video_transcoding

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 esse

I really can't say enough about how great the transcode-video library is in terms of "set it and forget it". When I cut the cord I started down the path of figuring out how to do all the optimizations myself, but quickly realized just how deep and technical that was. I stumbled upon Don Melton's library and have used it as a key piece of my batch processing pipeline ever since. Definitely check it out if you are looking to convert arbitrary video files to be played back later on arbitrary devices: https://github.com/donmelton/video_transcoding

HandBrake offers a really nice GUI for many one-off transcoding tasks. If you're looking to automate transcoding tasks with some scripting, handbrake-cli (or ffmpeg directly) are very powerful, albeit overwhelming at times. For something in the middle - offering both convenience and scriptability - I recommend video_transcoding[1] (uses handbrake-cli and ffmpeg under the covers). It's a really handy set of command-line tools that eliminate a lot of the guesswork and frustration. [1] https://github.com/donmelton/video_transcoding

FWIW, I started this thread https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12013621 with the hope that we could collect some good examples of how people stay busy after retirement. A great example for me is Don Melton, formerly of Safari and WebKit, who tweets routinely about his work on video transcoding [1]. I follow him on Twitter (@donmelton) and he gives me hope for any future retirement I might be lucky enough to have. [1] https://github.com/donmelton/video_transcoding