So to start, I prefer mkv because it is lossless. But I find that my settings are resulting in a very long encode time (between 1.75 and 2.25 hours).
My system is fairly old, a phenom II X6 at 3.8 Ghz.
Does anyone know of any settings that would help with my ripping time for DVDs?
I don’t know if handbrake times change with mkv based on quality settings? I use high quality settings, does that matter?
I suggest you look at JuiceWSA or cayars - they have excellent guides on using Handbrake or ffmpeg+scripts.
@avoss629@gmail.com said:
So to start, I prefer mkv because it is lossless.
All containers can be lossless. But mkv format is capable of holding unlimited number of video, audio
and subtitle tracks, along with any metadata. This means you can practically have your entire library in one file, lol.
@avoss629@gmail.com said:
So to start, I prefer mkv because it is lossless. But I find that my settings are resulting in a very long encode time (between 1.75 and 2.25 hours).My system is fairly old, a phenom II X6 at 3.8 Ghz.
Does anyone know of any settings that would help with my ripping time for DVDs?
They are not lossless if you are running originals through handbrake. Just use makemkv.
Changing settings will compromise the quality and change the size and time to encode your rips.
Is you are happy with the size of the end product and quality - Bite it and put up with the time it takes.
It not like you have to be there when encoding !!
@avoss629@gmail.com said:
So to start, I prefer mkv because it is lossless.
MKVs are not lossless. MKV is just a file container.
My system is fairly old, a phenom II X6 at 3.8 Ghz.
Does anyone know of any settings that would help with my ripping time for DVDs?
You can use MakeMKV to rip DVDs as well - resulting in huge files… Buy more storage.
If you want to make more reasonable sized files it’s going to take a ‘re-code’ and that takes time. Could be a long time on a slow machine.
The Handy Handbrake Guide in my signature has all sorts of tips, the best bang for the buck in encoding time is ‘Reference Frames’. The Default is 3. If you lower to 1 that’s about as much speed boost as you’re going to get. The down side is ‘Reference Frames’ aid in file compression, so the fewer you use the less efficient the compression is, but it’s really not going to make a whole lot of difference. A few hundred MB means squat if it’ll knock an hour off the encode.
DVDs I mostly just use makmkv and live with the large files.
Blueray, I am always vexed by. Straight from makmkv, I find their bitrate overwhelms my network. It’s wireless though only for a jump from the router across the living room to Roku from my windows 10 PC (passmark about 5400). If I had ethernet all the way should I be able to just use the makemkv files straight?
Usually I encode in handbrake down to about 5mbps. Then it plays fine, at least to my eye. Even trying to follow Juices guide though, I can’t seem avoid transcoding. Is transcoding happening to met the limits of wireless (the latest flavor I think - came after N, what’s the name?)
Bit rate of 4750 Kbps or so is about the same quality you’d expect to see with Netflix or Amazon Prime and is generally considered ‘good enough’. It should also transfer rather easily over anything, but a compromised network.
Post the XML info or MediaInfo of one of the files that won’t Direct Play:
https://support.plex.tv/hc/en-us/articles/201998867-Investigate-Media-Information-and-Formats
MediaInfo - Download <— handy, but when installing decline any ‘crapware’ offers
Here’s a MediaInfo export of a recent Handbrake job of mine that should Direct Play on everything (providing you don’t have the stock 7.7 Roku Firmware - or haven’t taken steps to side-step it). It even has 3 Commentary Audio Tracks:
! General
! Unique ID : 51339584704573414289244610936349476888 (0x269FA4F4383316520056A3571CED4818)
! Complete name : H:\Sci-Fi Sets\Star Trek Nemesis (2002) [1080p]\Star Trek Nemesis (2002) [1080p].mkv
! Format : Matroska
! Format version : Version 4 / Version 2
! File size : 4.32 GiB
! Duration : 1 h 56 min
! Overall bit rate : 5 314 kb/s
! Encoded date : UTC 2017-09-05 21:09:55
! Writing application : Lavf57.57.100
! Writing library : Lavf57.57.100 / Lavf57.57.100
! ErrorDetectionType : Per level 1
!
! Video
! ID : 1
! Format : AVC
! Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
! Format profile : High@L4.1
! Format settings, CABAC : Yes
! Format settings, ReFrames : 4 frames
! Codec ID : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
! Bit rate : 4 750 kb/s
! Width : 1 920 pixels
! Height : 816 pixels
! Display aspect ratio : 2.35:1
! Frame rate mode : Variable
! Color space : YUV
! Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
! Bit depth : 8 bits
! Scan type : Progressive
! Writing library : x264 core 142 r2479 dd79a61
! Encoding settings : cabac=1 / ref=4 / deblock=1:0:0 / analyse=0x3:0x113 / me=hex / subme=7 / psy=1 / psy_rd=1.00:0.00 / mixed_ref=1 / me_range=16 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=1 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / fast_pskip=1 / chroma_qp_offset=-2 / threads=12 / lookahead_threads=2 / sliced_threads=0 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / interlaced=0 / bluray_compat=0 / constrained_intra=0 / bframes=3 / b_pyramid=2 / b_adapt=1 / b_bias=0 / direct=1 / weightb=1 / open_gop=0 / weightp=2 / keyint=240 / keyint_min=24 / scenecut=40 / intra_refresh=0 / rc_lookahead=40 / rc=abr / mbtree=1 / bitrate=4750 / ratetol=1.0 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=0 / qpmax=69 / qpstep=4 / vbv_maxrate=62500 / vbv_bufsize=78125 / nal_hrd=none / filler=0 / ip_ratio=1.40 / aq=1:1.00
! Default : Yes
! Forced : No
! Color range : Limited
! Color primaries : BT.709
! Transfer characteristics : BT.709
! Matrix coefficients : BT.709
! DURATION : 01:56:30.655000000
!
