Video Transcoding VS Tdarr

I use this project by Don Melton to get a Blu-ray video down to an 8 - 10 GB file size: https://github.com/donmelton/video_transcoding

It uses HandBrake, FFmpeg, MKVToolNix, and MP4v2 with some custom tuned settings and has really good results from my experience.

I have primarily used Plex and pretty much everything you said is accurate for Plex as well. Limited transcoding based on the machine it is running on. As disc has become cheaper, I have pretty much stopped doing batch transcodes, which is great for the most part. But there are definitely negatives when you want to watch something offline, or remotely. Biggest pain point is subtitles though. Since they aren't ripped as text and then sent to a client, they have to be burned in to the video itself and transcoded on the fly. Which means losing out on 'forced' ones if it can't transcode fast enough.

Plex has definitely started to try and commercialize itself more and offer other stuff, when all I want is access to my own media. So I may look into Jellyfin more soon.

As for batch transcode jobs, I had a system that I was able to set up as essentially a black box. Drop a rip into a folder and out the other side comes a smaller one at a reasonable quality. With forced subs burned right into the actual video. Mostly based on https://github.com/donmelton/video_transcoding

I use Don Melton’s tools to transcode videos to mp4 files. His tools makes use of Handbrake but he has it tuned to produce very small video files of very high quality. You are unlikely to notice the difference when watching the videos.

Checkout https://github.com/donmelton/video_transcoding. In my experience produces higher quality and smaller files than handbrake alone.

When I was ripping my disc collection, I used Don Melton’s library. Don originally started the Safari and Webkit project at Apple but after he retired, he spent some significant time trying to create an easy way of compressing video but resting quality. Great collection of tools in my opinion that leverage handbrake for encoding. Good luck!

Check out https://github.com/donmelton/video_transcoding

I've been using Don Melton's Video Transcoding tool for my whole library. I upgraded my NAS to a Synology DS1019+ a few months ago, so now I have the space to store the untranscoded MakeMKV files. I've had issues with playback in my system, so I don't mind manually transcoding.

Check out https://github.com/donmelton/video_transcoding – I use it to turn raw Blu-ray tips from 30+ gigs down to 5-7 with no noticeable loss of quality.

You could also use tdarr to automate transcoding as soon as stuff enters your library so that it’s direct playable when you decide to watch it, but I’ve never needed to try it

The only place I can find mention of the script is Tdarr_Server is not closing exiftool.exe after use. #423 and tdarr_server.exe crashes often #412

I've had issues with my 11600k and now 11400 in unraid too. Though it's CPU encoding in my case. See https://github.com/HaveAGitGat/Tdarr/issues/777 .

So I read through this issue and I have a couple nodes setup, some with QSV and others with NVENC. The respective node capabilities are designated for exactly one of QSV or NVENC.

Have a look at Tdarr for distributed transcoding. I have it on a few nodes and it’s been pretty easy on the network.

I have created a feature request in the Tdarr GitHub page; https://github.com/HaveAGitGat/Tdarr/issues/772

You can also use tdarr if you have more than 1 file it can auto transcodes multiple files in a directory all at once. https://github.com/HaveAGitGat/Tdarr

or this: https://github.com/HaveAGitGat/Tdarr