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I was forced to rip the discs to my hard drive. There are plenty of tutorials out there that show you how to do this, so I am not going to cover that here. Once I had ripped the episodes, each file was almost 6. GB in file size. I set about trying to reduce the sizes and found thousands of different ideas and methods. It is a topic a lot of people are very passionate about. Factors like TV size, Viewing distance, hardware, drive space restrictions and a plethora of other concerns are all valid. But if you are like me, and just want to reduce your episodes to a more manageable size, whilst retaining most of the quality, here’s how to do it.
Lets Get Started. PLEASE NOTE – This method will produce very nice quality 1.
Once you have ripped your Disks to MKV files with Make MKV, Open Handbrake (You can download the latest version for free HERE) then press the source button and select the file you want to convert, or if you want to do a batch of files, select the folder that contains all of your ripped MKV’s. Handbrake will import them all, but you will only see the first one. Now it’s time to make some adjustments to the settings. All of your settings should look like the above screen grab – Click it to enlarge. Set the output format to MKV File. Click the button that says “Video”. Make sure the video codec is H.
The frame rate should be “Same as Source” and Constant Framerate should be selected. Check Constant Quality and adjust the slider until the RF number goes to 2. For the encoder options, slide the preset slider to Very Slow. Trust me, it takes a while, but the quality is far superior, and usually yields a smaller file size. Unfortunately it is a trade off for speed vs quality.
Like I said, run it while you are sleeping. Leave “Fast Decode” unchecked. Set Tune to Film.
Set Profile to High. Set Level to 4. 1. Now click the “Picture Settings” button in the top right side of the window. A new window will open. Change all of your settings look like this. Whilst in the picture settings window, click “Filters” and change all of your settings to look like these as well.
Now you can close out the Picture Settings window and select the “Audio” tab in the main window. I am a real Audiofile, I love the Dolby Digital and DTS 5- 7 channel audio tracks in movies, so I select “Auto Pass. Thru”. But, if regular 2 channel Stereo is ok for you, you can configure that in this area if you want.
I figure you are converting a Blu Ray, so you might as well have the best sound quality as well. Just select the Dolby Digital or DTS sound track from the drop down window, and choose “Auto Passthru”1. Click the “Subtitles” tab and select none. Click the “Chapters” tab and make sure “Create Chapter Markers” is un- checked.
You are now ready to start encoding. If you are only doing one file, just press the “Start” button and Handbrake will start encoding. If you are doing a batch of files, open the File Menu and select “Add All Titles To Queue”1. Press the “Show Queue” button to see all your files waiting to be encoded.
Press the “Start” button and your encoding session will begin. Using this method I have been able to shrink each of the episodes from about 6. GB in size down to about 1. GB in size, retaining the full 1. DTS sound track. The picture quality is very nice on my 4. Inch Samsung LCD TV. I play the files off my WD TV Live Hub and connect using HDMI cables.
If you have a larger TV and notice some artifacts or “Blocks” in the picture, tweak the RF number slightly to 2. Adjustment here affects file size and quality considerably, so tread carefully and use small increments.