This is ideal for movies where the visuals aren't that important, or ones that won't look that good compared to modern movies anyway. Comedies, low-budget action movies, or just movies you don't care about very much can fit into this category. If you want to reduce your file size further without sacrificing too much video quality, use a preset like Super HQ 720p30 Surround or HQ 720p30 Surround. In fact, a high quality 720p file with with minimal compression will usually look better than a lower quality 1080p rip with a lot of compression. Stepping down to 720p might sound like it's a huge drop in quality, but in most cases, it's not.

Use a high quality, lower resolution preset: Technically high-definition video includes both 1080p and 720p.

(Note, however, that if you want higher quality audio, you may want to go to the 'Audio' tab and change the 'AAC' dropdown to 'DTS Passthru' or 'AC3 Passthru', depending on whether the original audio is DTS or AC3). This is the best option to go with for visually intense or special effects heavy movies. Choose a preset like Super HQ 1080p30 Surround to keep as much detail as possible while still shrinking the file size.

Use a high quality, high resolution preset: All Blu-Rays ship in 1080p, but the rip you made with MakeMKV is still uncompressed from the version on the disc.With that in mind, you have a few options for shrinking your movies: Besides, jokes are funny regardless of resolution. For example, you may want to see every glorious detail of the robot fights in Pacific Rim because that movie was designed with high resolution special effects in mind. On the other hand, you probably won't miss much if you compress your copy of What We Do In the Shadows, because it's a comparatively low-budget indie comedy movie that doesn't have a ton of effects. Which one you choose will depend on how much of the original video you want to preserve. The easiest way to do this is to pick a preset from the right side of the app window. Next comes the tougher part: choosing your quality settings. It's not strictly necessary, but it's a waste of resources to store, play, and stream huge video files if you don't need to. So, we'll use Handbrake to compress your MKV files to something a little more manageable, without losing much quality. Handbrake: MakeMKV will rip your Blu-Ray movie exactly as it is on the disc, which can be over 20 or 30GB in size.Right now, you shouldn't have to pay for this program. MakeMKV claims that it's only a beta product, but it's been in 'beta' for years, so it may stay free for a long time. This effectively extends the trial period indefinitely. Every month, you can either download the latest version of the beta or activate the application using the latest beta key in the forums.

MakeMKV offers a free beta that works for 30 days, but that's a little misleading. MakeMKV: This application, available for both Windows and macOS, rips your Blu-Rays to an MKV file. That's it.If you want to burn your own Blu-Ray discs, you'll need a drive that can read and write to blank Blu-Rays, but we'll assume you just want to store them on your hard drive. Fortunately, you can get them online for less than $60. However, you'll need a Blu-Ray reader in order to rip your Blu-Ray discs (obviously). If your computer came with any disc drive at all, it was probably a DVD drive. Before you begin, make sure you have installed the following: You'll need a few tools in order to start ripping your Blu-Ray collection. If you want to rip your DVDs, this process will work as well, but we'll focus on Blu-Rays- our recommended process for DVDs is a little different. This way, you don't need to swap discs, you can play your movies in any app you want, and you can even stream them to your other devices. You can even add your old DVD collection. Related: How to Decrypt and Rip DVDs With Handbrake

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