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Are there any good Blu-ray ripping software for Linux?

I'm well aware that I can rip most Blu-rays with MakeMKV and then convert to mp4 with Handbrake; however, the former just rips everything raw from the disk so the file size is humongous and the conversion via Handbrake for just a single file is terribly long and puts a lot of strain on my computer.

I've heard that EaseFab LosslessCopy is decent, but they only have a Windows and a Mac version, and I'm unsure how well it'd run under Wine.

I am willing to pay for it, but only as long as it's not a subscription thing. Has to be a one-time payment.

Does anyone know any decent Blu-ray ripping software that fits these conditions and run well on Linux? Specifically, it would be either Pop!_OS or Linux Mint. (I'm still using Windows because I want to figure out some software alternatives before I do so I'm not caught with my pants down, so to speak.)

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  • Edit 1: A number of people have said that knowing my Handbrake encoding settings and my hardware specifications. So, here they are:

    Handbrake encoding settings:

    Hardware specs:

    • CPU: Intel Core i7 10700K @ 3.80 GHz
    • RAM: 32 GiB Dual-channel DDR4 @ 1066 MHz
    • GPU: Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060

    Edit 2: My goal is to add the TV shows / movies in my Blu-ray collection to my NAS server, for use with services such as Jellyfin, Emby, Plex, etc.

    • There are multiple VERY inadvisable things you're doing here. Darkcalling has good points, but in addition:

      You are using a CRF of 0, which will create an insanely huge result video size for no perceptual benefit. There is no reason to do this. You may as well just use makemkv to create mkv files directly and use those. The underlying video encoding is AVC in both cases, just placed into differing containers. This is kind of a misuse of Handbrake. You use handbrake to reencode videos either from one encoding to another, or for satisfactory file size reductions from source materials.

      You are also using an encode speed preset of placebo, which if you have ever done a comparison you will find offers basically exceedingly minimal file size reduction advantages over slow or very slow, but for a MUCH longer encode time.

      I recommend trying to encode samples of quality RF 20-24 and determine which looks best to you (if they end up looking very different). Lower numbers are higher picture quality. I recommend an encode speed of as slow as you can bear, but not slower than Very Slow. I recommend the Encoder Profile being set to High (from Main). Basically the spec for h264 has changed slightly and while Main is super compatible, High has some potential for file savings/quality improvements and is compatible with basically any player since... God knows when, maybe 15 years ago?

      One thing I don't recommend is using nvenc, the gpu encoder, for non real time contexts. x264, the software renderer, will produce higher quality results. Higher quality means either the videos will look the same but the size will be smaller, or the sizes will be the same but the picture looks better.

      Also, even though you don't have it set, I also do not recommend the Fast Decode checkbox. Maybe useful for a device from the year 2002, but at the cost of a noticeably larger file size.

      Finally, you should state what your actual goal is. Yes you are ripping your blu rays, but what are you trying to really achieve with this? Further advice can be dispensed with that info.

    • Decomb filter is set and will increase the effort needed. Unless the video is noticeably interlaced (line artifacts, not likely for most blurays) and you’re trying to fix that there’s no reason to run it. (Note however this is the least time intensive thing you’re doing, I just mention it for completeness, to be honest handbrake may have detection so it only runs while needed but I’ve always set it manually and only as needed)

      Besides that though you’re using software encoding which while better will take much longer. Try setting the encoding tune under video settings to something faster.

      Alternatively set your encoder to use NVENC version of the scheme you want (264) With NVENC encoding 30 minutes without anything else should take 7 minutes or so.

      One last thing. You seem to have it set to burn subtitles in. This generates a lot of extra work and is not advisable unless your hardware or software does not support soft-subs as a separate stream in for instance an mkv file. Most modern streaming devices will handle plain text and PGS image subtitles in my experience. Try instead to set the default and forced flags if you want subtitles to be on by default.

  • MakeMKV (at least in windows) lets you rip a remuxed mkv without having to rip everything. So you can just select the titles, audio, and subtitle tracks you want without ripping all the other stuff. You don't need to make a full backup and then pull all that out.

    • I'm not sure I understand. What I do is I use MakeMKV rip the files from the disk into MKV format. Not an ISO.

      • I use make MKV on Ubuntu to rip my blu-rays to MKV files. And I play them in that format. They are big but I have space on my NAS drive.

  • Reencoding video will always put a lot of strain on your computer, regardless if it's Handbrake or some other tool doing the conversion. With that said, it also depends a lot on the settings you use to transcode.

    Can you share what video settings you tried in Handbrake?

    • Yup, edited my post. Thanks. :)

      • Ok, so two things stand out.
        First, you're using placebo as your encoder preset. This is slow, stupidly slow.
        Searching for some comparisons between the different presets that show how slow it is was more difficult than expected, most people don't even test this setting. Found one comparison here anyways luckily. The first graph (red line) shows how many fps/second were achieved on average. The fastest preset they tested, veryfast, is 68 times faster than placebo.
        For reasonable values I'd use medium or slow, which are still 20 times or 10 times faster with minuscule quality differences. Also see the FFMPEG FAQ on why placebo is stupid.

        Now for the second thing. I get why you put 0 as CRF, but that's not a good idea. You'll most likely have a bigger file in the end than what you started with.
        The bluray itself does not contain enough details to actually need such a low CRF. 17 or 18 is visually lossless, as in you won't be able to tell the difference with your eyes. For my encodes I use 20 most of the time, as it still more than good enough. Reasonable values, if you want a smaller file size are up to ~28.

        TLDR: use slow with CRF 20 as a starting point.

        I hope some of this made sense to you and sorry if it comes over as too agressive.
        Still, hope this helps you get what you want.

        Edit: One more thing I thought about. You can use the hardware encoder in your GPU if you want. However, that will come with worse quality and bigger files than encoding on the CPU. Still something you might want to look at just to compare.

  • I've ripped the entire 10 seasons of the show "friends" using makeMKV. Just make sure you give it a couple of trial and error runs so you can understand what you're getting. Some blurays have many options that you may or may not need.

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