DVD and Blu-ray Backup
The reliable two-step for archiving optical discs: rip uncompressed with MakeMKV, then compress with HandBrake. MakeMKV handles AACS/BD+ decryption and remuxes the title into an .mkv container losslessly; HandBrake then re-encodes for size. Splitting the stages means the (slow, decrypt-heavy) rip happens once and compression experiments never require re-reading the disc.
Why MKV and not MP4
Disc subtitle formats are image-based — VOBSUB (DVD) and PGS (Blu-ray) bitmaps, not text. In an MP4 container HandBrake must burn them into the video; MKV carries multiple subtitle tracks as switchable streams. Same logic applies to keeping all audio tracks (commentary, foreign dubs) as passthrough streams.
HandBrake settings (starting from the “Super HQ” preset)
- Summary → Format → MKV
- Dimensions → Resolution & Scaling → Resolution Limit → None (don’t let the preset downscale)
- Filters → Grayscale → On — only for black-and-white sources (saves real bitrate)
- Video → Framerate → Same as source
- Audio — import all tracks with Passthru
- Subtitles —
- English-language movie: add a “Foreign Audio Search” track first, with Forced Only on, Burned In off, Default on — this auto-selects the forced subtitles used for signs/alien dialogue.
- Foreign-language film: set Default on for the appropriate English subtitle track.
- Then add all remaining subtitle tracks.
Notes
- Legality varies by jurisdiction: in the US, circumventing CSS/AACS technically violates DMCA §1201 even for personal backups of discs you own; many other countries have explicit private-copying exceptions. Know your local law.
- UHD Blu-ray (4K) needs a “LibreDrive”-flashed drive firmware for MakeMKV to read the discs.
- For scratch-resistant long-term keeping, the MakeMKV output is the archival copy; the HandBrake output is the viewing copy.
Sources
Related
- yt-dlp — the equivalent pipeline for streamed media
- ffmpeg — what HandBrake wraps, for when you need to script it
- robust-file-naming — naming a media library that survives every player and filesystem