Trying out Handbrake for ripping DVDs \ stacker news ~tech

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157 sats \ 14 comments \ @BeeRye 12 Jul tech

Curious if there are any experienced users of handbrake here (https://handbrake.fr/). I am attempting to rip a DVD to an mp4 file. Previously I've done so using leawo pro on my old windows computer. But, I'm trying to phase that computer out, and am trying to use an ASUS dvd plug-in reader with my lap top running ubuntu now, and when I rip a DVD using handbrake the quality is unacceptably bad. Any tips on settings or ways to troubleshoot from other users ? Thanks!

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0 sats \ 7 replies \ @nichro 13 Jul

I've used it a lot before. any way you can show your settings in handbrake? Would help troubleshootingm Things like birates, codecs used and other stuff.

I probably have a .txt file somewhere with notes for different handbrake setups I can try to dig up, but might not be necessary if your settings have obvious flaws

Edit: if the issue ends up being the dvd plug in reader/adapter that's being the limitation I wouldn't be of much use, only have experience ripping digital

41 sats \ 6 replies \ @BeeRye OP 13 Jul

i did some testing to try and determine if it is my hardware, and I dont believe so. I can run DVDs on other software like VLC just fine using the external DVD rom. And then I downloaded handbrake onto my windows computer, which I had been using Leawo for ripping DVDs and I am running into the same poor quality results on there too. So, I believe it is a settings issue in handbrake, so I appreciate any insight you can provide on that front :) Here are screenshots below let me know what you think could be tweaked (it's all default settings)

110 sats \ 5 replies \ @nichro 13 Jul

Off the bat I'll say I never had the best results with the default setting presets, especially the "fast" ones.

If this is a casual project, just try another default preset first.

Try any of these. Keep in mind it can make your machine (especially a laptop) work at 100% CPU for a while. The higher the quality the longer it will take. You can run one of these and if it's satisfactory, then all is well.

Of course, if you want to optimize for quality and filesize, without ripping the same DVD multiple times, one option is to crop a 1-2minute clip out of the video to test on, and try processing it using different settings to compare before running it on the full DVD.

These are still sort of "one-size-fits-enough" kind of presets. If you want optimal results, it depends on your use case and expectations, how many DVDs you gotta go through and whether they're all somewhat of a similar format.

If you want to tweak further... stay tuned because I started writing way too much text for a reply like this so I'll likely make a quick guide its own post soon :P

0 sats \ 4 replies \ @BeeRye OP 14 Jul

Thanks for the reply! Fiddled around with previewing using these other settings...the issue persists unfortunately 😞

0 sats \ 3 replies \ @nichro 14 Jul

The issue being just low quality? Staggering?

If you use VLC or some other media player to play the video (VOB) file directly from the DVD, is the quality already crap?

0 sats \ 2 replies \ @BeeRye OP 14 Jul

the quality is just fine when playing from VLC directly on the disk. Its like static-y and blurry...similar to a poor quality buffering when streaming a video online.

33 sats \ 1 reply \ @nichro 14 Jul

Can you try something real quick. Instead of handbrake, let's try ffmpeg to do mostly the same thing:

ffmpeg -i VOB_FILE_ON_YOUR_DVD.VOB -map 0:v:0 -map 0:a:0 -c:v libx264 -crf 18 -preset slower -tune film -profile:v main -x264opts force-cfr=1 -r ntsc -c:a copy OUTPUT_FILENAME.mp4

Replacing the vob file path and output filename with your own, of course. If you're on linux the path to the VOB file will be something like this if mounted normally

/media/BeeRye/STAR_WARS_DVD/VIDEO_TS/VTS_01_1.VOB

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @BeeRye OP 15 Jul

Thank you for the reply, havent had time to try this but will soon.

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0 sats \ 1 reply \ @Turdinthepunchbowl 12 Jul

I've tried Handbrake awhile ago to rip DVDs, but I find MakeMKV the better option. Then if I want to compress/reduce size, I'll use Handbrake. I only tried Handbrake when MakeMKV was not working for certain discs.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @BeeRye OP 13 Jul

ok I'll check that out if i can't make handbrake work, thanks

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @Solomonsatoshi 12 Jul

Have used handbrake to reduce file size so my laptop can play higher definition files.

Used to use devede to rip dvds and it worked ok...possibly easier to use than handbrake.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @BeeRye OP 13 Jul

cool i'll check that out if I can't make handbrake work

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @037447d9ca 12 Jul

Why are you outputting an mp4 file? SOTA is AV1/webm or VP9 at least. If you want to preserve original encoding (no re-encoding) then it'd be an mpeg file. Fiddle with settings, you'll sort it out.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @BeeRye OP 13 Jul

im not familiar with specifics like that. ya, i'll keep working on it