Good tool for converting MKV to H264

[MoreCowBell]

I'm new to this whole process but the MakeMKV program seems to work great so far.

I'm interested in looking at how to convert MKV files I rip from DVD to H264 to shrink the filesize.

Does anyone have any suggestions where I should start? Running in a Windows environment.

Thanks!

[Spook]

Ok, just a little clarification for you, MKV is a wrapper, much like a zip, or iso file

H264 is a video format.

H264 gets places into an MKV package, along with an audio track, AC3 (Dolby) or DTS, and other things, like subtitles.

Now, that being said, MakeMKV is not a Transcoder... changing one format to another... it is a ripper, it gets the data off the disk on to your hard drive, in an MKV wrapper.

To Transcode there are many many programs out there, I personally use a nice simple tool I found called XVid4psp. Its free, and its initial purpose of transcoding to psp files has long since been surpassed. So, once you have the video ripped from the disk, you transcode/convert it with Xvid4psp(or some other transcoder)

A couple other programs you may be interested in are TSMuxer, and mkvmerge.

The two of these programs let you open the MKV wrapper, and see what Audio/Video/subtitles are inside. You can demux them, and combine them. I myself like to keep the original DTS tracks intact from bluray rips(I can't use them yet, but someday). So, I can demux the DTS track from the original MakeMKV rip, and mux it back into an MKV wrapper using mkvmerge.

This is just an example. I've recently(in the past 6-8months) gone down this road, and Im sure I'm missing allot. But this gets what I need done, and I can view my videos on my HTPC.

MakeMKV helps simplify the process of getting the video off the disk, and into an MKV wrapper for me. But for many that aren't using AnyDVD, it serves the other purpose of breaking the encryption so the movie can be removed from the disk. AnyDVD has become very expensive since I bought it years ago, so, this is a good viable option.

Good luck.
Spook

[MoreCowBell]

Thanks for the reply Spook. As I mentioned, I'm new to this so you provided a good clear explanation of how things actually work.

I do have a question or two for you as a follow up.

Since MakeMkv is not a transcoder does this mean that there is no quality loss during a straight conversion from a DVD or BluRay to an MKV file?

Also, you mention AnyDVD and MakeMKV with regard to copy protection. Does this mean that MakeMKV is effective in removing copy protection on DVDs and BluRay, or is there another program required to convert some discs?

Like many who use this, I'm trying to build myself a video library that I can watch without reaching for a plastic disc. Therefore I'm looking for high quality since storage is so cheap. Full HD, or converting from 1080P to 720P would be nice. And that is where I assume something like XVid4psp would come into play?

If there are any other links or advice you could share with me I would be very appreciative.

Thanks!

[singaporeguy]

Merry Christmas everyone

I've been using AnyDVD and Nero Recode to encode my DVD library into mp4 files. Moving on to Blu Ray recently, I continued using
AnyDVD but switched to MakeMKV to create MKV file then XviD4PDP to convert to mp4. I think because of AnyDVD, MakeMKV has
been reporting that Bu Ray discs are not encrypted. Creating the MKV file seems quite fast but the XviD4PDP 2 pass encoding
seems painfully slow (average 12 hours on Intel quadore Q9550 cpu with 8GB ram running Window 7 Ultimate 64bit)

My only problem so far with with subtitle. Even though I choose one or more subtitles in MakeMKV, the generated MKV file
does not show subtitle when I play it.

[Spook]

Thanks for the reply Spook. As I mentioned, I'm new to this so you provided a good clear explanation of how things actually work.

I do have a question or two for you as a follow up.

Since MakeMkv is not a transcoder does this mean that there is no quality loss during a straight conversion from a DVD or BluRay to an MKV file?

Also, you mention AnyDVD and MakeMKV with regard to copy protection. Does this mean that MakeMKV is effective in removing copy protection on DVDs and BluRay, or is there another program required to convert some discs?

Like many who use this, I'm trying to build myself a video library that I can watch without reaching for a plastic disc. Therefore I'm looking for high quality since storage is so cheap. Full HD, or converting from 1080P to 720P would be nice. And that is where I assume something like XVid4psp would come into play?

