Problem with file size after ripping with handbrake

[FordGuy61]

@zorglub2000

And why sometimes I have like 4 subtitles which seem to be the same ?

Some movies have multiple, similar subtitle tracks. For example, you may see one track for “English” and one for “English for the Deaf & Hard of Hearing” (aka English SDH). The SDH track will include entries for non-dialog items such as [floor creaks], [door opens], etc.

Some movies have duplicate tracks for whatever reason.

There are also Foreign Language tracks, which leads to…

@zorglub2000

Can someone explain me what the Foreign Audio Scan means in the subtitles section ?

Like in Avatar when the humans speak Na’vi and the translation appears onscreen.

Sometimes it is already part of the video and not a separate subtitle track.

Sometimes it is included as a separate subtitle track. You will see it referred to as a “forced” track. If you played the disc in a DVD/Blu-ray player, the subtitle track would appear automatically, w/o user interaction.

Handbrake may or may not pick up the Foreign Audio track. It looks for the “forced” flag on subtitle tracks in the MKV file. If the flag is not set, then Handbrake will not automatically include the subtitle track.

How to tell what is in the movie:

Play the disc and look at the menus. Some movies will list standard & SDH subtitle tracks separately (they won’t list foreign language tracks).

After ripping, check the movie with MediaInfo. It will list Count of Elements for most subtitle tracks. This is the number of lines. The SDH subtitles, if present, will always have more entries than the standard tracks. Foreign audio tracks will always have much fewer entries.
Example:
Avatar, English SDH: Count of elements: 3343
Avatar, English Foreign Audio: Count of elements: 165

After ripping, load the movie into SubTitle Edit and analyze each subtitle track. You don’t have to convert them, just look at the first few lines.

Or just play the movie with VLC (or Plex for that matter). It may be obvious which track is which.

You don’t necessarily have to do all those steps. You’ll get the hang of it after a few discs.

How to handle Foreign Language subtitles:

You basically have two choices: a) leave as a separate subtitle track; b) burn into video when converting with Handbrake.

Personally, I burn in the foreign language subtitles. This makes them part of the video stream and they cannot be turned off.

You can also leave them as a separate subtitle track (if using MKV container). You’ll want to set the default flag. I’m not sure if Handbrake can set the “forced” flag.

[OttoKerner]

@zorglub2000

Can someone explain me what the Foreign Audio Scan means in the subtitles section ?

AFAIK this applies only to source media which contain NTSC norm “Closed Captions”. Something you won’t find on DVDs or Blu-ray.

On DVDs, you often have 2 copies of a subtitle. One which has a narrow font and another one which covers more width.
A relic from the time when producers had to cater for 4:3 and 16:9 screens.

[zorglub2000]

Otto and Ford ,

1. I want to thank you so much for your detailed explanations. I hope they will help other users as well.
   Now I am no longer afraid to use handbrake thanks to you guys

2. One last thing about subtiles. I chose mkv container so I could decide to put on or off the subtitles. Using mp4, I could have decided to use external subtiltes as srt files. But it seemed somehow very difficult to export those subtitles directly from the mkv file to an srt file, couldn’t find a software that did just that so that’s why I dedided sto stick with mkv format.

3. Now the only thing I’m afraid of is destroying the original file and realizing (as I think one of you mentionned) in the future that I made a mistake somwhere or that maybe there is a “bug” in one of the movie.

Do you think we can imagine in the future this 25Gb file might be easy to read on more powerful machines and therefore it could be of interest of keeping it ?

A solution could be to strore all the original 25Gb mkv in some old disks but it loads up quickly.
4 films in 100Gb 12 films ans you already have 300Gb.

Tell me what is your process for you guys just to know if you can…

Thanks again,

Z.

[OttoKerner]

@zorglub2000

But it seemed somehow very difficult to export those subtitles directly from the mkv file to an srt file, couldn’t find a software that did just that so that’s why I dedided sto stick with mkv format.

You can use a GUI for mkvextract.exe to do that.
MKVCleaver is such a thing MKVcleaver 0.8.0.0 Free Download - VideoHelp

Or you install Subtitle Edit and “open” the MKV with it. It allows you to pick the subtitle track and save it as SRT file.

[OttoKerner]

@zorglub2000

Do you think we can imagine in the future this 25Gb file might be easy to read on more powerful machines and therefore it could be of interest of keeping it ?

“Reading” is no problem even today. You could put this file into Plex as it is.
But with many clients you will then trigger transcoding.
And then there is still the issue of the necessary storage space.
Buit if you were after the maximum quality in your home cinema, you could use this “raw” rip directly with e.g. Plex Media Player.

[zorglub2000]

Otto,
This is my config:
I have a homecinema with a Denon amplifier and 5 speakers and a JVC projector 1080p with a Windows 10 on aNUC (BOXNUC5I3RYH with DDR3 total 8Gb memory and intel core i3 2,10Ghz)
My films are put on a Synology NAS which the NUC has access with Plex Home Theater.
Sometimes I have the feeling my NUC suffers with Plex Media Player…
And when I try big file like that it never seem to work really well. Maybe the power of my NUC isn’t big enough don’t know or the bandwith coming from the Synology…

Z.

[zorglub2000]

When I load a file the dimensions are changed:

Like this one it said 1438x1080, so I changed it to match the source which is 1920x1080

Then I saw on the bottom the Display size said 1438x1080 with PAR 719x960

Could you please tell me more about that ? Should I keep what’s written when loading the file (1438x1080) or continue to make it match the source size ?

