Help: Transcoding BluRay on Windows

[stuckless]

I've been trying to transcode a single bluray move for days

I ripped the movie using AnyDVDHD and now I'm using handbrake to basically shrink it down. The problem is that Windows keeps going into sleep mode all the time, and when this happens it appears to screw up the job, so then I have to start the handbrake process over again.

Any tips on how to tell windows to NOT go to sleep, so that I can finish this job?

Thanks

[Fuzzy]

In the power control panel, set sleep to never?

[stuckless]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

In the power control panel, set sleep to never?

Thanks... Sometimes, it's just knowing where to look. I've set it to never sleep, so hopefully that fixes it.

[LehighBri]

While we're talking about handbrake, I noticed that 0.9.5 just came out which now supports blu-rays. This is huge for me as I'd love to shrink down my blu-ray collection. The challenge for me though is I want to keep the picture and audio quality very high.

Does anyone have recommended profiles/settings I should use in handbrake for this? And should I use mp4 or mkv (the high profile setting seems to favor mp4)? Hard for me to choose as I've never used handbrake before.

[Fuzzy]

Since BluRay is already using high profile H.264 encoding, there is not going to be a way to shrink it further, without some quality loss. The days of saving space by going from DVD MPEG-2 to the more efficient H.264 are not really applicable to BluRay. If you want to save space, you are going to have to lower quality. For this reason, i find it's just not worth it, and better to just buy another disc.

[bcjenkins]

Originally Posted by stuckless

I've been trying to transcode a single bluray move for days

I ripped the movie using AnyDVDHD and now I'm using handbrake to basically shrink it down. The problem is that Windows keeps going into sleep mode all the time, and when this happens it appears to screw up the job, so then I have to start the handbrake process over again.

Any tips on how to tell windows to NOT go to sleep, so that I can finish this job?

Thanks

Why not run the handbrake job on your Linux server?

B

[stuckless]

Originally Posted by bcjenkins

Why not run the handbrake job on your Linux server?

B

I'm considering that. But for that to happen, then I'd need to move the 40+gigs of data to the server and the run handbrake on it. Because I have AnyDVDHD I figured I'd do it all on the same computer. As it turns out, it didn't work anyways. I ended up with a file at the end, but I couldn't play it on windows so I deleted it. I had audio, but no video for some reason. I'm sure I did something wrong. I done this with lots of dvds and the process has been pretty smooth, although, because DVDs are already pretty small (compared to bluray), I usually just rip and copy them to the server.

Handbrake no longer makes a version for ubuntu, the last I checked. Maybe that has changed again now, not sure.

[bcjenkins]

https://edge.launchpad.net/~stebbins...brake-releases

I am fairly close myself to getting an external blu-ray drive to start this as well. I hadn't given much thought to compressing the movies though because of the inexpensive nature of disk space.

B

[drewg]

Originally Posted by stuckless

Handbrake no longer makes a version for ubuntu, the last I checked. Maybe that has changed again now, not sure.

Have you tried the ppa listed on the handbrake downloads page?
https://edge.launchpad.net/~stebbins...brake-releases

Drew

[stuckless]

Thanks guys, I hadn't looked recently, but at one point, I know that handbrake stopped doing builds for ubuntu because of some library changes. I'll install that and give it try as well.

As for drive space... yeah I know it's "cheap", but I guess my problem is that I need a better storage solution... and that isn't cheap I don't have any new slots on my sagetv server for drives and I'm currently mirroring 2 1TB drives... I guess I could go out and buy 2 2TB drives...

I'm considering buying an UnRaid server and moving to that for storage.

[ChaOConnor]

Don't know if this helps, but NewEgg has 10% off all storage solutions today. Good luck!
- Cha

[Taddeusz]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

Since BluRay is already using high profile H.264 encoding, there is not going to be a way to shrink it further, without some quality loss. The days of saving space by going from DVD MPEG-2 to the more efficient H.264 are not really applicable to BluRay. If you want to save space, you are going to have to lower quality. For this reason, i find it's just not worth it, and better to just buy another disc.

Not really, most Blu-ray movies use quite an insanely high bitrate. You can get get quite acceptable quality as long as you keep the BPP (bits per pixel) somewhere between 0.15 and 0.17. This equates to about between 6300-8500kbps depending on the resolution. I use 6300kbps for 2.35:1 and 2.4:1 material and 8500kbps for full 1920x1080.

I recently changed my bitrates as I was noticing how much better my cropped 1920x800 movies looked compared to my full frame 1080p ones, which I had been running at 7000kbps. I had never before noticed the bits per pixel measurement in MediaInfo which really kind brought to light a more quantitative measurement of quality control for transcoding my BD's. Before I had just been using trial-and-error to figure out a good bitrate.

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by Taddeusz

Not really, most Blu-ray movies use quite an insanely high bitrate. You can get get quite acceptable quality as long as you keep the BPP (bits per pixel) somewhere between 0.15 and 0.17. This equates to about between 6300-8500kbps depending on the resolution. I use 6300kbps for 2.35:1 and 2.4:1 material and 8500kbps for full 1920x1080.

I recently changed my bitrates as I was noticing how much better my cropped 1920x800 movies looked compared to my full frame 1080p ones, which I had been running at 7000kbps. I had never before noticed the bits per pixel measurement in MediaInfo which really kind brought to light a more quantitative measurement of quality control for transcoding my BD's. Before I had just been using trial-and-error to figure out a good bitrate.

The best way to get the most 'bang for your byte' is to use quality based encoding, not bitrate. bitrate based is great for transmission systems, as it defines a specific bandwidth. however, if you are just trying to save space on a drive, it wastes a lot of space, and reduces quality (by needlessly storing unneeded details in static images and 'filler' to get it up to the defined bitrate, and capping of the bitrate during scenes that really need a lot of data.

[Taddeusz]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

The best way to get the most 'bang for your byte' is to use quality based encoding, not bitrate. bitrate based is great for transmission systems, as it defines a specific bandwidth. however, if you are just trying to save space on a drive, it wastes a lot of space, and reduces quality (by needlessly storing unneeded details in static images and 'filler' to get it up to the defined bitrate, and capping of the bitrate during scenes that really need a lot of data.

It shouldn't be wasting anything... I use 2-pass with a max bitrate of 40Mbs. 2-pass is supposed to allow the encoder to make more intelligent decisions about the use of bandwidth.

I used to use quality based encoding but I always felt like the process was kind of hit or miss as I couldn't necessarily use the same quality value for every case. With 2-pass I know the quality will be at least 0.17 bits per pixel.

[SWKerr]

What is up with Window7 power sleep mode. I have to turn it off when ever I encode something. I have had it go to sleep while ripping the disk before. I would think it would be smarter than that.

I have been using RipBot for awhile now and like it. It is simple and I just CQ mode st at 22 for most things or 20 if it is something like Avatar. I really can't tell the difference from the original and they will only be 5-8GB when it is done.

Disk space may has gotten cheaper but you still need to back it up and you still need to house it somewhere. At some point less complexity is just better. I already have about 10TB of space and I really don't want two or three external drive enclosures hanging off my server. I am not hosting a data center.

[Fuzzy]

Windows power management monitore user input. If you've got a task that you want to run uninterrupted, its up to the task to tell windows that. Its actually really easy to implement, but you'd have to take it up with that programs author.

As for the storage requirements, I have no desire to back up my rips. The rips are there for convenience. Worst case, if I lose a drive entirely, I will have to replace it and rerip the affected flicks.