Guide for DVD to MKV with chapters, subtitles & digital Audio

Rom

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As this seems to be a question often asked, here is my guide to creating high quality MKV rips from the DVD discs that you own to play on an NMT.

Tool(s) Required: -

Handbrake (free)
AnyDVD (optional, $$$)
DVDShrink (optional, free but difficult to find)

Why MKV?

A lot of people get confused about what MKVs are. An MKV is NOT a video file, it is a container. This container has the facility to hold various (and multiple) video, audio, subtitle and chapter streams. On the video side it may be xvid, divx, mpeg etc. However, we are going to use H.264.

Why H.264?

H.264 (or the public version known as x.264) is an extremely efficient codec allowing high quality video at lower bitrates and so smaller filesizes.

Overview of the procedure

If you are just using Handbrake and you don't have a ripping program (like AnyDVD or DVDShrink etc) then Handbrake can handle many DVDs on the market. However, it is not guaranteed to do every title.

I prefer to rip to my hard drive first. Why? because I can rip lots of DVDs and then queue them all up to be encoded by Handbrake. If I did it direct from the DVD I would have to set Handbrake encoding, wait for it to finish it's stuff, change the disc, set Handbrake encoding again. The batch queue facility in Handbrake makes encoding lots of DVDs painless and automatic (I like easy!).

Step 1. Rip the DVD to your hard drive.

I will not go into this as it is different for each ripping program you use, you also probably know how to rip if you already have ripping software. Whatever program you use, rip to VIDEO_TS folders - the format exactly like the structure of every DVD on the market. We will use this folder for Handbrake to encode from.

Step 2. Open handbrake and set the settings.

When you open Handbrake you will be presented with a screen with multiple tabs. On the right hand side there are presets available which have settings ideal for various players (like iPod, AppleTV, etc.).


  • Click on the High Profile preset.
    Under Output Settings, change MP4 to MKV.
    On the Picture tab, select Anamorphic to Loose and cropping to automatic.
    On the Video Filters tab select Detelecine:Default, Decomb:Default. Deinterlace off and denoise off. Deblock slider to the far left. Grayscale Encoding unticked.
    Video tab should have Video Codec set to H.264, Framerate same as source and Quality set to Constant Quality. The slider denotes the quality of the encode, the higher the quality, the larger the output file. You should not need to go over 60. 55-60 gives good quality and small files.

That is the main settings done which you will probably never touch again so you can now save the settings. On the right at the bottom of the presets box click add, give the preset a name like MyProfile, uncheck the save cropping settings and click OK.

You now have your own standard preset which you can click on any time you open Handbrake and you will not have to change anything on the first 3 tabs.

Step 3. Encode the DVD.

(1) Click on the Source button on the toolbar, Select 'DVD/VIDEO_TS Folder' and browse to the VIDEO_TS folder of the disc you ripped to your hard drive in Step 1.

Once Handbrake has read the files in the folder you now make decisions. DVDs are broken up into 'titles'. There may be 1 or more titles on one DVD. In the case of a film, generally the longest title is the film (you can check the runing time, Handbrake tells you the length of each title). Other titles may be documentaries etc.

On a TV series you may have multiple titles of a similar length. these are the individual episodes and you can encode each seperately. EG. Star Trek series 1 disc 1 has 4 episodes on it, there are 4 'titles' - these are the 4 episodes.

(2) Drop down the title list and select the title you want to encode (Handbrake automatically selects the longest one by default so you may not need to change this).

(3) On the Destination line, click browse and browse to the folder you want Handbrake to put your MKV and give it a filename.

(4) Select the Audio Tab. Here you can see what audio tracks are on the disc. You can select 1 or more tracks to add to the MKV. Select a track, then the codec you want that track to be output as. If your NMP will decode AC3 and DTS then you can select the passthrough codec which will leave the track exactly as it is on the DVD. If you select AAC as the codec, you need to select what mixdown you want (mono, stereo, 6channel etc).

Important. The first audio track in the list is the default - this is what your NMT will use when you play the file.

If your NMT cannot decode AC3/DTS then select the track you want, set the codec to AAC and set the mixdown to what channels you want - All NMTs can do AAC audio.

If you select a DTS track, make sure you select DTS passthrough as the codec and NOT AC3 passthrough.

You can add multiple tracks, just click the add button, highlight the new line/track and set the settings as above.

(5) Select your subtitles on the subtitle tab. Handbrake will select what it thinks is the most relevant subtitle stream (if there are any). You can change this by highlighting the line and dropping down the track: combo and selecting the subtitle you want.

Like audio, you can add multiple subtitle tracks, just use the add button. To remove subtitle tracks, highlight the line you want to remove then click the remove button.

Subtitle options:

Forced only: This will show forced subtitles when say an english film has an actor talking in a foreign language, it will only show when the foreign actor is speaking.

Burned in: This wil PERMANENTY burn the titles onto the video, you won't be able to change the subtitles or move them etc. when playing the video. Leave this unchecked unless your NMT cannot handle MKV subtitles.

