BluRay Ripping, MakeMKV and Handbrake

[jmpage2]

If the content I rip is already in H.264, and I keep the 1080P format, I only see about a 5-10% reduction in filesize by re-ripping in Handbrake. I only see real size reductions by going to 720P.

In the case of VC1 content I actually find that using HP or ATV3 profile results in larger file sizes than the originals at 1080P.

 

[kcaruso]

I've been using hb for a few years to simply rip dvds and put them into itunes for atv (now using atv3). im currently using Make MKV software to rip a bluray disc and using the latest nightly build of hb to convert to m4v files. im actually encoding my first MKV file and the "ETA" was over 17 hrs long when it started! its still going and seems right on par with that time based on the completion % right now. the BD is Hurt Locker, but im wondering if im doing something very wrong here that its taking this long. can anyone offer some insight as to what i might be doing incorrectly? im encoding with the standard ATV3 preset, RF 20, 2 pass encoding is NOT checked off, and the picture output is 1920x1080. im also noticing the fps is only avging 2.67fps. I'm running it on a MacBook Pro mid 2009 with 2.26 ghz intel core 2 duo, 8gb ram 1067 MHz ddr3. I just checked the file and its at 56% completion and over 12gb! I thought hb was supposed to compress the file for iTunes?? PLEASE SOMEONE HELP ME!

 

[jmpage2]

I've been using hb for a few years to simply rip dvds and put them into itunes for atv (now using atv3). im currently using Make MKV software to rip a bluray disc and using the latest nightly build of hb to convert to m4v files. im actually encoding my first MKV file and the "ETA" was over 17 hrs long when it started! its still going and seems right on par with that time based on the completion % right now. the BD is Hurt Locker, but im wondering if im doing something very wrong here that its taking this long. can anyone offer some insight as to what i might be doing incorrectly? im encoding with the standard ATV3 preset, RF 20, 2 pass encoding is NOT checked off, and the picture output is 1920x1080. im also noticing the fps is only avging 2.67fps. I'm running it on a MacBook Pro mid 2009 with 2.26 ghz intel core 2 duo, 8gb ram 1067 MHz ddr3. I just checked the file and its at 56% completion and over 12gb! I thought hb was supposed to compress the file for iTunes?? PLEASE SOMEONE HELP ME!

You need a faster CPU. Your speeds sound correct to me. With a hyper-threaded i7 I can encode a 2 hour movie in about 1 hour with the ATV3 preset.

Also... the size of the file depends on the codec of the original (VC1 will not re-compress as efficiently as H.264 for example) and the content. A movie with lots of action and motion will end up being larger with the ATV3 preset than one that has lots of static shots.

I have had movies that compressed less than 20% and I've had others (I just ripped ParaNorman and the ATV3 file is only 3.5GB) that compressed by over 80%.

 

[kcaruso]

Ok so what if I start using the Mac mini I just bought about a month or so ago? It's the base model ($599) but I don't have the specs in front of me right now. And you said my speeds sound correct. As far as the fps? Also, what is a hyper threaded i7? Sorry but I'm a bit new to some of this and trying to learn. Thank u for ur input.

 

[jmpage2]

Ok so what if I start using the Mac mini I just bought about a month or so ago? It's the base model ($599) but I don't have the specs in front of me right now. And you said my speeds sound correct. As far as the fps? Also, what is a hyper threaded i7? Sorry but I'm a bit new to some of this and trying to learn. Thank u for ur input.

Have a look at this thread, it gives benchmarks for different CPUs. The CPU is the part of your computer that is used for video encoding with Handbrake;

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1119583/

Someone with a C2D CPU similar to your Macbook reported only 10 frames per second in doing the sample encoding, and the sample is much easier (since it's animation) than a full HD movie. By comparison my i7 CPU can do the sample at over 60 frames per second.

That's why video professionals or people that do a lot of video encoding will spend the money to get an i5 or i7 CPU which is MUCH faster at doing video encoding, especially of high definition content.

If you plan on doing a lot of handbrake of HD content then you should invest in a machine with an i5 or i7 CPU.

 

[kcaruso]

Awesome ill check that link out after work. What about my file size on this so far? When I left the house this morning, it was about 60% complete and was at around 12gb already. The mkv file was about 35gb to start off. Is that a rather large file or is it just that there are alot of action sequences and alot of grain? Also I just plan on ripping most of the blurays I own which is between 15-20 movies. I don't have the funds to upgrade to a machine with a faster CPU. Is it ok that the encodes take longer or will that blow up my CPU eventually?

 

[jmpage2]

Awesome ill check that link out after work. What about my file size on this so far? When I left the house this morning, it was about 60% complete and was at around 12gb already. The mkv file was about 35gb to start off. Is that a rather large file or is it just that there are alot of action sequences and alot of grain? Also I just plan on ripping most of the blurays I own which is between 15-20 movies. I don't have the funds to upgrade to a machine with a faster CPU. Is it ok that the encodes take longer or will that blow up my CPU eventually?

