In my current quest to get all of my DVDs and Blu-Rays transcoded to H.264 for viewing on Apple TV and iPad, I’ve run into a major glitch: subtitles and HD audio on Blu-Ray discs.
The current shipping version of Handbrake (version 0.9.8) doesn’t recognize subtitles on Blu-Rays (Version 0.9.9 now available, see end of post). It’s also not very fast and doesn’t take advantage of multi-processor setups very well. I have one Blu-Ray in particular – Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, that I wanted to get into 1080p H.264, but was getting hung up on the subtitles. So I started using the nightly builds of Handbrake, which supported Blu-Ray subtitles. But the nightly builds, unlike version 0.9.8, didn’t support the 5.1 core of the HD audio streams. Strange, but I thought I would wait. After a few weeks, I downloaded another nightly – version 1084, and it converted the HD audio to 5.1 AC3 correctly. Woohoo!
It’s also fast as hell. Version 0.9.8 will average about 600-700% processor on my Mac Pro 4,1 8core when encoding A New Hope. Nightly #1084 will push all the way to 1500% (of a max 1600% available). Which makes it just slightly slower than real-time, which has been unheard of for Blu-Rays. I’m very happy with this current build and can’t wait for the next full release.
EDIT: May 14, 2013 – I’ve noticed that this article is consistently the second or third highest trafficked page on this blog, so I thought I would write an update. I’m still using Nightly #1084 on a daily basis as I didn’t want to risk downloading a newer version and have it break some functionality. It’s working perfectly for me right now. I’ve encoded countless DVDs and Blu-Rays, both TV shows and movies since January and haven’t had a single issue. I probably won’t upgrade until a new official version is released. The only feature I would add at this point is the ability to add multiple discs to the queue (instead of just multiple titles from a single disc). Then I could get more encoded overnight than just a single disc. Seven episodes from a single disc of The Simpsons finishes in less than 30 minutes. You can do this now with Nightly 1084, but it’s crashy. OK, a second feature I would add is a better way of dealing with sources that have mixed frame rates and pulldown issues. The early seasons of the Simpsons are a good example. Along with documentaries such as When The Levees Broke which has a lot of mixed sources (23.98 film and HD, 29.97 raw DV footage)
EDIT: May 19, 2013 – Version 0.9.9 has just been released. I’m gonna give it a shot to see how it compares to Nightly 1084.
Hello,
What are you using to get the bluray’s into handbrake? MakeMKV?
I guess I am wondering about your workflow. I have always used nightlies so I haven’t had the audio issue. I haven’t had luck with the subtitles though. Are you just burning in forced subtitles?
Thanks!!
Yes on MakeMKV. It’s rare that it doesn’t work, but the BD discs have to be spotless.
With subtitles, Handbrake won’t add them automatically. I don’t select “Forced Only” because sometimes it doesn’t work correctly. I use VLC to turn different subtitle tracks on and off until I’ve identified the correct one. Then in Handbrake I select that subtitle track to be burned in.