Z.

[Cafe_Diem]

Is it a full screen movie, and handbrake is automatically cropping it for you? If so, that’s ok.

[OttoKerner]

Yeah, the pixel count implies this is a 4:3 picture, with black bars at the sides. Handbrake is automatically cropping them off, so you end up with a narrower picture.

The only thing you might wanna set to Off is the ‘Anamorphic’ drop down.
Rule of thumb:
DVD=automatic
Blu-ray=off

(At least if it is true full HD video.
There are Blu-rays out there which store only SD material [anamorphic, just like on DVD], but these are relatively rare. I have seen them with some old TV shows, where you then get a whole season on one disk, due to the larger capacity.
Anyway, you can always inspect the source with mediainfo to confirm.)

You can use the Preview window of handbrake to verify the automatic cropping is done correctly.
Set the cropping parameters to ‘manual’ and then change any of the 4 numbers slightly downwards, to see if a black border appears.

[OttoKerner]

The NUC should be able to play a raw rip. At least if it’s connected per Ethernet wire to the server.
It might have some issue with VC-1 encoded videos ( the other Codec beside AVC on Blu-ray discs).

[zorglub2000]

Thanks Otto again for your detailed answers.

I did a mediainfo on both file (the original mkv from the Blu Ray and the Rip one with handbrake)
Then used a comparaison software.
I made some screenshots to compare the two files so I have a few questions again !
Hope you don’t mind and sorry in advance if the post size is big !

1. what means mkv version 2 and 4 ?
2. File ration seams a good one now ?
3. Rate kb/s seems okay ?
4. Do you know what means errorDetectionType ?

These were my video settings:

5. Why has the aspect ration changed !! Went from 16:9 to 4:3 , can I set that up in handbrake ?
6. Here are the encoding setting in full:
   Encoding settings : cabac=1 / ref=3 / 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=crf / mbtree=1 / crf=22.0 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=0 / qpmax=69 / qpstep=4 / vbv_maxrate=25000 / vbv_bufsize=31250 / crf_max=0.0 / nal_hrd=none / filler=0 / ip_ratio=1.40 / aq=1:1.00

These were my audio settings:

7 )Is it normal I see DTS on the BR and not on the RIP where I see AC3 ?
8) other comments maybe on audio ?

Subtitles (no questions really just for info)

Chapters (they have disapeared on the rip file on the right), although I included them…

Z.

[OttoKerner]

First screenshot: irrelevant
Second screenshot: the aspect ratio is 4:3 because the picture has been cropped by handbrake. This is a good thing!
However the pixel count is still 1920x1080px, which I can only explain with you editing the aspect ratio in Handbrake, as you wrote above. Your video stream is now anamorphic, with rectangular pixels. This is just wasteful and reduces sharpness when played back because there are no screens with rectangular pixels.
You might have to re-encode the video to get a video stream of quadratic pixels and a picture of 1438x1080px.

[zorglub2000]

Thanks for this reply Otto because this is exactly why I started this post in the fist place, to learn what to do best and avoid mistakes in the future.
I prefer to reencode the file with your instructions than to have to re encode all my films afterwars !

Will reencode with these settings:

Z.

[OttoKerner]

Audio is not as intended.
Something appears to have gone wrong.

Chapters should have been preserved, if the appropriate check box has been set in Handbrake.

I would now simply use MKVmerge to combine the video stream from handbrake with the audio, subtitles and chapters from the raw rip. This is much faster than a new encoding run.

[OttoKerner]

Of course because you also made a mistake with the video stream, you will have to re-encode with handbrake anyway.

[zorglub2000]

the create chapter markers box was checked,

Edit: after playing the file , chapters are still there, just not present in the mediainfo file… strange …

[zorglub2000]

Just a thought: I am glad I didn’t delete the orginal file !!

[OttoKerner]

Hehe. Yes I made a habit of keeping these for a few days at least. Just in case I need to go back because I missed an audio or subtitle tracks.

Familiarize yourself with MKVmerge and its possibilities. For instance: it can also reduce the bigger DTS formats to DTS ‘core’ during muxing.
This will get you better sound quality than transcoding DTS-HD to AC3 (which Handbrake did to your file above).

[zorglub2000]

Hello Otto

Just finished the second rip but I guess I will have to do a 3rd one !!!
I didn’t realize I have 2 audio tracks that are the commentary (same track) and don’t have the original english language
Instead maybe this something MKVmerge could take care of (I mean adding an audio track to a file ?) or deleting a track ?
I didn’t see a preview button in handbrack for audio which would be nice…

Z.

PS: Edit trying right now to use MKVmerge. I imported the 2 file (the rip and original file), unclicked the language I wanted to delete, clicked the one I wanted to import, and unclicked all the rest from original, then clicked on start multiplexing…
will keep you updated
Already had to stop because of a warning “Could not keep the track UID 4 because it is already allocated for the new file.”
Will try again…

[OttoKerner]

@zorglub2000

Instead maybe this something MKVmerge could take care of (I mean adding an audio track to a file ?) or deleting a track ?

Definitely.
You drag first the file from Handbrake into MKVmerge
Then you disable all tracks except the video track
then you drag the raw rip into it as well
watch how the window which lists all the tracks is changing
disable only the video track from the raw rip
then go through the remaining audio and subtitle tracks and disable those you don’t want.

It is good to have a desktop media player like MPC-HC or VLC handy to quickly determine which track is which.

Enable the right-click integration of mediainfo. I found it is an invaluable tool while preparing files.