It doesn't matter how long the CPU runs maxxed out like that, they are made to take it.

As far as the file size, it's probably a combination of the two things you mention that are resulting in the large size. If the final size is 20GB from a 35GB source file I would say that is not abnormal at all.

 

[kcaruso]

Whew thank u so much. I've been searching the web hi and low for these answers and finally put my own post out there. I appreciate all ur input. Ill try another bd in the next day or so and see how it goes.

 

[jmpage2]

Whew thank u so much. I've been searching the web hi and low for these answers and finally put my own post out there. I appreciate all ur input. Ill try another bd in the next day or so and see how it goes.

No problem. As long as you have the patience to have your machine tied up for many hours at a time you should be fine. Personally, I could not handle that. I can queue up several BDs overnight with Handbrake and have 3-4 of them done by the time I wake up in the morning. No way I could handle it taking 2-3 DAYS.

 

[mic j]

You'll see I am operating on a similar Mac (2009 duo core) as yourself. It is not unusual for a BD transcode with HB (aTV3 preset) to take 10-18 hours. I usually do a single BD overnight. With your Mac model, what you are experiencing is pretty normal.

 

[kcaruso]

I just checked my Mac mini and it has an i5 processor

 

[jmpage2]

I just checked my Mac mini and it has an i5 processor

Then encoding would probably run quite a bit quicker. Perhaps 2X as fast or even quicker depending on the clock speed and the number of cores it has.

Looks like the 2012 refresh Mini has an i5 2.5ghz with hyper-threading. It will be a LOT faster than your MBP, possibly 2-3X as fast.

 

[kcaruso]

Yeah I'm currently encoding law abiding citizen at rf 23 with a 25gb mkv file and its on pace for about 3 hrs with avg fps at 13-14, much better than the paltry 2.6 on the mbp. Thanks again for all ur input...invaluable to me.

 

[dLuu]

Don't mean to hijack the thread but I have a question for you guys that are ripping with MakeMKV. After deselecting everything but the main movie, do you guys go in and check the unchecked boxes under the main movie? Or are you guys just letting MakeMKV decide what gets ripped?

 

[mic j]

Don't mean to hijack the thread but I have a question for you guys that are ripping with MakeMKV. After deselecting everything but the main movie, do you guys go in and check the unchecked boxes under the main movie? Or are you guys just letting MakeMKV decide what gets ripped?

I have it set to only select my language, then only extract titles that are 1500s minimum title length. Usually, this leaves you with only the main title, audio and subtitles of my native language. Is that what you are looking for?

 

[xp0z3d]

Sorry to add my few questions into this thread , it does have a lot of relevant information so I am wondering if I can get some help as well.

I have previously ripped my BD and Dvds into MKVs. Now I am adding a ATV3 to my HT setup. So was trying to get all my MKVs into iTunes library to playback them using ATV3. So obviously I am using Handbrake and Subler for this purpose.

Last night I did my first conversion from mkv to m4v for movie called Rashomon which is in Japanese language. As much as I knew I tried to get Handbrake to include Japanese track plus English com. and also tried to include English subs as well which already were in MKV. But when I play this file in iTunes it only plays Japanese track for audio and no subs(although it does show English com and subs greyed out if one tries to select them). But on VLC it can play Japanese audio and can switch to English com too and also in Subs in VLC , I can have English subs showing.

So I just want to know what setting I did wrong that iTunes wont show subs and other audio track option can not be selected?

Here trying to post some screenshots. First are defaults I get under ATV3 preset and second 2 ss are showing what I think selected.

And these setting were the ones I chose

 

[CHAOS STEP]

iTunes won't let you toggle subtitles.

If you have a foreign language film, just enable burn in for English subs (god forbid you like English dubbing).

Or use something like XBMC to view your films, then you can choose from a myriad of options.

=edit=

Actually, I forgot you are using an ATV, so perhaps here will show you how to activate them.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3858114?start=0&tstart=0

 

[mic j]

You can only add "soft" subtitles to an mp4 (can select and turn on/off) if you mux in subtitle files that are in the srt format. You have the option of downloading the srt's from various subtitle sites or create them yourself (search this forum for how). You can use HB or Subler to mux them into the file.

 

[xp0z3d]

iTunes won't let you toggle subtitles.

If you have a foreign language film, just enable burn in for English subs (god forbid you like English dubbing).

Or use something like XBMC to view your films, then you can choose from a myriad of options.

=edit=

Actually, I forgot you are using an ATV, so perhaps here will show you how to activate them.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3858114?start=0&tstart=0

as I posted the screen shot , you can see burn in option is greyed out so could not select that. Source file was MKV with subs in it rather than srt file. Which since then I have learnt is getting srt and then adding that as a external sub file in Handbrake.
What about having multiple audios?

