MakeMKV to Handbrake for 4K (UHD)???

[monkeymindboy]

Hello,

I am new the forum but have been a MakeMKV users for over 10 years ripping DVD's, Blu-Ray's and now attempting 4K UHD. I run a Plex Media Server so I encode all my rips using Handbrake and the default High Profile setting. When I started getting into Blu-Ray's I purchased an older Dell Precision Workstation running dual quad core Xeon processors with 32GB ram and running Windows 10 Pro to help speed up the Handbrake process. My encoding times went from 8 or 10 hours on my old iMac to 2 or 3 hours per Blu-Ray movie on the workstation.

Fast forward to today, I recently added a new Asus BW-16D1HT drive to see if I could rip UHD movies. After following the fantastic guide posted here in the forums by TeddyRaspin and after only a few slight hiccups I successfully was able to downgrade the drive from firmware 3.02 to 3.01. The drive was manufactured in 2018 and 3.02 wouldn't read the 4K disc. My first rip yesterday was The Last Jedi and after 42 minutes I have a nice 49.3GB file that I extracted of the 4K disc.

Now here is where I need help. As a comparison The Last Jedi Blu-Ray rip encoded in a little over 3 hours using Handbrake. I am using the Nightly Handbrake release and the default setting for Fire TV 2160p60 HEVC Surround profile and Handbrake is telling me the complete the encoding will be about 30 hours. Is this Normal?

Is this what I should expect going forward with UHD movies? Is there a better option then Handbrake? What are some of the the people here doing? I know there are probably many opinions and options out there as there but any suggestions would be great to see if this process can be significantly improved other than going out and buying some new Super Computer.

Thank you all.

[Woodstock]

This isn't handbrake support....

But yes, doing HEVC encoding without fast hardware takes a long time. The x265 encoder isn't a speed demon.

[monkeymindboy]

Thank you for your reply. I know it isn't a Handbrake support site but thought I would ask what members here are doing with UHD movies and how they are overcoming the massive processing power it takes to convert them.

[EPiPH0N3]

Thank you for your reply. I know it isn't a Handbrake support site but thought I would ask what members here are doing with UHD movies and how they are overcoming the massive processing power it takes to convert them.

A lot of us don't covert them.

[monkeymindboy]

I need to do some more research on that, I had no idea. I am curious on how or if Plex or any media server can stream the actual ripped contents. This will be interesting. Obviously, the trade off is needing a massive amount of storage.

Thanks for your input.

[st4evr]

That is correct. The primary purpose for many—if not most—MakeMKV users is to put the content into a container such as MKV untouched. Meaning, we may remove some of the content from the orignal source like un-needed subs, audio tracks, extras, etc, but leave what we do want
uncompressed/untouched.

Many of us have dozens of terabytes available/dedicated to store such content, so space is of no issue to us.

[monkeymindboy]

Awesome. I'll need to rethink my approach now that I have some new information and start experimenting with just using the MKV files.

Thank you all for your comments.

[Low Winter Sun]

Some of us who have paid for these UHD disks want the video quality we paid for, so the movies don't get run through Handbrake and degraded to lower quality video.

If you are going to do HEVC encoding you'll need hardware support to accomplish it.

Thank you for your reply. I know it isn't a Handbrake support site but thought I would ask what members here are doing with UHD movies and how they are overcoming the massive processing power it takes to convert them.

[lcgrzy]

Hello,

I am new the forum but have been a MakeMKV users for over 10 years ripping DVD's, Blu-Ray's and now attempting 4K UHD. I run a Plex Media Server so I encode all my rips using Handbrake and the default High Profile setting. When I started getting into Blu-Ray's I purchased an older Dell Precision Workstation running dual quad core Xeon processors with 32GB ram and running Windows 10 Pro to help speed up the Handbrake process. My encoding times went from 8 or 10 hours on my old iMac to 2 or 3 hours per Blu-Ray movie on the workstation.