Default: When this is checked your subtitle will always be shown by default on playback.

(6) Chapters tab. Handbrake will automatically read and set the chapter marks from the DVD. Check the 'Create Chapter marks' box to encode chapters into the MKV. This is all you need to do. You can change the names of each chapter if you like but I don't bother.

(7) click on Encode and go & do something else!

......

If you have multiple discs ripped via Step 1. Then whilst Handbrake is encoding (it will be doing it in a seperate window) you can set up the next disc to encode.

Just do steps (1) onwards and instead of clicking Encode (step (7)) click 'Add to Queue'.

I have had 47 encodes queued at my max point :) If you want to see whats in the queue then simply click on 'Show Queue'.

Once you get the hang of it it is easy, fast and needs little attention. I can detail other options if you need more advanced information. Please give me feedback and I will keep updating this guide to make it as clear as possible.

Happy Encoding!
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Hi
Thanks for this - its really clear. Its encouraged me to go and try Handbrake - I have a few films that I've ripped to MKV but couldn't do much with and especially missed the chapters.

Question for you - you say encode at about 60/65% quality - why is that?

Cheers
 
Hi
Thanks for this - its really clear. Its encouraged me to go and try Handbrake - I have a few films that I've ripped to MKV but couldn't do much with and especially missed the chapters.

Question for you - you say encode at about 60/65% quality - why is that?

Cheers

55-60% is the max you should really go to. Don't look at it as a pecentage of quality, it is more of how fine it examines the picture and encodes. As DVD is not a particularly high resolution, going higher will not give you any appreciable quality increase but it will considerably increase the filesize (potentially bigger than the original DVD).

Even Blu-Rays you shouldn't need to go over 65. The RF number at the side is recommended to be at around 18 for DVD, 20/21 for Blu-Ray. I do all my DVDs on RF20 and get superb results.

As to the chapters, if you have an MKV and the original DVD that has the chapters you can rip the chapters from the disc with ChapterGrabber and then re-merge them into your MKV with MKVMerge. I have done this when I forgot to tick the chapter box in Handbrake and the whole process takes only 2 minutes max ;)
 
Thanks for taking the time to post this Rom. I'm in the process of converting my first DVD now using Handbrake :thumbsup:
 
Hope you're pleased with the results :thumbsup:
 
Thank you for this post
I've been looking dvd ripper which can rip DVD DTS to MKV DTS. In most cases you can rip DTS to AC3 or you need to use few programs.
After couple days I found your post :)
Thank you
 
Rom, something i've always been curious about but never really looked into, how do you think blu-ray MKV rips hold up to the actual blu-ray PQ wise?
 
Rom, something i've always been curious about but never really looked into, how do you think blu-ray MKV rips hold up to the actual blu-ray PQ wise?

How long is a piece of string? It depends on the encoding settings used to what the quality of your output will be like. you can still re-encode with handbrake (or ripbot) and reduce the size of the file with minimal quality loss but some people would think that loss is acceptable some won't.

If you have ever seen a 720P H264/x264 rip of a blu-ray then you have already seen a re-encoded (and resolution downgraded) rip. If they look OK to you then you can certainly do better with a 1080P rip of your own disc.
 
I'm using DVD shrink & Handbrake. I'm trying to get 2 outputs:
1. Full copy on network for streaming
2. Copy in 'Apple' form for itouch.

I've been ripping to a video ts folder with DVD Shrink, getting VOB files.

I've then used Handbrake to get an MPEG version for the itouch.

I've not used MKV - should I? Why? I can launch the VOB files in Windows MP, but can't add them to a library.

Finally, how long should I expect the processes to take for say a 4gb DVD?

Thanks in advance!!!
 
Just curious about the anamorphic settings. A few people have suggested using strict and others loose, why do you use Loose? I'm not the most knowledgeable in this department but I'll be playing the files on a WD TV 2ndGen, is it ok to use strict or should I stick to loose?

I think I read somewhere that loose enabled smoother encoding for programs/players which may have trouble with certain resolutions or something?? I can't remember exactly what it said and I may be merging and crossing two bits of information :rolleyes:
 
I recommended loose as Handbrake will try to detect if the disc is anamorphic or not. If it detects it then the setting would be just as it is for strict, if not detected it will encode as if it is on none. It is not perfect so if you know if your disc is anamorphic or not then you can set to strict or not. However, you should only use strict if you know the disc is anamorphic otherwise you will get weird aspect results from your encode.
 
Can I just query how long per dvd it takes you using handbrake? Each dvd I encode takes roughly 1hr 20min. Is this normal? slow? fast?
 
I have a quad core 6600 processor & it encodes roughly real time so about 60 minutes per 60 minute video on my high quality settings. So, your times are about the same as mine.
 
I've been ripping my DVD collection to VIDEO_TS folders on my PC over the last week, and copying these to the 2TB hard drive in my Mede8er. Works a treat, but of course each movie equates to approx. 4GB.

