Could you recommend some HandBrake settings?

[RitaXie]

Hi everyone,

I'm new here and hoping to get some advice. I want to use HandBrake to rip some DVDs I own, but most of them have copy protection. I'd like to convert them to a more convenient digital format, but I don't want the output files to be huge. At the same time, I don't want to lose a lot of quality.

Could anyone recommend the best HandBrake settings (video codec, RF value, bitrate, filters, etc.) to help shrink the file size as much as possible, while still keeping the video looking close to the original DVD? Also, if there are tips for dealing with copy-protected discs in HandBrake (or with additional tools), that would be great to know as well.


[Attachment 86971 - Click to enlarge]

[jongar8023]

1) Better not upscale, let the TV do that later. Keep the original DVD resolution and set the aspect ratio flag to 16:9, or crop the black bars and do minimal upscaling to get the correct AR. For example, if you have an NTSC DVD in the 2,35:1 AR, you want to crop and then resize to approx. 852x364.
2) Most compatible codec for video nowadays is HEVC (H265). It has very wide support among TV manufacturers. It is so good, you can get near lossless compression at bitrates as low as 1 Mbit/s from DVD sources! So with audio, you will end up with about 1GB per movie.
3) Most compatible codec for audio is AAC. Rule of thumb: audio bitrate should be less than 20% of the video bitrate. So if you choose to encode your video at 1.000 kbps, your audio bitrate should be 192 kbps. Lowering the audio bitrate lower than that will sacrifice the audio quality while not significantly boosting the video quality, so keep that in mind, because you will find many people butchering audio to get ridiculous 50 kbps more on the video side that you won't even notice, especially that lower audio bitrates destroy the Prologic downmix metadata, and so you lose the surround completely.
4) Best tool to rip your copy protected DVD is SmartRipper. Just make sure to play it in your regular DVD player beforehand (like PowerDVD), else SmartRipper will have a hard time decoding it.

[DVDFab Staff]

Some settings:
-Since DVDs are standard definition (480p/576p), you don’t need ultra-high bitrates.
-RF 18–22 (Lower=better quality, bigger files. For DVDs, RF 20 is a sweet spot.)
-H.264 is still the best balance of compatibility and efficiency. For smaller files, try H.265 (x265), but playback compatibility exists with older devices.