Think I may be ripping my discs at too high of quality - input requested

I’ve been ripping my dvds and blurays with MakeMKV, into the MKV format at original disc quality. Now I’m running out of space on my 5 terribit NAS, and it has me wondering something I wished I had wondered before. While “what movie quality is acceptable” is subjective, I’m still curious - what quality do you all like to use in Plex?
I love high-quality visuals - it’s why we have a 4k tv. 4k Movies and BluRays look amazing on it and make me quite happy, which is why I opted to rip at original quality…then the other day I had to downgrade a movie Plex was having issues streaming to my TV, so it went from somehting like 30meg a second to 5ish, and I have to say, it still looked amazing. It wasn’t a high action movie, but rather a comedy, so I can’t say if quick motions would of looked blurry or torn or not.

I’m hoping someone with more experience in this arena, would be able to guide me a bit.

Thank you,
–Eryk

For years I have been ripping my Blu-rays with Handbrake using AnyDVD for decryption. I rip H.264 / AC3 to MP4 containers, using the High Quality preset, with H.264 tune set to Film, Constant Quality set to 20, framerate set to Constant, Same as Source (helps with audio sync), and (very occasionally) some mild noise reduction for content that needs it (NLMeans at Ultralight or Light). The resulting files are substantially smaller and are perceptually identical in playback on my systems. They are also highly compatible for Direct Play on my devices (Roku Ultra, Xbox, Windows). Hope this helps.

That does help, thank you Silversee_1. I was being lazy, as well as rather unknowledgable in this topic, and so I wanted a single rip solution. No converson or extra steps as I have a ton of movies to rip from disc. As you say that the files are substantially smaller, I’m going to give it a whirl and see how it works for me.
Do you believe that I could use the already ripped mkv files and, via handbrake, convert them to the settings you mentioned…or do I need to rip them all over again to the MP4 container type?

Yes, Handbrake should be able to parse your MKV files. You could try encoding one too see how much difference it makes. And to be clear, you don’t necessarily need to switch to MP4, but for those clients that can’t handle MKV, Plex has to remux on the fly (Direct Stream). I try to keep things simple, and steer clear of DTS audio for the same reason.

Handbrake does support a batch conversion option also… Good luck.

To add to what’s already been said.
The only devices where you may possibly need to consider switching to .mp4 is Apple devices and even then it’s negligible.

Some devices actually prefer .mkv
That said if you already have to encode and don’t own or plan on adding an AV reciever then AAC audio is the way to go in whichever container you prefer.

Personally I would go slightly higher bit rate for high octane action movies.
However there is no right or wrong.
Only YOUR eyes can tell you the best settings.
No one here can.

AAC may be the most compatible audio format, BUT:
In my opinion the loss of fidelity when converting AC3 and DTS tracks to AAC is considerable.
I hate poor audio.
Therefore I retain the adio tracks in their original form without any conversion.

When they are played on any client which cannot handle them, I let my server sort that out automatically.

1 Like

Absolutely.
I do have an AV receiver and just about to upgrade to a full Atmos system. :grinning:
And yeah generally I do exactly the same as you when watching on mobile etc…
I was just throwing the option out there as @calseeor already has to re-encode his media.

@calseeor

+1 @Silversee_1

Only difference is that I use h.265 because the file sizes are 30% smaller and my devices support the format natively.

I can’t speak for audio because I don’t really hear much of a difference in the same way I see the difference on the screen.

Thank you to everyone for all of that information. I feel a lot more informed now and understand what I need to do.

Again, thank you. :slight_smile:

I interested in “Some devices actually prefer .mkv”

Can you let me know what they are.

I went the mp4 path because that is (allegedly) the most compatible with the most players

Many smart TV’s
I have especially Samsung models in mind. They definitely prefer .mkv

If you’re happy with .mp4 then there’s no reason to change. For anyone who shares their server, without a decent CPU, then there is even less reason to change.

But staying on the allegedly theme, I have always shied away from Apple products due their alleged hatred of .MKV
Maybe they do, however Plex deals with them well on the ATV 4K (my new favourite device).
4K HDR remuxes with the container converted on the fly whilst keeping the HDR metadata all with CPU usage that barely registers. My poor Shield gets no love at all nowadays.

Ok thanks for the info.
I have 2 Samsung TV (but will never buy another but that’s another story) and 2 friends with Samsung and mp4 seems to be just fine. - I have no 4k or hi bitrate so that likely to have some bearing on my streaming success.

I am now converting my latest tv shows to h265 (as well as remuxing h264) to see how they perform.

This will test the clients’ players…

With regards to Samsung…Nor me.
After years of them I just switched to an LG.
As for h265 and x265, that’s limited to my 4K HDR remuxes.
The only issue with those is a slight stutter on extremely high bit rate stuff on the LG.
However Markus just reported they hopefully found the cause and an update us pending.
The LG probably won’t become my main client, but still its a nice secondary option.

I have zero issue with .mp4, however I just don’t see the need to re-encode files when Plex deals with it just fine.

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