General recommendations on Blu-Rays?

Well, I’m reaching the end of my DVD ripping, and I’m looking at my Blu-Rays. To do those, I would need to invest in a Blu-Ray drive for the PC (probably an external USB drive that would work with PC and Mac). I would be interested in any recommendations on the best CHEAP models to do this.

Also, I’m planning to run them thru MakeMKV and then Handbrake to put them in a std format for Plex streaming. How much does that impact quality? How big will the resulting files be in general? Under/over 1GB? More than that? Just planning for Plex storage.

I’m still a newbie at this so any thoughts would be appreciated.

I don’t have a recommendation for you, but blu-rays are typically in the 25-50 GB range. Some are even larger. If you are going to do this in batches, make sure you have enough room.

makemkv does not do any compression or modification from the bluray source data, it simply remuxes the video/audio into mkv files, so your file will be however large the movie takes.

handbrake of course can be used to reduce the size, however what size and quality you will get will entirely depend on the settings you use.

Ahhh, I hear you asking, well what settings should I use ?

Aaaand, well only YOU will be able to determine that, because everyone has different eyes and ears, and only you can decide what is acceptable quality versus how much storage you are willing to use.

There are dozens, if not hundreds of guides on handbrake on google, so I would suggest you start there.

You may especially want to research and understand the difference between x264, and the newer HEVC/x265 codecs.

Hevc will let you get smaller files, but it will take a much longer time to convert than using x264.

Or, you can just keep the remuxed mkv files and buy more hard drives.

What is more important to you, the time and effort spent to make files smaller, or buying more storage space?

2 Likes

Everything he says after this basically nails it: There are too many variables and everyone is different in terms of their needs.

I’ve honestly changed my own mind multiple times along the way.

1 Like

OK–I’ve got a lot of time on my hands (like a lot of people right now), so I would go with HEVC/x265 to reduce the size. In general, do you think I can get the files below 10GB without hugely impacting the quality? I currently do not have any 4K TV’s, so the equivalent of 1080P is fine.

I’m not sure if I want to invest in additional storage to do this, in addition to the Blu-Ray drive.

IMO, yes 10GB is more than enough space for your average Blu-Ray movie to be encoded to h265, and that includes keeping the DTS-HD MA 7.1 or Dolby Atmos Audio. Others will disagree. :slight_smile:

My recommendation is to do something simple, like consider picking a movie you know really well. Use video settings of h.265 10-bit (NOT using QSV, if that’s an option!), 1080p size, constant quality of RF 20, Constant Frame Rate (“Same as source”), and then for the audio section, choose passthru for the big audio track like DTS or Dolby. If you want to keep subtitles, you’ll need to choose the PGS ones, and you’ll also need to choose the MKV container if you do that. Otherwise, MP4/M4V or MKV are fine.

Maybe encode the first three chapters and how long it takes, and how big the file already is. Remember that if handbrake encodes a film at 24 frames per second, that means it will encode at about real-time (film is 24 fps!), so a 2 hour movie would encode in 2 hours. But be prepared for lower frame rate encoding speeds with h265.

Going back to the video options in handbrake, if you use the constant quality setting (RF20 is just a starting point, but it should be pretty good for 10-bit h265), remember that every movie will have a unique file size, even if they’re the same length. It’ll use more bits for complex scenes, and fewer for simpler ones. A good rule of thumb: The more grainy the film is, the larger the final file size will be.

Then review the quality of the encode. How’s it look? Does it play nicely (Direct play or direct stream) on all your devices? If you’re happy with it, and the time needed for encoding, then try encoding the whole thing, and find out how big it is. It’s a learning process, but this would at least give you a place to start.

Random tip: If you plan to stream these remotely, there are options to encode the video (or an extra copy!) to stay within a set bandwidth limit, like the default 4mbps or whatever. But that’s another day once you try things out and see what you think.

1 Like

If you consider buying (and you should really do) 4K BR with HDR (or Dolby Vision) + Atmos, then
the variables to consider are even more and in my experience the minimum size for an acceptable quality while preserving HDR and Atmos, is about 20 GB (of course using HEVC/x265 and a powerful PC).

For DV (Dolby Vision) that now is supported by Plex, you may need to invest in specific hardware and programs.

1 Like

One more variable on top of that: You’ll need to move away from Handbrake if you want to re-encode HDR-level material, because it can’t handle it properly internally.

Thank you for all this info!!!

My takeaway is that I can get the files down below 10GB on average, especially if I exclude some of the premium audio stuff my systems can’t handle anyways like 4K, HDR and Atmos. If and when I upgrade, I can always rip them again–and storage will be even cheaper by then.

I’m looking at this external Blu-Ray drive or similar–it’s cheap and got good reviews. Any thoughts? (This is NOT an ad, BTW).

Unfortunately, external Blu-ray models aren’t my specialty right now (I stick with the popular internal models).

But in terms of audio I will note that if you plan to encode your audio with Handbrake instead of just doing passthru (to save space), consider something simple like AC3 5.1 at either 512 or 640 kbps (test the audio with a few different kinds of content to see if you can tell the difference).

Avoid AAC in Handbrake for any 5.1 surround stuff for two reasons: 1. AAC 5.1 can have compatibility issues (translation: Plex may need to transcode it again to AC3), and 2. Handbrake’s AAC implementation is poor at lower bit rates. You can get a better AAC encoder for Handbrake but you have to build the code manually.

as everyone said sooooo many ways to do it. I experimented with handbrake, over and over and over and over and over … it was exhausting. both with video and audio.
in the end i just followed this guide


my main (and only for now) devices are roku 3s. i add two audio streams, 5.1 and stereo, because why the hell do i want the server to transcode audio when it can just direct play stereo when applicable?
do what you want, but personally i think this guide is a good starting point for which ever devices you have. files range between 4-10GB…
also, if you have an nvidia video card, make sure to try encoding with the video card VS CPU… i can encode a bluray rip in 15->20 minutes VS 45->real time with the CPU.

Nothing personal (since this is working for you!), but this is definitely not my recommendation. Using the CPU to encode is noticeably better at any given bit rate. High quality takes time, and you really only want to do this once.

(Video cards are definitely improving their quality in recent years, but they’re still not at the level of a CPU encode)

oh straight up sir… i didn’t mean it’s hella better across the board, my bad… i should’ve worded it better…

I have an Nvidia 1060ti, and a Ryzen 2600x… while the card does encode quicker than the CPU i haven’t noticed any degradation in quality one would expect from it being faster.
i agree quality does take time. I do believe in handbrake you can set the encoding speed…
definitely subjective… it won’t be any good for people using onboard graphics LOL :laughing:

1 Like

This topic was automatically closed 90 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.