Hi, I’ve ripped all my blu rays using MakeMKV. About 100 have a VC-1 codec. I’d like to simply convert the video to h264 but maintain all the subs and various audio track in the mkv container.
I’ve looked at MKV Tools which is great and does exactly this with batch encoding. The only downside is that it is mac only. I’d like to do it on my win pc which has a far better processor than the mac mini.
Can handbrake do the same? I can’t see how to maintain the quality etc and just convert the codec?
I makemkv my blu rays as well… and if you only do the main titlle only and have the audio and subs you want already in the files (I.E. you don’t need to babysit the transcodes to make decisions) batching should not be hard
I also transcode all my full blu rips with handbrake and keep both files online for plex
I rip them using the ATV3 preset which gets you a file with
1080 or orig size
ACC and AC3 with pass through
Framerate limited to 30fps almost every disk is 23.9 anyway
I only keep forced subs (foreign language spots) and have no use for subs) and I burn them in so that plex doesnt have to transcode to do it… if you want the full subs that’s an option
It saves the file in M4V which is identical to mp4 I can literally just change the extension if I want and it will play
The reason for ATV3 is that instead of the painfully slow plex sync I can just download movies straight into my iphone or ipad and they play great with the native app… no connectivity needed and its more battery friendly than playing with plex and I can delete them when I am done even when I have no connectivity back to my server… if I do want to download more… the ATV3 m4v files are very quickly and conveniently transcoded by plex vs the full rip…
You can batch with handbrake and que things up or use a third party script to batch a folder… I have not personally used one but google it there is a good one but it’s windows and I am a mac guy…
Personally I am waiting just a bit longer for HEVC to take a foothold as mainstream then rerip my source materials… 264 is outgoing and 265 is better looking and smaller file sizes and stream rates on an equal quality basis…but sadly few native client hardware right now…
The only way to change the video format from VC-1 to h264 is via a full blown recode. I do not think MKV Tools will perform any voodoo magic either. A full blown recode is a full blown recode no matter who does it.
I do it myself and that same single thread issue presents itself during recodes making it quite painful - and lengthy - a process. You will have to recode the video stream, but you can maintain enough of the quality that your eyeballs won’t be able to see the difference. At least mine don’t.
You can add jobs to a queue with Handbrake - no problem - but the problem is going to be that 2 hour encode. 2 hours (and that’s on a beast of a machine) x 100 = 200 hours. Let’s break this down into manageable increments, like maybe one at a time until you find out how long it takes and how much of the day you’re willing to dedicate 100% of your box to this task.
Encoding… well that’s pretty straight forward. Let’s look at this Darkman 2 job I just recoded down from some ungodly large file that looked like crap to a more reasonable file size that looks like the exact same crap, but it’s not taking up 20GB of my hard drive space:
You would, of course, select MKV as your output file and do enable Web Optimized.
What you want is to use the High Profile preset to start, then drag your magnum file into Handbrake. Under the Picture Tab select ‘None’ for Anamorphic (assuming we’re working on a Blu Ray at 1080p) and ensure 1920x1080 is indeed the resolution. Check Keep Aspect Ratio - of course. Now if this is a wide screen item perform any cropping that’s necessary (by ticking the Custom tickbox) to remove black bars top and bottom (check the preview by hitting the button - lower left, see note) - no need to encode those bars in (this dam thing going to take long enough anyway). If you have to crop any off the sides make sure to bump it back up to 1920 (no matter what the height is) to maintain it’s full resolution.
No Preview Button in the Lower Left? Enable the ‘experimental’ Static Preview in the options.
Now on to the filters tab. Pray these items aren’t interlaced. If you think busting a VC-1 codec is a long process just wait until you have to enable decombing. The word ‘Glacial’ takes on a new meaning: Blinding Speed. Anyway, it’s highly unlikely a BR rip is going to be interlaced, but you never know these days.
Now we’re in our Video Tab shown above. Framerate - Same as Source (always) with a Variable Framerate. Locking down a framerate when you don’t know if the source uses different framerates is a bad idea. If you’ve never seen a poorly ripped Star Trek episode with 24fps for live action and 30fps for CGI shots with a locked down framerate you just haven’t lived. Let’s try not to live like that.
Use MediaInfo to inspect the original Bit Rate and then tick that box in front of Avg Bitrate and, you guessed it, match the original bit rate. Here’s where my eyeballs apparently differ a great deal from other eyeballs. I can whack an original bit rate from 35000Kbps down to 3900Kbps and my eyeballs can’t see the difference. My eyeballs aren’t in your head however and mine suffer from high mileage so your mileage may vary - and probably will.
