Hi Otto,
Thanks for the screenshot.
In the ID Sound column I seem to have 2 id with the number 3 and it gives me warning
is there a away to :
change this id
change the default audio track ?
Also not sure why with handbrake rip my french audio track which was DTS went to AC3 when I mentionned DTS Passthru in the settings 
Z.
I am not sure what you are seeing here.
You can always re-sort all tracks by drag-n-drop.
Plex doesnāt care about the ādefaultā flag in MKV files, so the topmost audio track becomes the de-facto default track.
point 3) this must be a quirk of Handbrake which is not able to reduce DTS-HD to DTS core. Hence my suggestion to rectify this using MKVmerge.
Looks like you are correct about Handbrake.
I ran a quick test with Handbrake 1.2.2 / Win10. It will passthrough dts or dts-HD, but not reduce HD to just the dts core. If the source and codec are not aligned, it will convert the audio to AC3.
Source Codec Output
dts-HD MA 5.1 DTS-HD Passthru dts-HD MA 5.1
dts-HD MA 5.1 DTS Passthru AC3 5.1
dts 5.1 DTS-HD Passthru AC3 5.1
dts 5.1 DTS Passthru dts 5.1
Hello Ford,
So from the results of your test should I use the dts 5.1 instead of a dts-HD to to a DTS Passthru and get a dts sound ?
Z.
If you want dts audio, then in Handbrake select the dts audio stream and dts passthrough codec.
If only dts-HD audio is available, then use MKVmerge first, to reduce it to the dts core audio (as OttoKerner mentioned in an earlier post).
Thanks Ford for this answer. I will.
Just some quick offtopic questions about the sound with some old movies:
Z.
DTS can be also 2.0 or even 1.0
Donāt suppose DTS (or AC3) always means āsurroundā.
good point Otto, guess I donāt really know what is a DTS 2.0 compared to an old 2.0. I meant also that for some movies that were shot in 1937 the DTS sound didnāt exist, so I donāt know what they āaddedā to make it DTSā¦ and if the difference is really important or notā¦ guess I should learn more about DTS 
DTS is just a sound format which can transport a variable number of channels. It uses up less bandwidth than PCM, which might be the reason why the producers went with it.
The goal (at least for me) is to avoid further transcoding of the audio. Standard DTS is not lossless. To transcode this into another lossy format can only make the sound worse.
So I stick to the best format available on the disc.
The producers had access to the original celluloid and its āoptical soundā.
But there is no direct translation of that into the digital world.
The most direct would be PCM, but it wasnāt used by the producer of the disc.
Even though the original sound track was only mono, it is sometimes converted to 2.0 to increase compatibility with playback devices. There are some which throw a fit when presented with a 1.0 stream.
Blu-ray standards say a disc must have one of a) AC3; b) dts; or c) PCM audio. They may also have other formats such as TrueHD, dts-HD, etc.
Thatās why when you see a disc with dts-HD you also see the same audio in dts (or TrueHD and AC3).
There are similar standards for DVDs.
My setup: Shield <-HDMI-> Denon 4300 <-HDMI-> LG B7 OLED
PMS runs on a Synology DS918+
Personally, I donāt transcode Blu-rays with Handbrake. I just play the rip I make with MakeMKV.
However, I playback to just one Plex client, a Nvidia Shield, which direct plays almost everything. When I rip the disc I decide what audio & subtitle tracks to keep then I load it into PMS. Yeah, it takes up more space on my NAS, but it is a lot less work.
I do eventually run the rip through Handbrake. A family member uses iTunes & an AppleTV, so I generate a iTunes friendly version for them to play on their system.
I basically do the same thing for DVDs. The exception is for anamorphic discs which do not display well in Plex (letterboxed on all four sides). Those, which are relatively few, I do have to process with Handbrake before they display correctly (use full width or height & keep correct aspect ratio).
The reason for black borders on all sides is not anamorphism but the existence of black borders in the files.
If you crop those black borders away, but leave the picture anamorphic it will look correctly on Plex clients. Anything else would be a bug.
(With ācorrectā I mean: you will see the whole picture. It may have black borders, but not on all 4 sides.)
Iām using the wrong term. Thanks for the clarification.
An example is my DVD of The Hunt for Red October. MediaInfo shows the MakeMKV rip as 4:3 video and Plex plays it as a 4:3 video. It is like watching a 16:9 movie through a 4:3 window on a 16:9 screen. After processing with Handbrake, it displays correctly on a 16:9 screen.
Not sure the right term for that, other than āweird.ā 
Anyway, it only shows up on about 1% of my DVDs, so I donāt worry about it too much.
When you say it ārunsā, you mean you us PMS directly from the Synology or that you keep the file there ?
I looked at the Synology DS918+ it seems to have its own mediaserver included āDS videoāā¦ did you try it also ?
I agree for less work but what do you do if you have 200 films at 25Gb thats 5Tb, it can loads up quicklyā¦ ok maybe not everybody has 200 BR to rip 
I use also my Synology for data backup (taking a lot of space too), thatās why I am trying to reduce space with handbrake but not sure it is the right move if playing the makemkv file works fineā¦
Do you like it ? Is it a better experience than using the NUC like I do ?
