Best Possible Quality for Blu-Ray and 4K UHD Encodes HW vs SW RTX 2080

[iS70rM]

Hi guys,

I used to use this forum back in the day and had a lot of awesome advice!

I have done extensive research on HW vs SW encoding but would like a little more input. If I use something like StaxRip and do an advanced command line for the Nvenc on my RTX 2080 super, will it be able to get really good quality out of the blu-ray/4K? Or am I better off using x265 10 bit even though it takes several of hours to encode 1 video? I want the best quality period with no artifacts or anything like that.

My goal is to have the best quality (compressed) for 1080p blurays and 4K UHD backups.

I planned to originally just use MakeMKV and transfer the uncompressed .MKV file over to my NAS, but that is becoming a HUGE space detriment. I have room for 2000+ full backups on my NAS, but I would rather encode these .MKV uncompressed files down and save some space.

I currently have an overclocked i7 8700k with an Nvidia RTX 2080 Super Graphics card.

I have tried to use Handbrake H265 with Nvidia Nvenc (Slow at CRF18) and x265 10 bit (Slow at CRF18) and the Nvidia encode took about 13 minutes versus 6.5 hours on the x265 10 bit. I think the results look pretty good on both, but I'm not sure what test material I should be using (I used Pulp Fiction Blu-ray).

I have read a lot about how you can manually encode using something like StaxRip and type in manual command lines to get the best quality possible.
Can someone please direct me where I can get these advanced setting command lines for 1080p blurays and 4K UHD backups?

Finally, if I didn't make it clear, I just want the best quality I can get out of these blu-rays and 4Ks (archive). I do not care what the final size is, as long as it is smaller than the original and I want to keep the audio always uncompressed (DTS HD MA, Dolby True HD, etc).

Any help would be greatly appreciated on programs that I need, where to find advanced command lines to use in these programs for the best quality possible, and if I should do HW or SW encoding for the best quality and with time taking into consideration since I have over 2000+ blurays to encode.

Thank you everyone and sorry if I got off track in this post. I have a lot on my mind and am a bit scatterbrained from researching so much encoding stuff this week.

[october262]

dvdfab UHD copy - https://www.dvdfab.cn/uhd-copy.htm?trackID=headmenu2

& bluray copy - https://www.dvdfab.cn/blu-ray-copy.htm?trackID=headmenu2

[iS70rM]

dvdfab UHD copy - https://www.dvdfab.cn/uhd-copy.htm?trackID=headmenu2

& bluray copy - https://www.dvdfab.cn/blu-ray-copy.htm?trackID=headmenu2

Hey thank you for this. I was going to go down that route, but it seems that DVDFab has pretty poor encoding. I'm trying to find out which encoder is going to give me the best results for as close to the original blu-ray/4K as possible. I am also trying to find out advanced command lines that will net me the best quality and then I'm trying to find out if I should do HW encoding with the 2080 Super RTX card or SW encoding with the i7 8700k and how much difference it will be. Again, I do not care about the final filesize, I just want it a bit smaller than what MakeMKV provides and to keep the original audio uncompressed.

Thanks for any help!

[Selur]

About video:

Finally, if I didn't make it clear, I just want the best quality I can get out of these blu-rays and 4Ks (archive). I do not care what the final size is, as long as it is smaller than the original and I want to keep the audio always uncompressed (DTS HD MA, Dolby True HD, etc).

If the final file size doesn't matter then MakeMKV should have been fine.

The more you want to lower the bit rate the more the encoder and filtering becomes important.
If you really only want a bit smaller hardware/software and highly adjusted encoding settings do not really bring much.
If you want the best you can get for a specific file size X manually adjusting a software encoder with per case settings and filtering will do that, but it is a lot of work and time required to learn stuff about the encoder and the encoding settings color spaces, the target format,.... all to make an informed decision what filtering and settings help the most to archive the best quality possible for a given file size.

Also remember:
1. All the encoding you are aiming for is all lossy.
2. The lower the bit rate, the more work needs to be done to get the quality

About audio:

to keep the original audio uncompressed.

You probably mean you want to keep the audio as it is, because the audio on your blu-rays normally mostly isn't uncompressed.
Converting the lossless audio formats on a blu-ray to a lossless format like flac can save some bit rate.
-> if it's just a bit data you want to save only keep one lossless audio stream per language and convert that stream to flac.

Cu Selur

[iS70rM]

About video:

Finally, if I didn't make it clear, I just want the best quality I can get out of these blu-rays and 4Ks (archive). I do not care what the final size is, as long as it is smaller than the original and I want to keep the audio always uncompressed (DTS HD MA, Dolby True HD, etc).

If the final file size doesn't matter then MakeMKV should have been fine.

The more you want to lower the bit rate the more the encoder and filtering becomes important.
If you really only want a bit smaller hardware/software and highly adjusted encoding settings do not really bring much.
If you want the best you can get for a specific file size X manually adjusting a software encoder with per case settings and filtering will do that, but it is a lot of work and time required to learn stuff about the encoder and the encoding settings color spaces, the target format,.... all to make an informed decision what filtering and settings help the most to archive the best quality possible for a given file size.