! Audio #1
! ID : 2
! Format : AC-3
! Format/Info : Audio Coding 3
! Format settings, Endianness : Big
! Codec ID : A_AC3
! Duration : 1 h 56 min
! Bit rate mode : Constant
! Bit rate : 384 kb/s
! Channel(s) : 6 channels
! Channel positions : Front: L C R, Side: L R, LFE
! Sampling rate : 48.0 kHz
! Frame rate : 31.250 FPS (1536 spf)
! Bit depth : 16 bits
! Compression mode : Lossy
! Stream size : 320 MiB (7%)
! Writing library : Lavc57.66.101 ac3_fixed
! Language : English
! Service kind : Complete Main
! Default : Yes
! Forced : No
! DURATION : 01:56:30.592000000
!
! Audio #2
! ID : 3
! Format : AC-3
! Format/Info : Audio Coding 3
! Format settings, Endianness : Big
! Codec ID : A_AC3
! Duration : 1 h 56 min
! Bit rate mode : Constant
! Bit rate : 96.0 kb/s
! Channel(s) : 2 channels
! Channel positions : Front: L R
! Sampling rate : 48.0 kHz
! Frame rate : 31.250 FPS (1536 spf)
! Bit depth : 16 bits
! Compression mode : Lossy
! Stream size : 80.0 MiB (2%)
! Writing library : Lavc57.66.101 ac3_fixed
! Language : English
! Service kind : Complete Main
! Default : No
! Forced : No
! DURATION : 01:56:30.624000000
!
! Audio #3
! ID : 4
! Format : AC-3
! Format/Info : Audio Coding 3
! Format settings, Endianness : Big
! Codec ID : A_AC3
! Duration : 1 h 56 min
! Bit rate mode : Constant
! Bit rate : 96.0 kb/s
! Channel(s) : 2 channels
! Channel positions : Front: L R
! Sampling rate : 48.0 kHz
! Frame rate : 31.250 FPS (1536 spf)
! Bit depth : 16 bits
! Compression mode : Lossy
! Stream size : 80.0 MiB (2%)
! Writing library : Lavc57.66.101 ac3_fixed
! Language : English
! Service kind : Complete Main
! Default : No
! Forced : No
! DURATION : 01:56:30.624000000
!
! Audio #4
! ID : 5
! Format : AC-3
! Format/Info : Audio Coding 3
! Format settings, Endianness : Big
! Codec ID : A_AC3
! Duration : 1 h 56 min
! Bit rate mode : Constant
! Bit rate : 96.0 kb/s
! Channel(s) : 2 channels
! Channel positions : Front: L R
! Sampling rate : 48.0 kHz
! Frame rate : 31.250 FPS (1536 spf)
! Bit depth : 16 bits
! Compression mode : Lossy
! Stream size : 80.0 MiB (2%)
! Writing library : Lavc57.66.101 ac3_fixed
! Language : English
! Service kind : Complete Main
! Default : No
! Forced : No
! DURATION : 01:56:30.624000000
!
! Menu
! 00:00:00.000 : :Chapter 1
! 00:04:15.380 : :Chapter 2
! 00:08:28.925 : :Chapter 3
! 00:12:00.886 : :Chapter 4
! 00:20:14.880 : :Chapter 5
! 00:23:21.942 : :Chapter 6
! 00:25:47.838 : :Chapter 7
! 00:28:14.609 : :Chapter 8
! 00:34:32.320 : :Chapter 9
! 00:38:42.904 : :Chapter 10
! 00:47:49.867 : :Chapter 11
! 00:51:54.820 : :Chapter 12
! 00:56:56.413 : :Chapter 13
! 01:02:19.819 : :Chapter 14
! 01:06:25.940 : :Chapter 15
! 01:09:49.560 : :Chapter 16
! 01:16:48.145 : :Chapter 17
! 01:20:37.833 : :Chapter 18
! 01:25:35.755 : :Chapter 19
! 01:31:35.031 : :Chapter 20
! 01:35:23.592 : :Chapter 21
! 01:40:30.024 : :Chapter 22
! 01:45:07.885 : :Chapter 23
! 01:49:21.263 : :Chapter 24
Direct Play on a Roku should be rather easy.
No more than 5 Reference Frames - I never use more than 4 - All other Advanced Tab Settings at Defaults
AAC 2.0 audio or AC3 5.1 audio if your system can deal with it.
Make sure the local quality setting is ‘Original’.
I found how to avoid transcoding. My TV is 720p and so is the roku LT that I have as the plex client.
I was making the blueray files with 1080 lines of vertical resolution. As a result Plex had to transcode to 720.
I made a new version with 720 vertical size - no transcoding on that Roku!!!
Silly on my part and thank you for your help.