You can only add "soft" subtitles to an mp4 (can select and turn on/off) if you mux in subtitle files that are in the srt format. You have the option of downloading the srt's from various subtitle sites or create them yourself (search this forum for how). You can use HB or Subler to mux them into the file.

Yeah I think that would be a way to go. But where do we get correct subs , I mean I saw lot of options for subs but how you tell which one would be correct as there are always subs out there which have really poor english in them.

 

[mic j]

Yeah I think that would be a way to go. But where do we get correct subs , I mean I saw lot of options for subs but how you tell which one would be correct as there are always subs out there which have really poor english in them.

I usually go here: http://subscene.com

If you want, you can download the file you're interested in. Use Jubler to view it and see if it is what you want. You can also make corrections to the text using Jubler.

 

[xp0z3d]

I usually go here: http://subscene.com

If you want, you can download the file you're interested in. Use Jubler to view it and see if it is what you want. You can also make corrections to the text using Jubler.

Thanks for that! Checking it out.

 

[jmpage2]

It is precisely because of the PITA around how subtitles are handled in the ATV/M4V world that I've stuck to MKV files and devices that can play them.

With the handbrake nightlies you can handle PGS subtitles, the only thing you can't do is mark a subtitle as forced (but you can burn it in which is fine most of the time).

My experience trying to download SRT subs for my BD rips was horrible. Sometimes the subtitle dialogue does not match the version of the film that you have, or the timing is off, or other problems. For ripping my BDs I rather just deal with the original authentic PGS subs.

 

[mic j]

It is precisely because of the PITA around how subtitles are handled in the ATV/M4V world that I've stuck to MKV files and devices that can play them.

With the handbrake nightlies you can handle PGS subtitles, the only thing you can't do is mark a subtitle as forced (but you can burn it in which is fine most of the time).

My experience trying to download SRT subs for my BD rips was horrible. Sometimes the subtitle dialogue does not match the version of the film that you have, or the timing is off, or other problems. For ripping my BDs I rather just deal with the original authentic PGS subs.

I agree with most of what you say. However, for the few foreign films I have downloaded subtitles, I have had good results. The only real problem I had was timing issues with was easily remedied with "offset" using Subler. I have also created a few of my own srt files from vobsub's, labor intensive(OCR error correction) but good results.

 

[jmpage2]

I agree with most of what you say. However, for the few foreign films I have downloaded subtitles, I have had good results. The only real problem I had was timing issues with was easily remedied with "offset" using Subler. I have also created a few of my own srt files from vobsub's, labor intensive(OCR error correction) but good results.

For me the issue is rarely foreign subtitles. The issue is almost always the inclusion of the "forced" subtitles in the main movie. It is extremely difficult to find just the "forced" subtitles for a film or TV episode and I personally find it EXTREMELY annoying to have to toggle the subtitles on and off manually just to understand a short passage of Japanese dialogue in a movie like Kill Bill, or the Spanish bantering in an episode of Breaking Bad.

This IMHO is a very big shortcoming with formats other than MKV. With MKV, when the episode/movie is ripped by MakeMKV, the forced subs are put into their own separate sub track. I can then either mark this track as "forced" so that most players display it automatically, or if I really want to be sure they will show up, I can encode the movie with handbrake and burn those subs in.

As a bonus I can still have the entire original (and very high quality visually) PGS subtitle track included, which I can then toggle on and off if I had trouble with some of the dialogue.

It is a major drag to me that Apple and other manufacturers have ignored MKV format when it does so much of what is needed for media playback.

 

[mic j]

For me the issue is rarely foreign subtitles. The issue is almost always the inclusion of the "forced" subtitles in the main movie. It is extremely difficult to find just the "forced" subtitles for a film or TV episode and I personally find it EXTREMELY annoying to have to toggle the subtitles on and off manually just to understand a short passage of Japanese dialogue in a movie like Kill Bill, or the Spanish bantering in an episode of Breaking Bad.

This IMHO is a very big shortcoming with formats other than MKV. With MKV, when the episode/movie is ripped by MakeMKV, the forced subs are put into their own separate sub track. I can then either mark this track as "forced" so that most players display it automatically, or if I really want to be sure they will show up, I can encode the movie with handbrake and burn those subs in.

As a bonus I can still have the entire original (and very high quality visually) PGS subtitle track included, which I can then toggle on and off if I had trouble with some of the dialogue.

It is a major drag to me that Apple and other manufacturers have ignored MKV format when it does so much of what is needed for media playback.

So far, I have had good luck using "Foreign Audio Search" in HB and just burning them in. I would always have forced subs visible regardless, so I just burn them in.

I agree with the use of mkv's, would love to have that capability. I used them with the infamous Popbox. However, I had to have HDD connected directly to the unit. Wifi streaming was problematic, to put it mildly. I think the advantage of the use of mp4's for the aTV is the lower bitrates and limited codecs it uses, which make streaming work really well. And subtitle support is really an mp4 limitation, not necessarily an aTV limitation. For $99 subtitles is only a mild annoyance for me.