If I was to use Handbrake, what would I expect the MKV approx. filesize to be for each movie, based on existing VIDEO_TS filesizes of 4GB and settings you've recommended in the OP?
 
I've been ripping my DVD collection to VIDEO_TS folders on my PC over the last week, and copying these to the 2TB hard drive in my Mede8er. Works a treat, but of course each movie equates to approx. 4GB.

If I was to use Handbrake, what would I expect the MKV approx. filesize to be for each movie, based on existing VIDEO_TS filesizes of 4GB and settings you've recommended in the OP?

It varies depending on the film, length & quality settings but from the 800+ films I have re-encoded it averages around 1 to 1.5GB. Some are smaller down as low as 800MB and some go as high as 2.5GB but these are few and far between.
 
It varies depending on the film, length & quality settings but from the 800+ films I have re-encoded it averages around 1 to 1.5GB. Some are smaller down as low as 800MB and some go as high as 2.5GB but these are few and far between.

Thanks Rom. In that case it looks like I'll be able to store 2-3 times more movies on the HDD if I put them in MKV containers then. That'll keep me busy for a few weeks :)
 
Thanks for the excellent guide.

However, I am having a problem with subtitles.

I am getting a popcorn hour in a couple of weeks and having been ripping my dvds in preparation as per your guide above.

Therefore at the moment I can only view the rips on my laptop.

When I rip an English speaking film with subs for foreign speech (e.g Kill Bill) no matter what I do I cannot see the subs. I am following your instructions but there are no subs on my laptop playback. Am I doing something wrong or will they miraculously appear on the popcorn when I get it.

Also, will the rips display cover art on the popcorn if ripped as per your guide or do I have to do something else.

Thanks.
 
There are a couple of ways that you can verify whether you have successfully ripped & encoded the subtitles:

1. Download VLC for your PC (a media player) and play the file back. Whilst playing back select the video/subtitles menu and you should see at least one subtitle track to select.

2. Download MediaInfo and open your file in it. Change the display type to 'Text' and ou should see a section like this for your subtitles:

Code:
Text
ID                               : 3
Format                           : VobSub
Codec ID                         : S_VOBSUB
Codec ID/Info                    : The same subtitle format used on DVDs
Language                         : English

For VLC:

VideoLAN - VLC media player - Open Source Multimedia Framework and Player

For MediaInfo:

MediaInfo

If you see the titles using either of these methods then you have subtitles in the file and either your player you have been using does not support them or they are not selected by default and you have to select them manually. The Popcorn Hour does support them so if you have them in the file you can use them - but you may have to turn them on manually (I have found some where they are set to 'default' but are not shown automatically).
 
I have VLC and there are the subs in the drop down menu but they do not play on my laptop. Will this be because my laptop is unable to play them?
If they are there though I presume they will play on the popcorn when I eventually transfer the file.

Any info on my cover art question?

thnaks again
 
If VLC is not showing them then I am stumped as VLC shows all of the subs that I have ripped (you do have to select the subtitle track in the dropdown menu for them to show). Try mediainfo and post the info back here and I will have a look but if it says like my post above then the PCH will play the video and subtitles.

As to coverart, no the PCH does not show any coverart with just the default firmware. To show coverart & film details etc you will either need to use YAMJ to create a jukebox (there are others but YAMJ is the most popular) or wait for the firmware update to be released which will have video/audio & photo jukebox facilities built in.

The PCH on its own will just show you folders & files to select.
 
Ok done the mediainfo thing.

My example (Kill Bill) is exactly the same as your example above except that ID is 4.
 
That is the internal 'MKV Track' number. The one I posted was my rip of 'a few good men'. 1 was video, 2 was the audio stream and 3 was the subs.v I only extracted/encoded 1 audio track on that rip. You may have 2 audio tracks which means 2 & 3 are audio and 4 is the subs. So, based on that the popcorn should play it back fine and you may just have to manually select the sub track as it will possibly default to no subs. You just press the subtitle button on the remote of the PCH to select the sub track.
 
Cheers for that.

So I presume my laptop cannot play the subs for some reason. Is that right?

I will wait till I get the Popcorn and hopefully it will work. If not I'm sure I will be back asking a few more questions.

Thanks for your help so far.

BTW any info as to when the firmware update with the jukebox stuff is released?
 
I don't know of a reported instance where VLC has not been able to display subs so I'm sure that your machine *should* show the subs. Not sure what is wrong if you have selected the sub track in VLC.

As to the Jukebox inbuilt to the firmware I don't know for definite, Syabas (the PCH makers) posted a video of where they had got so far with the GUI back in May so fingers crossed it may be in the firmware after next. The next firmware is already in beta and there are no reports of it being included there. It seems we are getting firmwares every 2 months (Jan March & May this year up to now) so I would hazard a guess at September.

I use YAMJ anyway and am completely satisfied with the functionality & look/feel of it so I'm not holding out for the inbuilt GUI anyway.
 

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