Fast forward to today, I recently added a new Asus BW-16D1HT drive to see if I could rip UHD movies. After following the fantastic guide posted here in the forums by TeddyRaspin and after only a few slight hiccups I successfully was able to downgrade the drive from firmware 3.02 to 3.01. The drive was manufactured in 2018 and 3.02 wouldn't read the 4K disc. My first rip yesterday was The Last Jedi and after 42 minutes I have a nice 49.3GB file that I extracted of the 4K disc.

Now here is where I need help. As a comparison The Last Jedi Blu-Ray rip encoded in a little over 3 hours using Handbrake. I am using the Nightly Handbrake release and the default setting for Fire TV 2160p60 HEVC Surround profile and Handbrake is telling me the complete the encoding will be about 30 hours. Is this Normal?

Is this what I should expect going forward with UHD movies? Is there a better option then Handbrake? What are some of the the people here doing? I know there are probably many opinions and options out there as there but any suggestions would be great to see if this process can be significantly improved other than going out and buying some new Super Computer.

Thank you all.

I use StaxRip following these instructions with a bit of tweaking https://youtu.be/EhHSAWVUnJw. As of the last time I checked, even the nightly builds of Handbrake were not capable of 10-bit color. Something about it reducing it to 8-bit, processing the file, and converting it back to 10-bit (basically you lose the 8-bit color of the original file). This may have changed, but I have been incredibly happy with the results from Staxrip. With Staxrip, I use the instructions from the YouTube video, with the following modifications:

1. Uncheck Bicubic Resize. The YouTube author for some reason reduces his 4K rips to 2K, I didn't want that, so I turned this off.

2. I set the bitrate (not the file size) to 15,000 kbps. I find this bitrate to be a good compromise between quality and size. My testing didn't find any significant loss of quality at this bitrate.

Otherwise, just following the directions in the YouTube video and the txt file that comes with the download. I have successfully downsized over 25 4K rips using this method. Color and quality all look good. Each one takes about 14 hours (it's a two-pass process, so about 6-7 hours per pass) with my 6th gen quad-core i5 (3.3 ghz). It is going to take a long time to convert these because there are about 4 times the pixels of a 1080 Blu-ray.

As a side note, if you are going to keep using Handbrake, I wouldn't recommend the pre-set that you are using. 2160p60 means the final file is going to have 60 frames per second, which is completely unnecessary and will probably add to the size of the file and the time it takes to convert. You will find that most of these movies are finished at 23.976 fps, so upping that to 60 is really pointless.

If you want others suggestions for converting 4Ks, this forum post has more http://makemkv.com/forum2/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=16905.

[Woodstock]

Correct on handbrake not fully-embracing 10- and 12-bit color yet; internally, everything is processed as 8-bit.

10- and 12-bit color files can be read, and the just-released version can encode to 10- or 12-bit (optionally), but it's going to be converted to 8-bit color on the way through.

[gereral1]

Hello,

I am new the forum but have been a MakeMKV users for over 10 years ripping DVD's, Blu-Ray's and now attempting 4K UHD. I run a Plex Media Server so I encode all my rips using Handbrake and the default High Profile setting. When I started getting into Blu-Ray's I purchased an older Dell Precision Workstation running dual quad core Xeon processors with 32GB ram and running Windows 10 Pro to help speed up the Handbrake process. My encoding times went from 8 or 10 hours on my old iMac to 2 or 3 hours per Blu-Ray movie on the workstation.

Fast forward to today, I recently added a new Asus BW-16D1HT drive to see if I could rip UHD movies. After following the fantastic guide posted here in the forums by TeddyRaspin and after only a few slight hiccups I successfully was able to downgrade the drive from firmware 3.02 to 3.01. The drive was manufactured in 2018 and 3.02 wouldn't read the 4K disc. My first rip yesterday was The Last Jedi and after 42 minutes I have a nice 49.3GB file that I extracted of the 4K disc.

