this post was submitted on 05 Oct 2026
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Bigger size is usually better. Unfortunately an encoding is only as good as the person who did it. There's any number of filtering or higher quality settings that can be used. But people often avoid to save time.
So you're better off to find groups or individuals who's work you like. And sticking with that. On Modern CPUs you can rip through high def video faster than real-time speed if you set the quality low enough. And the bitrate High enough. But an experienced encoder knows the combination of filtering and settings to use to bring out the maximum visual quality with minimal file size.
And when it comes to that I tend to do all my own encodings.
You mean you download a massive file and shrink it down yourself?
Do you have an recommended encorders for B&W film? Seems like an easy place to pick up some space savings while retaining or improving over a general full color codec.
If it's something I really want. Absolutely.
These days handbrake is pretty much all you need. We've come a long way since my days moderating over on the Doom 9 Forum way back in the early 2000s.
Codec wise there really isn't anything that would be more recommended for black and white. Black and white are colors. 16 million Shades of Black and White are still 16 million colors if that makes any sense. So a color encoder is generally going to do just as well. You're not really going to save that much just because something is black and white.
The codec that you might want to choose will generally depend more on the resolution of your content, and the hardware you intend to play it back on. Older Hardware might only support h264. Also DVDs, anything newer than h264 doesn't really save you a lot of space. And takes more time to encode. H264 also uses smaller macro blocks which are generally preferable for lower resolution. When it comes to HD or 4K sources. Then h265 or AV1 should probably be your go-to's. Unless again you are limited by playback hardware.
The settings again depend a lot on your content. If it's largely static scenes with Talking Heads. You can get by with some pretty insanely low bit rates. If it's an action movie with lots of motion all over the place explosions etc etc etc. You're going to need every bit of bitrate you can get.
When it comes to basic settings? Under the video dialogue in handbrake. Whenever you select and encoder towards the bottom left there is a slider labeled preset. Which is sort of misleading. It is the motion estimation quality. You would generally never want it set to anything higher than medium and preferably closer to slower. As the name implies slower is slower. But it performs much better motion estimation. Which will create less blocking and artifacts when constrained for bitrate. Leaving more for those blacks which are often the first thing sacrificed.
Bitrate wise. And easy rule of thumb is previous generations bit rate. Ripping DVD in h264 a VCD bitrate of 1–2 Mbps is pretty solid. 1080p? DVD bitrates of 5-9 Mbps in h265 or AV1 will save lots of space and keep excellent video quality. 4k, 20 to 35 Mbps h265 or AV1. A bit wasteful but generally visually lossless. If you take the time and do 2 pass you can go lower still.
I've used these setting for re-encoding and the quality is very good. Even DVDs look better in many cases. Haven't done any B&W though. Be warned h.265 encoding is very cpu intensive e.g. with my Ryzen 7 7700x re-encoding a bluray movie takes about 90-120 mins at 1080p. Down scaling will reduce that time.