Rewrapping Blu-Ray movies to MKV?

With zero loss, you're bound to get extremely unwieldy file sizes. Are you sure you want 25 to 50GB video files around your hard drive?

h264 compression keeps a pretty good picture quality in 1080p. You can easily create 4.7GB-large copies of BluRays with Handbrake with h264 video stream and one or more audio tracks, all in 1080p and still excellent picture quality. Many downloaded movies are 1.3GB large, 2 hours long, and still have excellent picture quality without definition loss.

absolut_mac said:

I know that I can save around 6 to 10 Gig dumping all the surround sound options. The files will still be large, but HDs are so cheap these days and H.265 is the new kid on the block, so I don't want to compress anything yet until I see how this latest option plays out.

Plus, as with any new software, it's bound to be streamlined and probably improved in short order

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Well even at 30GB apiece, you can only hold 100 movies on a 3TB disk, and they aren't exactly cheap. Affordable yes, cheap no.

H265 is still extremely confidential, and until it receives more support, h264 still makes an excellent job. Or you could also choose to wait and see, just keeping the BluRay. If you don't plan on putting physical media to the trash, then I guess you won't have any regret if you just need to pop the disk for another encoding, rather than over-spending on unreliable mechanical HDDs. In the meantime, even lossy h264 will be good enough.

I think Handbrake is the best software for that. Somewhat easy to use and with it's latest update you can encode your files with the h265 codec to save space. It's not finished feature yet, but it (mostly) works. Atleast VLC runs the files.
.Tested it earlier and encoded original DVD-rip (the .vob files) with h265 and made a comparison encode with h264. With h265 the movie went down to 800mb and with h264 to 1.5GB. Only different in settings was the codec. No difference in quality at all.

What comes to the audio format, if you choose Handbrake as your compression software just select "Auto Passthru" as it saves/copies the original audio track. Between AC3 and AAC there isn't much difference in quality.
AC3 is just more often used with video (broadcasts, DVDs, Blu-Rays etc.) and AAC is here to be a better sounding option for MP3.

You sound like me, OP. If you want to keep the video stream untouched, just use MakeMKV

I also archive my movies and elect to not compress. I either have them in m2ts or mkv. Since you mention MKV, for most work MakeMKV does an excellent job. Here are some things you might consider -

1) MakeMKV doesn't always get it right. This is rare and often related to complex branched movies. However, if you opt to search around the internet (starting with MakeMKV forums) you will most likely find the right "choice' provided within MakeMKV. You will know this problem when MakeMKV scans and comes up with several choices that seem similar.

2) Depending on your AV system, you could opt for just one or two audio streams. In my case, I just need the lossless stream if it is offered.

absolut_mac said:

I'd appreciate it if you'd post the link to the appropriate post as I wouldn't even know where to look.

As an aside, seeing as you're a lot more knowledgeable about this than me, how does MakeMKV compare to Clipwrapper and Subler? All 3 seem to be highly recommend on MacRumors?

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I cannot speak about Clipwrapper at all. Subler- haven't used it in a long time as I tend to consider MakeMKV for Blu-Ray to be ideal for OSX users. For Windows, AnyDVD HD, along with TSmuxer and ClownBD rounds out the list (for me). I am unsure what you are referencing when asking for the appropriate post. If you are talking about branched discs that provide multiple choices as the "main movie" look no further than MakeMKV's own forums and possibly AnyDVD's forums on their respective sites.

My usual fair is as follows:
1) watch my newly purchased disc in its entirety. I only bother to watch bonus material once. If the disc is in good condition (no issues), I move on to the next step -
2) MakeMKV is engaged and I select the streams I want for video and audio. If the film is a foreign film, I select the English sub. If all goes well this is all I have to do. If there is a question of forced subs, I refer to the following link for info - https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...jg1ZXlORnRaM3ZhTks4Z3FrYlE&usp=sharing#gid=12 . I prefer to only have the video, audio and forced sub. This is where MakeMKV is not a solution unto itself. The next steps are employed -
3) I go to Virtual Win which houses ClownBD. I use either MakeMKV or AnyDVD to archive the entire disc.
4) After the entire disc is archived, I use ClownBD to run a similar process as MakeMKV except it will be an m2ts file (my choice). What this software does is also offer choices and I select again the video, the audio stream and make sure that the forced sub box is ticked. The latter will take a sub stream and create not just that sub stream but generate a separate forced sub track.
5) Rather than reconstituting the entire set of streams (if there is a forced sub), I'll stop the process before it completes a merge and then use TSmuxer to merge the audio, video and forced sub stream that was generated. Now I have exactly the streams I would use for playback.

Last - some forced subs are in their own stream and not a subset of a typical sub track. While rare they are out there and that link should help.
The alternative is to just copy the full sub if your player will read just the forced sub portion automatically.

While this may seem complicated, it really is rather simple but a touch time consuming. In fact, doing one disc now as I am writing this post. My method produces exactly what I want with the least amount of space required for final archive. If I ever want to see the bonus features etc. again, I just take out my original disc that is safely stored.

absolut_mac said:

Thanks for the detailed reply phrehdd. I appreciate you taking the time.

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I hope I was clear enough. If not, feel free to ask away here or PM.