Now here is where I need help. As a comparison The Last Jedi Blu-Ray rip encoded in a little over 3 hours using Handbrake. I am using the Nightly Handbrake release and the default setting for Fire TV 2160p60 HEVC Surround profile and Handbrake is telling me the complete the encoding will be about 30 hours. Is this Normal?

Is this what I should expect going forward with UHD movies? Is there a better option then Handbrake? What are some of the the people here doing? I know there are probably many opinions and options out there as there but any suggestions would be great to see if this process can be significantly improved other than going out and buying some new Super Computer.

Thank you all.

I use StaxRip following these instructions with a bit of tweaking https://youtu.be/EhHSAWVUnJw. As of the last time I checked, even the nightly builds of Handbrake were not capable of 10-bit color. Something about it reducing it to 8-bit, processing the file, and converting it back to 10-bit (basically you lose the 8-bit color of the original file). This may have changed, but I have been incredibly happy with the results from Staxrip. With Staxrip, I use the instructions from the YouTube video, with the following modifications:

1. Uncheck Bicubic Resize. The YouTube author for some reason reduces his 4K rips to 2K, I didn't want that, so I turned this off.

2. I set the bitrate (not the file size) to 15,000 kbps. I find this bitrate to be a good compromise between quality and size. My testing didn't find any significant loss of quality at this bitrate.

Otherwise, just following the directions in the YouTube video and the txt file that comes with the download. I have successfully downsized over 25 4K rips using this method. Color and quality all look good. Each one takes about 14 hours (it's a two-pass process, so about 6-7 hours per pass) with my 6th gen quad-core i5 (3.3 ghz). It is going to take a long time to convert these because there are about 4 times the pixels of a 1080 Blu-ray.

As a side note, if you are going to keep using Handbrake, I wouldn't recommend the pre-set that you are using. 2160p60 means the final file is going to have 60 frames per second, which is completely unnecessary and will probably add to the size of the file and the time it takes to convert. You will find that most of these movies are finished at 23.976 fps, so upping that to 60 is really pointless.

If you want others suggestions for converting 4Ks, this forum post has more http://makemkv.com/forum2/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=16905.

This video I made to help out users. The 1080p was to save hard drive space. 1080p HDR looks great on my 65 inch Sony HDR TV. My couch is 10 feet back so if your sit 2 feet then up the bitrate. 10bit pipeline is the key to encoding.

[monkeymindboy]

Thank you everyone for your support. This is all great information.

I use a Drobo 5N as my Plex Media Server and it works great for both storage (up to 18TB) and to play back Blu-Ray movies after being encoded with Handbrake. I tried running a native Blu-Ray movie after ripping it through MakeMKV and the Drobo just doesn't have the processing power. I setup my workstation to be a Plex Server and the direct 1080p rip from MakeMKV runs great. So now I need to look for a replacement dedicated server to run PMS that will support Blu-Ray and eventually 4K movies as I build that collection ripped from MakeMKV.

Thanks again for all of your help!!

[TT99C5]

So I thought I'd share some results I've just had.

TV is an LG OLED 65" B7A.
Movie is Kingsman The Golden Circle

I've got my 1080 Blu Ray encoding down, been doing it since 2012 and am VERY happy with where I've got things. This is my baseline. I've had this on my server since it released. Having gotten an UHD Friendly drive (Thanks Alex!), I did a rip from a 4K UHD copy.

Ran an encode using Handbrake with my normal Blu Ray settings modified for the 4K output.

Deinterlace was left on Decomb/Default/Default, all other filters off.
Video was set to H.265. Framerate Same as Source with Variable selected. Constant Quality was set to RF22. Medium encoder preset.

Passthrough on all audio tracks.

First thing, H.265 is freaking processor intensive. I can encode a Blu Ray 1080 rip at about a 2:1 rate, so a typical 2 hour movie is done in about an hour. Doing an H.265 with the above settings......typically about 14 hours. So time is a big factor here unless you have some SERIOUS money to drop into a VERY powerful dual processor combo.