Z.
Yes, PMS runs directly on the DS918+. It works great for me. I feed one client, the Shield. No problem direct playing 4K HDR videos.
I never tried DS Video. At the time I started with Plex there was no DS Video app for the TV I then owned.
Iāve ~225 Blue-rays & ~400 DVDs and a lot of non-Plex data. Havenāt had to worry about space yet. I keep an eye out for a good sale on hard drives and buy one if the price is right and I think Iāll need space in the next six months. At some point Iāll have to consider what data to keep / toss (or buy a larger NAS), but Iām not there yet.
Iāve never used PMP on a NUC (or any PC) as a primary Plex client, so canāt give you a comparison.
I can say I really like the Shield + Denon combination. The Denon supports all the audio codecs you find on DVDs & Blu-rays, and the Shield passes those w/o issue, including TrueHD+Atmos & DTS:X. No problem playing 4K HDR10 videos either. (Iāve a Denon. You could obviously substitute any receiver/soundbar/etc if it supports the right codecs).
The Shield is much better than an Amazon Fire box/stick (it should be given the price differential). Amazon Fire devices do not support passthrough for dts, dts-HD, or TrueHD, so any audio in those formats will transcode.
Iāve never tried Plex on a Roku, Apple TV, or other streaming boxes.
The only real limitation is that the Shield itself supports only HDR10. No Dolby Vision or HLG. Other than a few demo files all my HDR content is HDR10, so not a problem for me.
Note that I have a limited use case. I use Plex to stream video locally. I donāt stream remotely, donāt use live TV / DVR, or news, or podcasts, or look at photos. For how I use it Plex, my combination of hardware works well for me.
Thanks again Ford for this detailed answer. Guess I have never used a Shield or Roku before thatās why I have difficulty to imagine what they could bring to me too would like to see some sort of comparaison, I will try to Google for it a little 
Your machine seems a very good one. I have a 415+ which is not bad but doesnāt have the same memory and features.
Today I tried to use handbrake and when from 26Gb to 11Gb, it seems a bit big since I thought I would get more of a 5 to 7Gb file.
Can you explain why in your opinion the rip was that big ?
Here are my settings:
Since I see Ford that you have managed to keep those big files now I am a bit confused on what to do.
from your library if I am not mistaken it could mean around 7Tb of sizeā¦
Mine is big too but not sure what the total would be if I would keep everything at full size.
For now since I have learned here with you guys to better know how to use handbrake and feel more confident, I guess I am going to continue using it and keep a backup of the orginal file on an old external disk until I make my decision to either erase them or keep them 
Z.
PS: I have another question, one of my films indicates only an AC3 Mono audio at 192Kbps, what do you think is the setting I should use for that audio ?
You could certainly transcode that to around 80Kbps mono AAC, with a bit of quality loss, if you really want the space savings. But honestly, the size of the track is small enough that Iād personally just use AC3 Passthru for that.
There you can see how individual perception varies.
Iād consider such a quality as atrocious, if played on anything better that a smartphone āspeakerā.
There can be several reasons for this.
The size of the encoded file depends on the requirements od the encoder to maintain a certain quality level. You have defined RF:22. RF is a measurement of deviation from the original to the encoded picture. The higher the number, the bigger the allowed deviation i.e. the worse the quality.
If you have a picture with lots of fine, sharp details (like e.g film grain) or with lots of movement, the storage requirement goes up.
This video explains it very well
Also, I noticed that the āSpeedā setting is back at āMediumā, which means you give the encoder not too much time to find the most efficient encoding strategy for a certain part of the video.
Yeah, I was probably being generous with āa bit of quality lossā. Of course, I use FDK AAC in Handbrake for the rare times when needed, and 80Kbps is noticeably better than avcodec in the regular release. I havenāt tested the recently-updated avcodec AAC though.
Either way, weāre in agreement in the bigger picture: Thereās no point in transcoding a 192Kbps track.
The YouTube video @OttoKerner linked explains things quite well.
I donāt worry about file size too much when transcoding video. It is too hard to predict. I focus more on quality and compatibility with the player (in my case, iTunes & AppleTV v3).
Hereās two movies from my library. They were transcoded with Handbrake using the same settings. These are the extreme, but it shows you how things can vary.
Movie Length Disc Rip Transcoded
1 2:01:35 27.8 GB 11.9 GB
2 2:01:20 30.0 GB 2.6 GB
As OttoKerner mentions, try moving the speed setting to a slower value. Your encode time will take longer, but youāll get better compression.
As a test, pick a chapter or two in the movie and encode at different speed settings, from medium to very slow. Encode just the video, no audio / subtitles / chapters. Look at the file sizes after Handbrake finishes. It will give you an idea how much difference the setting can make.
Pick the slowest setting you can tolerate and go with it (tolerate = how long youāre willing to wait for the transcode to finish).
