What are you ripping them for? Serato Video?

Because if that's the case you should be using the Serato preset for Handbrake, but scaling it up. You still need all the important bits of that preset like the keyframe settings and so on.

I would still use MpegStreamclip myself anyway though.

It's gonna take some trial and error, but why don't you just do a single chapter whilst you experiment? No point doing the whole thing over and over.

Awe, good idea. Some will be for leisure and AppleTV3 viewing. Convenience really there. But I have concert BluRays that would make great performance clips with SV.

I'll look at the app you referenced and try a single chapter for faster experimenting. I should be able to take that times the number of chapters to forecast final size.

There are many apps that claim to go right from BkuRay to MP4 without the MKV middle step I have right now. But they are $60 or so. I bought a $10 app from the MAC store and the quality was awful. I was disappointed since the ratings in the app store were very highly regarded.

m.lifehacker.com

Lol, yup found a similar procedure on another site. This was a good read though. Maybe it just takes a while to encode it and I need to impatiently accept it. Thanks!

Yeah, if you're doing full movies that shit is lonnnnnng. Even on recent hardware.

I once had to encode a Wedding video on my old white MacBook. Using Compressor. It was only about an hour long and it took 17 hours to encode. That was fun. ;-)

if i'm going direct from BR to mp4, i use anydvd hd and handbrake

I dont know hot Apple does it... but their iTunes 1080p movies are anywhere from 2GB to 5GB. I had all these 5GB dreams and coming up with the 12GB reality. LOL

I am going MakeMKV to Handbrake. What is strange is my source resolution was 1920x1080 and the Handbrake AppleTV3 preset was outputting as 1920x1040. I removed the anamorphic setting and changed the picture to be 1920x1080p. I was hoping that would speed up the encoding process, but thus far, Jurassic Park has been running for 3hrs and says it still has 10 more hours to go!

This is a painfully slow process. I am on a 2010 iMAC i5 quad core. I dont think Handbrake takes advantage of all 4 cores. I guess I could pull out my MBP i7 QC and concurrently process files.

There has got to be a better way, but it sounds like this is the only proven method by going MakeMKV/AnyDVD to Handbrake or iFlix. I did find iFlix to work great as well... but the file was almost 18GB. Although that is 1/2 the file size of the MKV... it still far to big for an entire collection.

Their encodes may be 1080p but they aren't very high bitrate, and don't approach anything like the quality of a Blu Ray disc.

If you want the highest quality it will cost you, in both encoding time and storage space. Try and encode a chapter at different bitrates and see what quality you find acceptable to your eyes. You might find you are quite happy with a lower setting.

Of course, the easiest thing to do is get a device that lets you play the initial MKV rip, like the WDTV range or build a cheap Plex box, if you want to watch on your TV.

Even at 25gb, that's still like 40 movies per TB. Build a Plex box based on a cheap PC, couple of 3tb drives and you're set.

What is crazy is the MakeMKV process takes like 15 minutes! LOL Granted it probably isnt compressing the video/audio... but still that is a BIG gap.

I will keep mining for the miracle application and avoid the money pit landmines. :) I will report back if I try anything crazy. :) There were a few that looked really cool and promising. But after the 1 or two issues... I am skeptical.

I think I may have found a short cut. Early results are very positive, but still running the full test.

Step 1) Rip BluRay to MKV (using MakeMKV) (Takes about 15 minutes on my iMac i5 QC))
Step 2) Drop MKV file into SmartConverter Pro (Available in AppStore for MAC for $9.99)
Step 3) Convert MKV to the SmartConverter Pro AppleTV3 1080p format. Click Convert
Note: File size is equal to the MKV, however it is converted to MP4 in ~15-25 minutes

Step 4) Take the SmartConverter Pro mp4 file, and open as source in Handbrake. Use AppleTV 3 Preset or your own tweak. Add to your Queue and start processing. Encoding is MUCH faster. Projected time is ~3hrs.

Although there is an interim step with SmartConverter Pro, processing time is greatly reduced. Lastly, Smart Converter Pro supports batch processing. So you can rip a slew of BluRay via MakeMKV, and then batch them into SmartConverter Pro while at work/sleeping. I am getting my MBP into the act. While my iMac does the MKV and SmartConverter Pro part, my MBP does the handbrake portion. Hopefully this will cut the prior 17 hour window down to 4 at the most per movie.

PS - the reason I still have step 4 is I believe the file size can be reduced. Based on a single chapter test, I project 20GB movie will be shrunk to ~7gb without noticeable loss in video quality. I am also experimenting by taking the audio track down a few notches. There was this 5.1 600+ bitrate track. That was probably the driver for the file sizes I saw before... more so than the video I am guessing.

I will see how a few full blown converts look/sound. :)

This approach was faster to MP4. However the file size was not greatly reduced from the MKV. It knocked a few GB off the size, but nothing spectacular.

I tried a few of the so called BluRay rippers. They are VERY close to taking you directly to MP4 in under 4 hours. However the audio is out of sync by a fraction of a second it was also tinny/light on fullness. They would make hand over fist if they could perfect that aspect. Although my concert video may be more backdrop than audio... I still want to at least be able to play it in relative sync to the video if need be.

The quest continues.... For not I am just ripping and accumulating into MKV. That way when I do find a solution that is quick... I just batch up and go.

Final Update! I have my solution!

I tried a couple highly rated converters in the Mac App Store. Before I mentioned Smart Converter Pro. It does a real nice job with the 1080p conversion. But I started experimenting with 720p files just to see if there was a big visible difference. Their ATV2 720 option results in a video bit rate of like 1200 and some change. Looks great in stills, but they start running and it looks cheap YouTube like.

So then I tried AnyVideo Converter HD (From Vivica.com, also in the Mac App Store). The 1080p ATV3 option resulted in a 15GB file, compared to 35GB of the MKV. I then tried the 720p and it resulted in a 9GB file. Better yet, the bit rate was 10k+ so in motion the video still looked clear. AppleTV streams it quite well.

So I think BluRay to MKV via MakeMKV, and finalizing with a 720p MP4 AnyVideo Converter HD will be the best scalable balance between file size and quality.

The best part, the conversion process for either the 1080p and 720p options takes less than 3 hours for a single 2 hour moving. Compared to the ~15 hours I was getting with Handbrake, this wins hands down. The app is on sale right now for $5.99 compared to its normal price of $9.99!