Join the LiNUX movie release group

[Fant0men]

I really appreciate the approach of automating the ripping and encoding process, it's something I have been passively trying to do over the past couple of years as well.
Personally, I have only automated the encoding process because it's something I let run when I'm sleeping, and I don't mind doing the ripping part manually.

Have you considered using ffmpeg as a main encoding program?

From personal experience I have used 2048 kbps video bitrate for HEVC 1080p movies, it seems to turn out well. I just haven't tested it on that many devices.

I wish you the best of luck in your scripting endeavors and also in starting a group.

I did consider using ffmpeg instead of HandBrake. Sometimes I use ffmpeg directly, like when making DVDrips, cause I use different settings for those and do things manually. HandBrake automates a few things on its own which makes me inclined to use it, like cropping black borders and the handling of subtitles. I could script ffmpeg to do those things as well, but I see no reason to right now.

The only benefit I can think of at the top of my head using ffmpeg directly is it probably has more updated versions of all the libraries / codecs than HandBrake does. And it has more options, of course.

RARBG used 2500 kb/s for their x264 1080p rips, but since they've been switching to x265 they lowered that to 2000 kb/s. I agree that the result is pretty good. It all depends on what your priorities are. I looked at their rips when deciding the settings I would put in the script, so I just chose double their 2500 kb/s video bitrate (5000 kb/s). Another difference is I use DTS, not AAC for audio (which adds a bit to the total rip size).

My goal was not really to compete with the likes of RARBG or YIFY, but with the groups that do larger rips. 5000 kb/s x265 tends to create rips that are 5-7GB, and those are comparable in quality to x264 rips that are 8-12GB. Like I said, depends on what people value more. Even though I prefer higher bitrates, I do download a lot of RARBG's x265 rips cause the quality is very good for such a small file size. I will make exceptions for my favorite movies and get bigger rips for those, if I can. Or encode them myself.

I have to admit I have no experience of decrypting and ripping files off an actual BluRay disc. Back when I did such things, it was DVDs, not BluRay. I don't have a BluRay drive, so I just download full BluRays or remuxes and encode those using the script. Maybe the decrypting / copying stuff could be scripted too, but my impression is most of that stuff is made for Windows. Don't know if there are good Linux apps for that.

Anyway, thank you and I wish you good luck with your scripting and encoding as well

[Fant0men]

I uploaded a movie rip today for the first time in a couple of years. I'm hoping it will motivate others to start using the script, once they see the quality is good.

I decided to only include a link to the script on GitHub in my torrents from now on, and not the actual script file itself. This is to prevent old and outdated versions of the script from sticking around. I'm slightly annoyed that my old torrents contain old versions of the script file, but I won't remove those torrents cause the rips are still good. And they've spread to other torrent sites anyway, so there's no way for me to actually remove them from the Internet.