Also remember:
1. All the encoding you are aiming for is all lossy.
2. The lower the bit rate, the more work needs to be done to get the quality

About audio:

to keep the original audio uncompressed.

You probably mean you want to keep the audio as it is, because the audio on your blu-rays normally mostly isn't uncompressed.
Converting the lossless audio formats on a blu-ray to a lossless format like flac can save some bit rate.
-> if it's just a bit data you want to save only keep one lossless audio stream per language and convert that stream to flac.

Cu Selur

Hey there Selur!

First off, thank you so much for providing a detailed response to my initial post that's probably all over the place.

When I stated that I want to compress the orginal video file and not care about how big the outcome file is, I just mean that I am fine with a bigger overall file. Let me give you an example that I did for my Pulp Fiction Bluray. I encoded it with Handbrake x265 10 bit, 18 CFR, slow and went from a 31GB file that MakeMKV created (.MKV) to a 9GB file. I did the same movie encode via Handbrake's H265 Nvenc option using my Nvidia 2080 super and used slow, CFR 18 and got a 19GB file as the outcome. I'm very happy with that ratio on the 31GB>19GB compressed. My goal is to just save a bit of space overall. I do not need it shrunk down to 9GB for a 31GB file, even if the quality is the same as the faster Nvenc option.

I have over 2000 blurays to encode and if they are 30-40GB a piece, even getting them all down to 20GB would be nice, while retaining the orginal as is audio. My goal is to get the best possible video quality compressed where I won't notice much of a difference. I want to minimize having artifacts and blotchy dark areas. I want the detail to be as close to the orginal source as possible. I watch Ozark in 4K on Netflix and think that quality looks awesome and I know it isn't 4K UHD disc quality for example. The audio in my home theater is most important.

So I'm battling should I do all of the encodes with the 2080 Super or use my i7 8700k to render the encodes? I realize the 2080 super option will be much bigger files with a slow preset and 18 cfr for instance, but will the quality be much worse than the slow present x265 same settings that resulted in 9gb? I do not have a good way to test the encodes side by side so I would prefer to find advanced command line prompts I can just type in to something like handbrake or staxrip and get the best possibly quality at whatever GB it turns out to be. Again I'm fine with a 31GB file down to something like 20GB. I just want to retain as much quality as possible.

Can you help with this? I will keep the DTS MA 5.1 audio on these encodes (untouched audio) for my home theater.

Thank you much!!

[KarMa]

Best possible quality excludes HW encoders. But if you are only shrinking them down by 1/3 or 1/2, and you are using HEVC hardware encoding then the difference probably won't be noticeable. It's just that as you drop the bitrate, software encoders like x264/x265/libVP9 progressively start to outclass the hardware competition in a given format (h264/h265). With the most noticeable difference being at the Youtube/Netflix bitrates.

Also if you are planning on 2000 blurays then that's a lot of encoding, which will be greatly helped by a Hardware encoder.

[iS70rM]

Best possible quality excludes HW encoders. But if you are only shrinking them down by 1/3 or 1/2, and you are using HEVC hardware encoding then the difference probably won't be noticeable. It's just that as you drop the bitrate, software encoders like x264/x265/libVP9 progressively start to outclass the hardware competition in a given format (h264/h265). With the most noticeable difference being at the Youtube/Netflix bitrates.

Also if you are planning on 2000 blurays then that's a lot of encoding, which will be greatly helped by a Hardware encoder.

Hi there KarMa and thank you for replying! If I do the hardware encoding with the 2080 super, how can I guarantee that I can maximize the quality the best? What program would be the best to you to encode them via HW? I noticed that some people have an advanced script for doing HW encoding where they put in B frames, 10 bit, stuff like -1:-1 for deblocking, etc so they can use something like staxrip and maximize the encode.

Through a search, here are a couple of example settings users are using for Blurays on staxrip for nvenc encoding and I have no idea what some of it means like the lookahead 32, etc.

"cqp 21 --codec h265 --preset quality --profile main10 --output-depth 10 --aq --ref 16 --gop-len 600 --lookahead 32 --strict-gop --cuda-schedule auto --vpp-edgelevel strength=10,threshold=15,black=5,white=1 --vpp-deband --mv-precision q-pel --cabac"

"--vbrhq 6000 --codec h265 --preset quality --profile main10 --tier high --level 5.1 --output-depth 10 --aq --lookahead 32 --nonrefp --cuda-schedule auto --vpp-edgelevel --vpp-deband"

Any help would be appreciated to get the best settings to input on something like handbrake or staxrip for nvenc encoding.

Thanks much!

[KarMa]

I don't have a Nvidia card so I don't know all the settings, but lookahead simply means that the encoder can see 32 frames ahead to make decisions on where to put a new I frame (usually at the start of a new scene). Usually longer lookaheads are better but they use more RAM.