What this got me was a file size reduction from 41.4 to 10.9 GB. Visually when compared to the 1080 original encode, it was ever so slightly better (I think the auto upscaling in the TV came into play here). Some of the finer detail points like the fight scene at the end, things like the electric lasso were sharper and lighting was more clearly seen. BUT..........

Results? Compared to the untouched UHD rip with still had HDR, there was NO comparison (even though my Handbrake 4K encode was identified as being HDR, it isn't). I watched the same fight scene across all three copies and the two encodes were just washed out in their colors compared to the uncompressed rip. So much so that at this point I've made up my mind to simply concentrate on expanding the storage capacity of my server more than tweaking the capability of my encodes (though admittedly it looks like some solid progress is being made with staxrip so I may play with that). My only gripe currently is going to be that I'm going to have to manually select subtitles for the forced stuff.

Just my $.02 and results for what they're worth.

[PaulCB]

Thank you everyone for your support. This is all great information.

I use a Drobo 5N as my Plex Media Server and it works great for both storage (up to 18TB) and to play back Blu-Ray movies after being encoded with Handbrake. I tried running a native Blu-Ray movie after ripping it through MakeMKV and the Drobo just doesn't have the processing power. I setup my workstation to be a Plex Server and the direct 1080p rip from MakeMKV runs great. So now I need to look for a replacement dedicated server to run PMS that will support Blu-Ray and eventually 4K movies as I build that collection ripped from MakeMKV.

Thanks again for all of your help!!

Really depends on the targets for your Plex (or other media player). Plex if the target can support everything, say Xbox One or PC with Blu-ray content, the server doesn't need any power as it doesn't transcode. Personally I have never transcoded anything as that is a big CPU and time suck and I bought the BR/UHD instead of just digital license as I want the absolute best, full quality, audio & video to my theater. With UHD of course, there are still few devices that can support everything UHD can provide and issues depending on what you rip to (eg: MKV can't support Dolby Vision). Do some forum searches here, on AVSForum and other media places for devices that people prefer (like Nvidia Shield)
For non main 4k/UHD device viewing (tablets, phones, whatever), essentially all UHD discs come with digital licenses so streaming from VUDU (or other similar store) is ideal in those cases and requires no transcoding or other effort.

[Fortissimo]

For non main 4k/UHD device viewing (tablets, phones, whatever), essentially all UHD discs come with digital licenses so streaming from VUDU (or other similar store) is ideal in those cases and requires no transcoding or other effort.

Digital licenses carry the huge drawback of pulling society further into the illusion that pretty much all corporations today wish for us to buy into: that we "own" stuff that we don't actually own. I don't feel that I own anything that requires me to use my Internet connection to access it, especially if that thing can't be willed to other people after I die, and *especially* if I need to use special equipment or proprietary software to access it.

I also can't stomach the idea that every single time I watch a movie, the movie company is tracking my patterns and using my information to profit, perhaps even selling it to third parties (and almost certainly handing it off to third parties accidentally via inevitable data breaches - see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_data_breaches).

The first time I ever read about "the cloud" was in Wired Magazine before most people had heard about it (I think it was an interview with the Microsoft successor to Bill Gates), and my heart immediately sunk. The guy talked about the cloud with great excitement... but of course he did, because he's on the hosting side of the cloud, which gives him great power at the huge expense of everyone else on planet Earth who is on the client side of the cloud. I knew that while I would resist it every inch of the way over the next decade or two, the masses (who all use technology but are generally extremely non-proficient with it) would buy into it out of ignorance, laziness or perhaps apathy, which over time would erode my own ability to resist it (i.e. there will probably come a day when discs and other physical media are no longer used at all). At that point, the movie companies have everyone by the balls: they can effectively force everyone to rent everything online, and it will be illegal to actually own any new movies. Mark my word, this time is drawing near. Windows doesn't even come with its own physical media player anymore. The word "own" will be redefined to be "license to stream," which is a bunch of BS. Just like our precious iTunes libraries (which I don't have except for my own local files that I import into iTunes), it isn't ownership when you can't will it to an heir.