never store into my 6TB NAS a 30GB movie... so I prefer to move in other way to have my personal BD stored into my NAS with smaller MKV video.

This can be a chose of the creator... but it's also a my choise to buy or not to buy... and for this reason I will never spent 50 euros for a program that can be good only for the 15% of my movie (the other 85% of my movie are too big).

That's all... and for me there are no problem.

[rozey66]

I am using handbrake+foobar2000+(sometimes)eac3to+mkvmergegui.

I encode the video with handbrake (1920x1080, high profile x264, constant quality = 19). Depending on the source, CQ=19 can be overkill, but that way I cannot see the difference between the encoded file and the source. But that's me...

When the BD comes with DTS audio, I demux it (with mkvmerge) and encode it to AAC with foobar2000. If it comes with trueHD audio I encode it to flac with eac3to and them to AAC with foobar 2000.

If the audio tracks are in AC3, I mux them directly.

After all that I am with the audio tracks, the video track and subtitles tracks (downloaded SRTs). I mux them with mkvmerge.

As a relatively newcomer to the decode-encode realm, can you please give me some idea of why you do these extra steps as opposed to allowing Handbrake (one step program)?

What is the benefit of the various programs separately created output?

[Fuzemkv]

I don't really know the benefits of trueHD/DTS but I know that currently handbrake doesn't handle those file types.. atleast to my understanding. That means you have to mainly extract those tracks from the original source and remux the file with those tracks (After handbrake has encoded).

I use a autohotkey script to monitor my dvd drive and then rip using makemkv and compress using handbrake. Here are the current CLI settings I use for handbrake:

Code: Select all

-F --subtitle scan -N eng -e x264 -q 23 -a 1,1 -E faac,copy:ac3 -B 160,0 -6 auto,auto -f mkv -m

[HTMLSpinnr]

My family generally doesn't appreciate differences in quality, thus I favor an approach that is "very good" in both audio and video quality, but saves on disk space. If I want the full HD audio and unmolested video experience, I'll view the source disc instead. I use Handbrake for everything (generally nightlies) unless it's 1080i VC-1 source, which requires something else like RipBot264 instead.

My settings for each type of source (good balance between encode performance and reasonable quality):

• Common to all: MKV using H.264, keep original source size, but with loose anamorphic, and auto-cropping. Pass-thru AC3, or transcode DTS to 640kbps AC3, no down-mix from 5.1. Keep all English subtitles (especially forced) w/o burning in. for PGS subtitles, post-encode, I use MKVMerge since WDTV doesn't handle Handbrake's PGS approach. Vobsub subtitles pass through just fine. Preserve all chapters. Advanced encoding options at defaults except "b-adapt=2:rc-lookahead=50"
• 1080p Blu-Ray, CQ at RF22, no filters. Results in a Profile 4.0 file at roughly 2.2GB/hour or about 5-9Mbps
• 1080i Blu-Ray, CQ at RF22, Detecline and Decomb at "Default". Results in a Profile 4.0 file at roughly 2.2GB/hour or about 5-9Mbps
• 480i DVD, CQ at RF19, Detecline and Decomb at "Default". Results in a Profile 3.1 file at roughly 800MB/hour or roughly 2Mbps

Avoiding HD Audio codecs entirely, and transcoding 1.5Mbps DTS down to 640kbps AC3 (preserving 5.1 channel) makes for a noticeable reduction in file size w/o any appreciable loss in fidelity.

For Blu-Ray, higher qualities (i.e. RF19 on Blu-Ray) look even sharper and truer to the source, however the encode times are just too long on my aging Phenom IIx4 955 @ 3.2ghz machine for "marginal" improvement, and file size reduction isn't significant enough. RF22 is as good or better than a "cable" HD experience, while encoding at roughly 10fps and yielding "acceptable" file sizes. If your available storage space is significant, then RF19 could work.

For DVD, with fewer pixels overall, anything higher than RF19 is noticeably poorer, and could only be done satisfactorily by adjusting some advanced settings. The encode performance increases substantially if you do, thus it's just easier to go w/ RF19. These net a performance of ~45fps encodes on average on my hardware.

File size estimates are completely dependent upon the type of material - with CG material for kids taking up less space than film-based 1080p content.

In the end, it's up to you to experiment with the results of each settings. For some, one setting may not fit all, but when you're aiming to transcode a library of 100s of discs for the sake of convenience for non-technical family to enjoy, you may opt to compromise on ultimate quality to keep your workflow sane.

[ndjamena]

After 2 something years, they've either figured it out, or given up in disgust...

(Compression is the least of my problems while ripping discs)

[dharvey1221]

I tried those methods above and about pulled my hair out. At the time I had a core 2 duo iMac and hand break would take all night to rip. Oops forget something or wrong encode, another night gone. With makemkv, rip in 30 minutes and copy to drive done. Plex handles everything else great. HDD are cheap and if I loose a drive I can always re rip the Blu ray.

[Baespy42]

Hello, To best answer your question. I've been ripping my huge DVD collection to my hard drive using makemkv. While having Uncompressed HDVideo. I try to keep my videos anywhere from 2 to 2.5 gigabytes depending on the movie. I have just discovered that H264 is highly compressed. To avoud h264 as much as I can. I just use MakeMkv to tip my video then I use Any video Converter. Which is one of the fastest video converters on the market. MakeMKV can also do Blu-ray disc's. But in full Uncompressed quality that can be as much as 30 gigabytes! Those disc's unfortunately have to be compressed in ordered to save the high file space. But on that case I'm going straight from the file source not a copy of a copy. Hope this makes some since. It is pain stakingly time consuming but very well worth it. After consulting Apples high prices in their HD library I just wanted to purchase the software and do it my self. Instead of being in somebodys server out their that can crash at anytime. Hope this helps.

[Woodstock]

What you get from MakeMKV is NOT uncompressed video, simply because DVD and BD disks are already compressed... Just not as efficiently as they could be. BD video can encompass a number of compression methods, include h.264, and UHD is based on h.265 compression.

There is a rule of thumb in world of video compression: Speed, Size, Quality, chose the two most important. You can compress quickly, but you have to give up either size or quality.

The best you're going to do is to not do anything with the output of MakeMKV, since there's just one generation of compression degradation preset. If that isn't acceptable to you for some reason, you have decisions to make that are hard for anyone except you to make - what is an acceptable level of degradation TO YOU?

Personally, I tolerate a fair amount of degradation, simply because I don't spend time wayward picking pixels out in a 55" display if the content of the video is adequate to hold my attention. And if it isn't, why the hell am I watching it?