

Step 4: To HEVC, or not to HEVC?īefore you continue, decide how you'll compress your videos: "old, faster, and pretty good," or "new, slower, and even better." If you're crunched for disk space, MKV files also tend to be slightly smaller than equivalent MP4s. That makes MKV a more powerful, flexible format than MP4 - albeit one that iTunes can't play. In contrast, MKV files can easily juggle multiple audio and subtitle tracks, and don't need to burn in subtitles. Adding more subtitles demands a lengthy, complicated process of exporting and importing subtitle files in different formats. Why is MKV a good thing? While MP4 files can support multiple audio tracks, by default they can't work with more than one subtitle track, and that track has to be burned in to the video permanently. When you're done, you'll have a jumbo-sized MKV file for each title you selected. Once it does, click the big, animated Blu-ray drive button to read that disc's contents, which may take another few minutes.Ĭonverting your chosen titles often takes an hour or more.

It'll take a few seconds to recognize the disc. Plug in your Blu-ray drive, pop in a disc, and open MakeMKV. And while Plex charges for its live TV and DVR features, you can use it to store and stream movies for free, minus a one-time $5 unlock fee for its iOS apps.

dmg file before you install it – a way to make sure that no sneaky hackers have replaced your legit copy with a nasty lookalike, which briefly happened to Handbrake (opens in new tab) in 2017. Just make sure you verify the checksum (opens in new tab) of Handbrake's. To squeeze those massive files into svelter shape, you'll need this free, popular Mac app.

For a deeper dive into MakeMKV, consult this Macworld article. (Remember, use those awesome powers only for good.) You'll need a new beta key for MakeMKV roughly every two months, which you can find here (opens in new tab). This free-while-in-beta program shrugs off Blu-rays' copy protection and bundles their contents into handy, if hefty, files. But The Wirecutter has a good roundup of more recent drives that cost less and may perform even better. I used an older Samsung SE-506 (opens in new tab), which sells for around $100 and worked great. To move your movies from disc to disk, you'll need: An external Blu-ray drive
