Blu Ray Encoding Help

[djdwosk97]

I'm considering encoding a bunch of blurays rather than leaving them in their raw (20-40GB form), but I don't want to sacrifice much in terms of quality. So I'm not sure what the best settings are to go about encoding them. I've read mixed answers in regards to x265 and x264 and the balance between CRF and presets.

All my devices can play x265 and I don't mind spending more time encoding in x265 if it results in higher quality. Ideally I'm after something that looks nearly identical to the raw BluRay rip produced from MakeMKV with the smallest file size (duh). Even a reduction to 10GB/movie would probably be fine -- although, anything more than that and I'd just assume keep the originals files instead.

I did an x265 encode in Handbrake at RF20 and slow preset on a 30GB file. It took about 9 hours and it was reduced to about 3.5GB, but while it still looks good, the difference is also noticeable. I'm now testing RF18 and very slow preset, but rather than spend all the time running dozens of different encodes and comparing them, I wanted to see if someone else has already done most of the leg work.

P.s. I did the RF20 encode in Handbrake 0.10.5.0 (I forgot to update it first) -- if that makes any difference.

 

[Jailer]

For Blurays I use the standard high profile with a CQ of 18. Everything else I leave as is and they look fantastic to me. I usually reduce them to 720P and they still look good. If you keep them at 1080 with that setting and keep the high res audio track (I do) you'll end up with most files coming in between 10 and 15GB on average.

 

[djdwosk97]

For Blurays I use the standard high profile with a CQ of 18. Everything else I leave as is and they look fantastic to me. I usually reduce them to 720P and they still look good. If you keep them at 1080 with that setting and keep the high res audio track (I do) you'll end up with most files coming in between 10 and 15GB on average.

Is the size difference between RF18 and RF20 that big? I was only at 3.5GB at RF20 (1080p, and DTS-HD pass thru) with a 30GB file.

Also, x265 or x264?

 

[Jailer]

X264 for all my encodes, I don't have anything capable of direct play of x265 material.

The size of the encoded file depends on the profile used and the source content. Encode War Of The Worlds (2005) with the high def audio track and you'll see what I'm talking about.

 

[djdwosk97]

X264 for all my encodes, I don't have anything capable of direct play of x265 material.

The size of the encoded file depends on the profile used and the source content. Encode War Of The Worlds (2005) with the high def audio track and you'll see what I'm talking about.

What profile and tune do I want to use? How does changing the tune and profile affect the output?

 

[Jailer]

The profile determines the encoding options. I use the standard High profile with the only option changed being a CQ of 18 and an mkv container.

 

[Kevin Horton]

I've been using Don Melton's video transcoding scripts. He has done a lot of work to investigate various handbrake options, and his scripts reflect the results of that research. I put all the required tools in a jail, and added the Plex dataset as storage to that jail. The default options from his transcode-video script work great for me.

 

[Arwen]

Is the size difference between RF18 and RF20 that big? I was only at 3.5GB at RF20 (1080p, and DTS-HD pass thru) with a 30GB file.

Also, x265 or x264?

I too want good quality without too big of a file size. So I generally start with RF20, which seems to me just fine.
If the file size is too big, then I go to RF22, (lower quality and should be smaller file).

As for x265 or x264, it's dependant on what you use to read them. My main video player does not support x265.

 

[IceBoosteR]

Hello,
I use HandBrakeCLI with x265 and with RF20. On my Xeon it tooks about 3 hours I think, and the FullHD file (cropped) was 3,5GB which was really good for me.
But I was testing a lot of things, this is my "default". Before I got RF21 and saw some bad black blocks...
But better tahn 25GB of a BluRay-File, which is only used as an Backup.

VLC works finde with x265, also every new Samsung TV with 4K ^^.
The differences in size from x264 and x265 are huge in my testings.