Handbrake questions...

[Biggen]

Wanted to start transcoding my ripped DVD's to into .mkv containers with h.264 compression. This is to mainly save on space. My 2TB drive is filling day by day and I wanted to see if there might be a way to extend its usefullness instead of purchasing yet ANOTHER drive.

Anyway, I was playing around with Handbrake a little and I was impressed. I currently rip my movies via AnyDVD HD right to a Video_TS format. I then pointed handbrake to the Video_TS folder and it transcodes from there. A 7GB DVD is reduced down to about 1GB in size.

First, I guess if I want AC3 dolby digital I need to select those tracks to passthrough, correct? It seems that Handbrake just defaults to Dolby Pro Logic which, in the technology world, is about a century old. I would assume though I would still need Pro Logic in the .mkv file in case I'm playing the file back on a TV/Receiver that can't decode AC3, correct? That way it can fall back to Pro Logic/Stereo? So I guess I need to select both tracks?

Secondly, I guess there is no way to keep the DVD menus intact with a .mkv file? I noticed that as soon as I hit play in Sage, the .mkv file started playing immediately. No DVD menus or nothing. I'm assuming this is how it is supposed to do it?

[wrems]

If I were you I would look into Evil Penguins Media Shrink tool. It uses handbrake but gives you easy cli and drag and drop methods to encode to specific profiles. You can have it process an entire directory of movies too.

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...ht=mediashrink

I'm not aware of a way to keep the menus in tact. I prefer the main movie only anyway.

[Biggen]

Originally Posted by wrems

If I were you I would look into Evil Penguins Media Shrink tool. It uses handbrake but gives you easy cli and drag and drop methods to encode to specific profiles. You can have it process an entire directory of movies too.

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...ht=mediashrink

I'm not aware of a way to keep the menus in tact. I prefer the main movie only anyway.

Alright. I'll check this out. I was wondering how I was going to batch transcode all my movies...

[jnmfox]

Originally Posted by Biggen

First, I guess if I want AC3 dolby digital I need to select those tracks to passthrough, correct? It seems that Handbrake just defaults to Dolby Pro Logic which, in the technology world, is about a century old. I would assume though I would still need Pro Logic in the .mkv file in case I'm playing the file back on a TV/Receiver that can't decode AC3, correct? That way it can fall back to Pro Logic/Stereo? So I guess I need to select both tracks?

Secondly, I guess there is no way to keep the DVD menus intact with a .mkv file? I noticed that as soon as I hit play in Sage, the .mkv file started playing immediately. No DVD menus or nothing. I'm assuming this is how it is supposed to do it?

Before I had Sage I had problems using passthrough with my PS3 and the audio working so I just select “6 channel discrete” and match the audio resolution of the .vob files (control+J in VLC to see audio and video info). The audio is re-encoded so you will lose some quality but seeing as it is already lossy, as compared to lossless on blu-rays. If the passthrough works with Sage let us know and I’ll have to change my process.

I am not aware of a way to keep the menus as you are just encoding the movie which is part of the reason the files size is smaller. If you want the menus and extras you could use DVD Shrink.