Note: If you can drift that bit rate down a bit (or a lot) and maintain an acceptable quality (for your eyeballs) by all means do so. Any downward shift in that bit rate will produce an upward shift in the time it takes to do this - and that can’t be anything but good.
I ALWAYS ‘Use Advanced Tab instead’ by ticking it’s box and here are my exact settings:
This is already Gone With The Wind - so I’ll not try to explain all these settings, but trust me - they work fine.
We went right by the Audio Tab - 'cause ‘Advanced Tab’ was right there so… Audio Tab. Pretty straight forward. Click the left most tab where you’ll see a partial description of what’s in the drop down and find out what’s in the drop down. If you have 3 audio tracks add 2 tracks by clicking the Add Track button twice, then adjust those new tracks you added to contain track 1, 2, or 3 and adjust the codec to either passthru what’s there or encode a suitable replacement. Careful inspection of each available drop down should make it fairly self explanatory.
Same deal with subs - I guess - I’ve never actually done it. I rarely need subs.
Run some ‘Previews’ by clicking the button along the top (way different from the lower left Preview) - I use 240 second previews to get a good look and explore the different audio tracks and you could check your subtitle tracks as well. Using a 240 second ‘Preview’ will also let you ‘Preview’ how long this is going to take. If a 4 minute ‘Preview’ takes 8 minutes… well, you can do the math.
Let us know what happened.
Thanks both for the really comprehensive replies.
I just used MKVTools (http://www.emmgunn.com/mkvtools-home/) on the mac-mini to encode 2001 A Space Odessey. I chose everything as pass-thru except the video which of course I wanted to change from VC-1 to H264. I chose the 2 pass encode. 4.5hrs later it finished!!! OUCH!!!
The mac-mini is 2.4Ghz. The win10 machine is 3.7ghz hence why I want the windows app option. MKVTools is so easy to use compared to Handbrake… shame it’s mac only.
I need to now try the handbrake option. I’ve already used handbrake for mp4 versions at an average bitrate of 4mbps video for remote streaming.
Essentially I’m giving up with PMP and openPHT and going to give the Roku a go. The roku will play the h264 mkvs at full bit rate fine, but the VC-1s need transcoding and the Synology obviously just doesn’t cut it. I want to keep all the audio tracks as is, I prefer DTS tracks and all my kit is hooked up to a yamaha rxv2030 amp.
I have considered putting the PMS on the mac mini but even then I don’t think that would be powerful enough to do ‘on the fly’ transcoding.
With 100 to recode, I need batch options to pass thru the audio, subs ‘as is’ and just convert the video. My tv is 65in plasma (may get a bigger TV soon) so I want/need to keep the quality high.
I could give both the mac and / or win machine 100% resource to it.
MKVTools is perfect for the job, it does exactly what I need. I now need to play with handbrake and see if I can get it to do the same.
I’ve actually got 2 mac minis and mac book as well as the win machine, so maybe I’ll split the load across the 4?
Here is my recommendation fro the video stetings in Handbrake, is all you want is to change the video codec but want to retain the quality of the picture. The result won’t be significantly smaller than the original file.
I expressively like to discourage you from using the ‘Advanced’ video codec options.
Many, many users have managed to produce invalid/unplayable files by playing with these options.
While they are great for absolute encoder experts (those who know the inner workings of the encoders, not those who encode all theior movies with the same parameters), for normal users they are not necessary.
Those should only be used of one knows exactly what he is doing. And only if a particular encoding job makes this deviation from the default setting necessary. Setting these options once and then think you’ve found the silver bullet of video encoding is naive.
I have two basic profiles - DVD and HD. These two profiles use a separate Advanced Tab Setting theme. Here is the one for HD:
The Advanced tab setting theme for DVD has one change - subpixel motion estimation goes to ‘9: RD in all frames’ because a DVD rip will pour through Handbrake like wet grass through an aged goose and dropping that back to ‘7’ for HD rips saves a bit of time.
Oh yes… it is entirely possible to screw up an encode so badly it won’t play in VLC in this window - and that’s pretty screwed up - but most of those settings (for ‘experimenters’) have warnings like: ‘Sane Values’. Stepping outside of these ‘Sane Values’ into ‘Insane’ territory usually produces insane, unplayable results.
