Blu-ray to MKV concern

[MindController]

So I downloaded a less than legitimate copy of Killer Elite in MKV format back in January. The movie appears to be 720p. The actual resolution is at 1280x536. The codec, according to VLC, appears to be H264 - MPEG-4 AVC (part 10 (avc1) and the frame rate is 23.976.

The video looks absolutely amazing. No degradation or artifacts that I can see at all. The movie is about 1 hour and 56 minutes long, which is fine. The issue I'm trying to figure out is that the file size is only 664 megs. Quite small for such a clear picture.

On my end, I tried ripping Pirates of the Caribbean At World's End from my blu-ray disc and the file was in .m2ts format at about 40 gigs. I then used handbrake to lower the resolution down to the same size as the Killer Elite movie, which was 1280x536, and the file ended up being around 2.5 gigs.

So does anyone have any ideas how I can get it to the size of this copy of Killer Elite without losing the video quality? Any tips or programs or suggestions would be great.

Thanks.

[Baldrick]

Adjust the bitrate or constant quality setting to get smaller size. Under the video tab in handbrake.

https://trac.handbrake.fr/wiki/RateControlMethods

[hello_hello]

If it makes you feel any better I encoded Pirates of the Caribbean At World's End using the x264 encoder with MeGUI and my usual quality setting and the final file size was (from memory) 4 or 5 GB. I also reduced it to 720p so I'd assume I ended up with basically the same video dimensions as you. What quality setting did you use with Hadbrake? To be honest at a decent quality setting 2.5 GB is probably around the average file size you'll achieve when encoding a movie at 720p, assuming you don't use 1GB or more by keeping any DTS audio, and for a movie such as Pirates of the Caribbean it's probably on the small side.

I'll admit I'm fairly skeptical almost any movie could be encoded at 720p, with a 660MB file size and look almost perfect. Some video is easier to compress than others but even so, while a 720p, 660 MB encode still has the potential to look as good or better than a DVD, I suspect there's actually plenty of compression artifacts present which you're not seeing. It might be a screen size vs viewing distance thing, or if you haven't done a lot of encoding yourself it might be you're not familiar with what to look for. I often watch standard definition AVIs on my 51" plasma, and up close they look fairly average at best, but back at normal viewing distance they generally don't look any worse than most of the video the free to air networks subject us to where I live.

Anyway, depending on the software used, the settings used when encoding are often written to the video stream and can be retrieved using MediaInfo. If they're there and you can copy and post them here, others may be able to look at them to see if the person who encoded the video used some exceptionally clever encoder settings, and/or maybe explain how to duplicate them when encoding using Handbrake.

[Selur]

as a side note: if the movie was encoded with x264, a details MediaInfo (--Full) analysis should (unless the encoder used other tools to remove the settings form the headers) show the x264 settings used,..

[ronmaz]

I've noticed that some people only hint at having downloaded something and they get locked out, yet this guy admits to "So I downloaded a less than legitimate copy of Killer Elite" and he gets helped by people. I thought that kind of thing was frowned upon here. Talk about inconsistent.

[Selur]

I think the difference is that the content he wants help for is legal,.. but don't ask here ask a moderator directly,..

[yoda313]

The difference is he's using it as a comparison. He's not looking to do stuff with the download.

I tried ripping Pirates of the Caribbean At World's End from my blu-ray disc

It says this work he's doing is on his own stuff.

Besides baldrick already looked at and replied.

[jman98]

The only reason this thread hasn't been locked yet is that johns0 hasn't yet (apparently) seen it. It WILL be locked once he does. I'm not criticizing johns0 although I admit that I told him once in a PM that I felt that he locked a thread based on an assumption that the file discussed was downloaded and he had no proof of such (he did NOT agree with me). Yes, the policy is applied inconsistently, but "wanting help" is not enough to prevent this from being locked.

[Hoser Rob]

I was thinking mediainfo to (usually) get h.264 settings ... though that stuff is just confusing for the newbie to encoding at the advanced level. And you can't get really good encoding in a relatively small file without them.

There are a ton of posts here from newbies wanting quick and dirty advanced h.264 settings. The thing is, those standards weren't designed for average users who want to copy their dvds or brs. They're professional standards designed for people who really know what they're doing.

I'm not suggesting you not try this but be prepared to do some research.

What I'd suggest for many users who aren't willing to do all this is to budget for more external HDd's.

[johns0]

The op is asking for help on his own video,people can admit to d/l illegal video in the past without being chastised,as to the video jman98 is referring to is from a known warez group release that the op was asking for specific help on.