The encoding finally finished!
[20:44:04] Finished work at: Thu Aug 6 20:44:04 2026
[20:44:04] libhb: work result = 0
Encode done!
HandBrake has exited.Took about 7 days to encode 56 DVDs from VIDEO_TS folders into more modern
.mkv format, using H.264 to save on space.
It looks like the .mkv files are quite a bit smaller than the source material:
$ du -sk */ | awk '{s+=$1} END {print "Original Folders: " s/1024/1024 " GB"}'
Original Folders: 277.174 GB
$ du -sk *.mkv | awk '{s+=$1} END {print "New MKV Files: " s/1024/1024 "
GB"}'
New MKV Files: 63.8187 GBFrom 277GB down to 63GB, about a 72% reduction in size. Some of this is from improved compression, DVDs use MPEG-2 which is less efficient than H.264 which is what I’ve converted them to. I also only saved the main title from the DVDs. I went back and forth on this since in theory it would be nice to keep all the bonus content, etc but I don’t think I’ve ever watched any bonus content on any DVD I’ve ever owned so I decided not to store them digitally. I always have the original discs if I ever decide I want to see any of that bonus content (at least for as long as the discs last).
I’ve watched a few of the new .mkv files and they look pretty good. I personally
can’t notice a meaningful difference between them and the source rip.
All that’s left is to delete the source material, and copy the .mkv files over
to Jellyfin and host a movie night.