I’ve ripped all of my DVD’s and Blu-ray’s to MKV using MakeMKV. Most of my blu-rays are in H264 format but some are in VC-1 format. Can anyone recommend a program to convert these videos to H265 MKV’s to reduce disk space usage without loosing any quality?
Handbrake will do h.265 encodes:
handbrake.fr/docs/en/1.0.0/technical/video-codecs.html
•H.265 (x265): Also known as HEVC
◦This is the next generation of encoder that offers even higher quality encodes and better filesizes over H.264
◦Note, encoding to H.265 is a significantly more complicated process, so it is expected to be slower than HandBrake’s H.264 encoders.
◦Playback support is rather limited at the moment, particularly with mobile devices but this should improve drastically throughout 2015/16
+1 for Handbrake
BUT
HEVC takes a WHOLE lot longer to encode compared with H264. Using Handbrake I was sitting at about 24 hours to do a single DVD ISO file (highest quality). In the end I stuck with H264 and ate the extra 30% file size.
… and most people do it wrong anyway resulting in an HEVC file with exactly the same bit rate as it original with the same or even larger file size and in that case I say two things: 1) WTF and 2 Why bother?
I don’t need and have no experience with HEVC, but if you need some ‘264’ Handbrake tips here’s a bunch in this bulletproof guide:
https://forums.plex.tv/discussion/comment/1335697/#Comment_1335697
Thanks for the input everyone. It sounds like it isn’t worth the hassle. I’ve had a look at Handbrake briefly in the past and it looked rather complicated. At least with the original MakeMKV output I know the quality is as good as it possible can be.
@DarrenL81 said:
Thanks for the input everyone. It sounds like it isn’t worth the hassle. I’ve had a look at Handbrake briefly in the past and it looked rather complicated. At least with the original MakeMKV output I know the quality is as good as it possible can be.
It is complicated. The guide linked above - and in my signature - clears up some things. After a while, if you persist, you do get the hang of it. If you’ll follow the guide, investigate the mediainfo of your VC-1 items, then in Handbrake match the original bit rate you can make an AVC version (in 2 - 48hrs +/-) that’ll be so close to the original I’ll bet you’ll never see the difference. Those files will then be more likely to Direct Play and when/if they do have to transcode it won’t slam your server up against the wall - as badly.
HEVC is problematic in the Plexiverse and on anything that isn’t VLC. That will likely change over time. All I know is right now I have a whole bunch of devices that can’t deal with an HEVC file so no matter what I do in Handbrake that thing is going to have to transcode. We’ll not have any of that! The server box is capable, but it won’t sneak by my OCD checkpoint. 
I just wanted to try and be helpful here and update this post given it’s ranked high in Google.
Many devices now support hardware decoding of x265 (also called HEVC and h265). Apple TV 4K and on, most Tizen TVs (Samsung) after 2017, new Mac and Mac Minis (most things with a Gen 8 Intel’s now ship with it). So the verdict is shifting towards a good idea to be in the HEVC world. Converting old material is still a big question. But new stuff, I would find/convert/encode to HEVC if you have the abilities. Though, storage is getting cheaper and cheaper!
Edit: When buying your TV, just google the model with 265 and you should find quickly if it’s supported. My understanding is most new TVs support it. I do want to point out that Mac has a known issue that you can only transcode 1 stream to a non-265 supported client at a time. I don’t know when Apple will fix this self-imposed limit. If I were to build a new Plex Server, I’d likely not go Mac due to cost / limitations but alas we’re here. One other note, that’s worth knowing, is that hardware-accelerated transcoding can result in worse playback quality than CPU-based but it’s not very noticeable. Still worth it give you can get higher quality content at smaller file sizes.
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Oh man, this old post is highly ranked on Google? Ouch.
All ye who enter: Run from much of the advice on this almost-three-year-old thread! @ephis is correct! HEVC is supported on most modern devices and is good for most things, and especially amazing with non-grainy HD stuff. Encoding with x265 is slow, but not that bad with modern hardware from Intel and AMD. And almost every recent device offers playback support.
AVC is fine too! If you have the space, just leave your movies in original quality, and use hardware acceleration (with Plex Pass) to hardware transcode when needed.
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