If there are any other links or advice you could share with me I would be very appreciative.

Thanks!

I'm not going to argue with some of the deep technical aspects of what MKV is doing, but as far as I see, MakeMKV is like copying a file from one disk to another, and placing the video in an MKV container. that simple. Trouble is, that that file is very Raw/Large, and could use some compression.

Yes, the encryption is being removed. AnyDVD has been my one-stop encryption remover for years, so, I didn't stop using it with MakeMKV. You can see the threads in this forum about one-off disks that people are having troubles getting MKV to rip itself, and even I have had troubles with newer disks that won't rip either. These troubles usually get corrected with subsequent updates. But very occasionally you'll get that disk that just won't work. I've been doing this for nearly 4 years, and I can only think of maybe 2 disks that I could just not get to go.

Yes, the raw file is very large, and the best quality your going to get out of the disk. Transcoding it will make it more flexible. Understand there are several Video/audio formats being used by Bluray. VC1, MPEG4, H264 to name a few video formats, and several Audio as well. Some have codecs that work well, some do not. For instance I'm not sure if we have a free open source codec for HD-DTS yet(I haven't found one). But I keep putting this track in my MKV's hoping that some day I will get to use it. My preference, this makes the file larger, but hopefully I will see something.

My major motivation, like you is to get a collection into a HTPC. I take it one step further however, and need these files to play on a media extender as well. This is a piece of hardware that streams video from the server(HTPC) to another box to allow me to watch the same movies in another room in the house. Only trouble is the limited codecs on the media extender. So, I transcode the movies to fit the codecs that media extender CAN use. In addition as a side benefit, the files are smaller/compressed.

As it was pointed out though, transcoding can take allot of time. My quad core will take an average of 8hrs for a bluray movie, my i7 will take 30-40% less than that. This is CPU transcoding, and this is what Xvid4psp does. I put on a blu-ray MKV file when I go to bed at night, just let it do its magic, and it will be done in the morning. You can also que up files in Xvid4psp to let your computer just keep transcoding the next file when it finishes the first. If you have a decent video card, there is GPU/Video encoding as well. It is very new, and from my tests doesn't have all the bugs worked out. Quality was sacrificed for speed, and I could transcode a movie in less than 2hrs, but it was poor quality. DVD's because of their size can be transcoded much quicker. Personally, I don't use MakeMKV for DVD's, I use AnyDVD, and an old but effective program called DVDshrink. DVDshrink will allow me to re-author a DVD, and take out all the menu's or leave them there if I want. It will compress to a >4.7Gb file if you like so you can put the file on a DVD-R, or you can do it with no compression. its a nice little tool that stopped being supported a few years ago. It takes roughly 10-15min to do a DVD rip. But again, AnyDVD is doing the un-encrypting in the background, so, no new support is needed for DVDShrink.

Spook

[1gkar]

Good answers, spook. Personally, I just transcode the movie to a reduced filesize *.mkv for storage & burning.

Examples are: (SD=XVid normal DVD: HD=h.264 Blu-ray)

SD -Batman Begins @ 1,347,474KB
HD -3.10 To Yuma @ 7,810,180KB

My reasoning of filesize for normal DVDs is set to 75% using a 2-pass transcode method. I still use Gordian Knot for my DVD transcodes with XVid as the preferred encode. The reason: I upscale the normal DVDs inside Mediaportal using fDDShow profiles. I just find it easier to use a different encoder for SD & HD & the difference between XVid/DivX & x(H).264 at those resolution levels aren't distinguishable, at least to my eyes.

With HD transcodes, I use MeGUI as the final transcoder. I set the final filesize to ensure I can burn it to a DVD+DL disc. I wrote a guide, mainly for myself, but if it assists others, then it has done it's job. You can get it http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?jfkfpbo2mwm

[gelyon]

I have been using RipBot264 to compress HD files created with MakeMKV with good success. It handles VC-1 video too. I have been setting the filesize to 7.5 GB so I can save them to DVD+R DL. That is the only reason I have been doing this, so I can backup the files to disc.

The next step is to get a Blu-ray burner so I can just save the original MakeMKV files to disc.