The problem I have with the standard Constant Quality and complete ‘shot in the dark’ x264 Preset (speed) values are wildly erratic and totally unpredictable file sizes and quality results. I’m not saying it’s a bad idea for novices and beginners, but I have literally thousands of Handbrake encodes using my method without a turkey in the bunch and my quality and file sizes are predictable and reproducible, time after time after time.
The ‘trick’ to using ‘Avg Bitrate’ over Constant Quality is to give it enough Bitrate to get the job done. I can look at the source of just about anything and tell how much bit rate I want to invest in it, but there are certainly lower limits that one must NEVER attempt - unless you’re trying to freak out VLC.
My basic rules of thumb (Kbps):
DVD B+W, 4:3 - 1400-1500
DVD Color, 16:9 - 1500-1600 (my eyeballs literally stop seeing improvements above these DVD levels)
720p - 1800-2200 (maybe more - depending - never lower)
1080p - 2800-8500 lol - sometimes you just have to put your foot on the gas, but I have never, ever seen any improvement in quality above 5400 or so and that could be my aged eyeballs and/or display devices. Everyone’s mileage is going to vary in this area.
I will not dispute the above advice… and when it comes to handbrake… there are a million ways to skin the cat… and I have tried many of them…
For simplicity and a good quality encode at very reasonable speeds and file sizes… you really cant beat ATV3… it really is a great universal setting and the bonus for apple users is the ability to put the file right on your device without needing to use plex at all…
Take the challenge… take your favorite or most ciniamaically significant movie you have
Encode it your way… note file size and overall bitrate and subjective quality
Then encode it with ATV3 preset, maybe tune to film if its grainy cellulose old move not made for digital media… then again give file size, bitrate and you subjective what was worse overview…
For both note the time it takes for handbrake to do the job as well…
Most newer movies don’t need deinterlacing unless its apparent then just turn it on
There are still some TV shows that do… so always look a few minutes of source before every encode to see if its interlaced
For Windows I use a program called XMediaRecode. It uses the same decoder/encoders as Handbrake so you get identical results. I think it has a much simpler interface.
Drag your file(s) into the program, set to convert the video and copy the audio and subtitles. Set it as a batch job and run it when your computer is not busy.
@MovieFan.Plex Just wanted to say thanks for your guide. It was exactly what I wanted. I finally got around to re-encoding all my VC1 files maintaining the audio and subtitles intact. It took 8 days of the PC running flat out to go through them all.
I now have a set of files with top notch video and exactly the same audio as the blu ray.
I still use handbrake to convert my high bitrate mkvs to 4mbps mp4’s (with aac/ace audio) for remote viewing, but this tool was perfect for doing my vc1 and keeps DTS etc. I no I could have done the same in handbrake, but this method was easier for me.
Thanks again.
Thanks also to @juiceWSA for his info too. I’m sure I’ll come back to this at some point in the future.
Here’s the extended director’s cut of my Handbrake Guide:
https://forums.plex.tv/discussion/comment/1335697/#Comment_1335697
I love Xmedia Recode and use it for remuxing, audio fiddling (normalization) and other tid-bits, but I loathe it’s video encoding method. Maybe I got so used to Handbrake I can’t use anything else, but I’ve tried many times to use Xmedia Recode and every time it disappoints.
XMedia Recode and Handbrake both use FFMPEG as the encoder so you should be able to get the same results. Handbrake uses profile presets which you should be able to mimic in XR and save as a custom profile for later use.
Well… good luck getting a proper anamorphic setting for DVDs with Xmedia Recode. Don’t get me wrong, it’s great for some things and I use it every single day.
Encoding video is done with the thing that encodes video the best. I am aware ffmpeg is ffmpeg, but years of experience has found what works best for me:
https://forums.plex.tv/discussion/comment/1335697/#Comment_1335697
Is using Plex itself to create an optimized version of original quality not a good idea? I assume you could then replace your original remux with vc-1 with it.
Or is the quality not up to snuff or does it not convert vc-1 to h264?
Some people are fine with the version Plex can create for you. I am not fine with it. It’s a personal preference thing I guess.
If you know what you want and have certain standards that you want to meet you can create a version with Handbrake, or whatever you feel works the best for you, then let Plex do a version and compare.
I find Plex’s versions are wildly erratic and unpredictable - the same thing I find trying to encode Video with Xmedia Recode. Handbrake with my guide provides repeatable and predictable results time after time.
