Blu Ray to H265 mkv

[netmask56]

I would like to rip a couple of my BD discs to H265 MKV. Which programs are reliable to do this with minimum quality loss. I would be maintaining DTS audio, English subs, chapters. The original file size when ripped by MakeMkv
is in the order of 30GB ~ 40GB. Many thanks for your suggestions.

[johns0]

Vidcoder or handbrake.

[netmask56]

"Make way for passing glooms!" Both take forever sadly. Not worth the effort I fear. Hopefully a more efficient program might emerge. Anyway many thanks.

[KarMa]

"Make way for passing glooms!" Both take forever sadly. Not worth the effort I fear. Hopefully a more efficient program might emerge. Anyway many thanks.

Both these programs use x265, which takes forever because it is so efficient. Other software and hardware solutions just can't compete on the quality side but do tend to be faster. x265 does come with faster presets, which you might want to try out. But they will give worse quality for any given bitrate, obviously.

[ron spencer]

Why x265???

[johns0]

People used to say "Why x264?'.

[ron spencer]

People used to say "Why x264?'.

And when they said that nobody used it. X265 has no real use just yet..so why waste time on an encoder that is in its infancy when x264 is mature and plays everywhere. You aren't really gaining much with x265 now other than smaller file size and a long wait for it to encode....so I say again, "why x265?"

[KarMa]

You aren't really gaining much with x265 now other than smaller file size

I think that's the entire point. Otherwise we would all be saving video in raw rgb.

[netmask56]

I use MakeMKV for 99% of my rips from my bludgeoning BD collection, so no real quality loss. My query was more academic for the future to save a bit of space without compromising quality. At the moment I have 18TB to play with so not so urgent at the moment. I strip out all extra languages and subtitles except English to reduce the size a tad..... many thanks

[ron spencer]

Then I'd use x264 in handbreak... easier, faster, more compatible and only marginally larger in size. Hard drives are cheap; focus on end use compatibility.

[ron spencer]

You aren't really gaining much with x265 now other than smaller file size

I think that's the entire point. Otherwise we would all be saving video in raw rgb.

No you wouldn't, you'd save in the format that is most useful to you. I save all home movies and kids sports stuff in DNxHD...and I can encode how I want later. Space now is no worry, so I'm not going to upgrade my machine or wait so many extra hours for x265. Simply put, nothing is better than the mature x264 now. Future may be different, but there is no pragmatic use for x265 now.

[netmask56]

Then I'd use x264 in handbreak... easier, faster, more compatible and only marginally larger in size. Hard drives are cheap; focus on end use compatibility.

Nah! I use MakeMKV. quicker and no re-encoding. My Popcorn A-500 seems to be able to play anything including 3D subtitles if required so I will stick with original BD disc to MKV and just add hdd if required. Just an academic interest in H265 - I made one of the main movie only and it looked good on my mates 65" 4K screen. Quite a tiny file considering. If there was a fast way of converting to H265 then I might go down that path but not at the moment. Anyway thanks for all the suggestions.

[johns0]

Fastest way of encoding is get the best computer and encode,will cost uber cash,nothing else will do what you want

[hello_hello]

x265 isn't impressing me when it comes to standard definition, https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/381376-Where-is-the-new-super-codec-%28the-Alliance...=1#post2467576
and when I messed around with encoding some animation at 720p the other day (something I don't normally do) x265 didn't blow me away either. Once again the default settings were only retaining as much detail as x264 at the same bitrate. (for x264 I was using the animation tuning with the slow preset, --me umh, --aq-mode 2 and --aq-strength 1.5).

I don't know how to adjust x265's settings all that well yet, but when x265 isn't encoding at a snail's pace compared to x264, I haven't seen it do better yet. I'm sure it improves when using a slower speed preset.... it may even provide the same quality as x264 at a much lower bitrate.... but it's too slow to be practical for this old PC so I haven't tested that theory yet. I'll have to upgrade it when the next round of CPUs are released.

Mind you I'd probably only use x265 for video with banding issues or animation at the moment, and that's for the advantage of 10 bit encoding. I know x264 is 10 bit capable too but I doubt it'll ever be widely supported by hardware players. I imagine 10 bit h265 will be.... eventually, so even if not many devices will play it now it should be more future proof. The upcoming Intel processors will support 10 bit h265 hardware decoding but still only 8 bit for h264.

[johns0]

To me vcd to dvd was a minor step in quality,dvd to blu-ray was a major step,blu-ray(x264)to (x265)was hohum.