I’m just setting up my first Plex server and am trying to determine if I should bother compressing with Handbrake, or just use the full “raw” file that is ripped with MakeMKV? (It just takes so long to compress, if it’s not necessarily needed anymore, I was hoping to save the time.)
I’m thinking primarily of DVD files in the 4-6GB range? maybe Blu-Ray? and 4K, I would imagine are still commonly compressed down a bit?
I’ve searched this forum a bit, but the threads I’m seeing are from 2016… Wanted to get current thoughts? I have 4TB currently with 2 more bays if I need them, so storage is more plentiful than it used to be obviously.
Only your eyes can be the judge of that.
It’s worth experimenting with a movies or two in handbrake. But like I said despite what you may have read in other threads… just ignore it all.
By all means do a trial, do the comparison and ignore anyone who states exactly which you should do. They do not have your eyes.
In essence nobody can answer that but yourself.
What devices will the videos be playing on? Will you (or others) be streaming the files over the internet? And how powerful is your server? Those are usually the first factors to consider.
I prefer keeping the originals and letting Plex transcode them when I’m watching stuff outside of the house. I enable hardware acceleration with a newer Intel chip. It works well on Linux, but is a bit more iffy on Windows.
Others prefer to do a nice high quality transcode to reduce the bit rate. That’s totally fine too. Sometimes it’s a matter of doing the transcode and seeing if you can tell the difference!
Quality-wise, I’ve compressed with Handbrake and they look fine for my needs. It’s really an issue of playback for me… Will the larger “raw files” typically play back correctly when streaming over WiFi?
I’m playing on TVs via Chromecast, TVs via smart apps built in, iphones, and ipads.
For a full quality Blu-Ray rip, I have good quality 802.11ac WiFi in the house, and those videos can direct-play on a Roku streaming stick+ just fine at original quality video. Audio (DTS-MA or TrueHD) gets transcoded because it’s not supported by the Roku.
This server should handle hardware acceleration nicely if you need it. It uses an Intel J3355. It’s a fairly slow chip in general, but not for Plex. Per Wikichip, it can hardware-decode H265, H264 (most Blu-Rays), and MPEG2 (HD over Antenna, or really old Blu-Rays). It can also hardware-encode to H264 to send it to various devices if needed.
There is one exception: Older Blu-Rays (like Harry Potter) were sometimes encoded using VC-1, Microsoft’s now-retired HD codec. It looks just fine, but there is no hardware-accelerated decoding available. For a slower chip, that may be a problem. In short: For blu-rays encoded in VC-1, you may want to consider transcoding to H265 (if your devices support it) or H264.
Its gonna be 20-30GB for Bluray.
It will be no more stressful transcoding that for mobile clients. It’s all really down to your servers transcoding capabilties.
If you do use handbrake you really want to find a decent common ground with handbrake with regards to what is watchable on a TV and will also direct play on your “out and about” devices.
I go the same route as @Cafe_Diem to be honest. Best quality possible for local and let the server do the work for mobile devices.
BTW there are technically all kinds of fine details we can get into, but it’s usually not necessary. For example, I usually encode my DVD’s of film and TV to correct the frame rate from 29.97 to 23.976 via Handbrake. That’s so I can use refresh rate switching. However, that may be totally irrelevant to your needs.
One additional random note: When ripping your Blu-Rays, watch for movies with forced subtitles. Those happen where they’re adding captions when a character speaks a foreign language. Sometimes they’re a separate subtitle track that you need to enable. It’s honestly one of the harder parts of ripping Blu-Rays because you may not realize it’s missing until you randomly watch that movie 18 months later.
Just to add that historically mkv files and any Apple device combination was less than Stellar.
However Plex are actively working on a new playback engine for iOS/tvOS. But even without it it will simply mux the container on the fly at a negligible CPU cost.
With the new player it happily direct plays mkv files.
