Blu-Ray ripping no compression

[techcheck]

Anyone ripping Blu-rays with no compression? If so about how big are the output files?

I have been ripping my regular DVDs using MakeMKV (no compression) and adding them to my PLEX server. Everything works great. I want to start ripping my Blu-Rays and adding them to PLEX as well. Anyone else using ripped Blu-Rays with PLEX?

[Woodstock]

Depends on what you're ripping. 24-minute anime episodes are about 4.5GB, the movie Akira (2:04:26) is 32GB. Most of the Harry Potter movies were over 35GB.

After running them through Handbrake's "high profile" settings, those numbers shrink to about a quarter of the original size, at the same resolution.

[techcheck]

Thanks for the info.

So with running them through handbreak - it doesn't affect the audio or video in any way??

[Woodstock]

Handbrake definitely affects it in that it does better compression than is typically done when creating the disk, but compression is (almost) always a trade-off of quality vs. size. And whether or not that quality trade-off affects your viewing pleasure depends upon your play-back equipment and your receptors (eyes and ears). If you do not have high-end equipment or your eyes and ears are not 110% better than average, there is a lot compression that can be done before you'd notice a change.

For audio, Handbrake gives you the option of simply passing it through, or changing how it is compressed. You can even tune the order that the audio tracks appear in the file, to suit your player. Most of mine play the first audio track found, no matter what the quality or even language.

For video, there are many options you can apply, with varying affects on what you see. The default settings will produce a file that, for the average viewer on an average HD monitor, will be indistinguishable from the original BD source, but at a smaller file size. You can even chose settings that will cause the file to get BIGGER, although those won't gain you anything in terms of quality.

If you have plenty of disk space, you can forgo using any additional compression, just as you have been, but the space requirements are just going to continue to get worse as time goes on. I just upgraded to a Synology 8-drive server for media, and the current 24TB drive array is approaching half full already, WITH additional compression. I will probably add another 8TB by the end of the year.

[Woodstock]

By the way, Handbrake is free, so it doesn't cost anything but time to play with it, and see if it is useful for you.

Drop by handbrake.fr for more information. There is a release version, and there are "nightly build" versions that have more advanced feature sets.