Question about best software to reduce Bluray to small mp4

[jimdagys]

Now that DVD Fab Passkey is free for a few days:
http://www.dvdfab.cn/promotion.htm
I was wondering what free software can be used to take what Passkey puts out (Bluray/DVD folder or Image file) and create mp4/h264 AVC of about 700mb for a 2 hour movie. The software should also have the ability to extract the subtitles in some format so the final mp4 can play with subtitles.
Some people talk about Vidcoder, but I would like to hear some opinions.

[hello_hello]

700MB is way too small for a 2 hour movie. It's way too low a bitrate for 1080p, way too low for 720p and if you're lucky might be okay for 480p. That'd be my preference for low bitrates. Rather than encode at a high resolution and low quality I'd prefer a lower resolution at a higher quality.

Pretty much all the free encoder GUI's use the x264 encoder, so they're all on equal ground there, and they're all some sort of a compromise between ease of use and user control. Vidcoder's a good program without too much of a learning curve and automates most of the process.

Many people here use Avisynth, or a GUI based on Avisynth. I use MeGUI myself. It has a "OneClick" encoder designed to do everything for you once you've set it up (it's quite configurable) or you can set up each encode individually. You'd do the latter using MeGUI's script creator and preview, which lets you configure the usual suspects such as cropping, resizing, de-interlacing etc, and MeGUI will create an Avisynth script for you to encode without a need to know anything about Avisynth, however it also makes it easy to modify the scripts it creates and experiment with a wealth of Avisynth plugins, so you can start out with MeGUI creating the scripts for you and learn how to use Avisynth as you go.

[redwudz]

I've converted a couple of Blu-ray main videos to H.264 video/AC3 audio with VidCoder, just as an exercise. They look better than a DVD converted to the same format most times.

It does take a while. 700MB is too small, but 4GB looks OK.

Definitely 2 pass and you can lower the audio quality a little if you want to save space and make the video a bit better.

[jimdagys]

Yes, I can see that Vidcoder combined with DVDFab Passkey is the best way to convert DVD/Blu ray to a single mp4. Vidcoder has the option to burn in or mux the subtitles. No OCR involved. But you won't get a separate srt subtitle file. I took the crappiest DVD movie I could find ( X -Men). The back of the cover said it had copy protection. Passkey worked on it for several minutes and then I used Vidcoder to convert to 700MB mp4. The file looked very good played on my computer (no blockiness or pixelation) and then I put the file on a smartphone and it looks good.

[Kerry56]

Going from DVD to MP4 or MKV, 700mb might be acceptable, but even when starting with a DVD, I'd shoot for 1.2-1.4GB.

For Blu-ray, most of us would recommend larger files, as redwudz has already pointed out. I wouldn't go smaller than 4gb if going to the trouble to re-encode a BD, and most of my copies are considerably larger than that, around 8GB or so. I play them on my tablet, off a microSD card, though I always use MKV format instead of MP4.

[hogger129]

If small file size is what you're after, then run Handbrake or Vidcoder with a higher RF value (like 20 or 22) and use Slow or Slower for your x264 setting, convert the audio to stereo. The way I look at it is:

-Speed
-Quality
-File Size

Pick two.