can we talk about handbrake?

[Django x2]

If we can, i'm looking for some good settings for shrinking an mkv file but retaining quality of Audio and Video. Thanks

 

[masterluke]

smaller filesize = reduced quality

no way around it

EDIT - slightly less sarcastic answer
I guess it depends on what quality you deem acceptable. Maybe if you only have 2.0 speakers then you can remove the 5.1 soundtracks. Maybe if you have a 720p screen you can downscale from 1080p to 720p. All depends on your viewing circumstances.

EDIT - even less sarcastic answer
If the MKV that you are looking at has video encoded using MPEG2 or another older codec, then you could potentially be able to keep most of the quality and get a good filesize decrease by using a modern compressor like x264. But if the video is already in a modern codec then there isn't much further to that can be done. All depends on your source file circumstances.

 

[marmalade]

Try DVD Flick it may work but as stated smaller size basilly poorer quality but not necessarily noticably so
ConverxtoDVD is good

 

[Django x2]

OK, so, say I used MakeMKV, how do I know what output it has put the video into? And, say it was MPEG2, I would just use HandBrake to turn that into an x264?

 

[Meatball]

OK, so, say I used MakeMKV, how do I know what output it has put the video into? And, say it was MPEG2, I would just use HandBrake to turn that into an x264?

MakeMKV doesn't transcode it simply takes the streams and muxes them into an MKV file. Only older Blu-Rays used the older and inferior MPEG2 codec. MakeMKV will tell you what codec the video is in. It'll be either VC-1, MPEG2 or H.264.

 

[zzzJonny]

I guess that depends on what bitrate you deem acceptable, but 2200 AVC/x264 2 pass and 192 AAC is usually really nice for most monitors and keeps the quality.

Making it smaller depends on the source file's stats too, which you can check using something like MediaInfo.