handbrake help

So I need some assistance. Does anyone here use Handbrake?

So when I rip a bluray or dvd, I do a straight rip of all audio and subtitles, lossless if available.

I'm trying--by questionable experimental method--to make a 720p version of all my 1080p files with minimal loss of quality and no loss of any audio or subtitles. Does anyone have recommendations on settings?


My current is working custom (now on version like, ten):

Original Preset: H.264 MKV 720p30 from the Matroska folder

Customization:
- Video Tab: Constant Quality: 0 (lossless)
- Audio Tab:
- Selection Behavior; all tracks matching selectd languages: English
- Auto Passthru: all formats selected
- Passthru Fallback: AAC
- Audio Encoder Settings:
- 1st: Auto Passthru Quality 10, no mixdown, samplerate same as source
- 2nd: AAC (avcodec) Quality 10, no mixdown, samplerate same as source
- Subtitle Tab:
- Selection Behavior; all tracks matching selected languages: English
- Add Foreig Audio scan pass
- Add English Subtitle track if language not english
- Burn in behavior: Foreign Audio Track

My goal: literally just a smaller resolution for the 1080p movie to 720p for screens without high resolution. How much of this is overkill or am I just using the wrong preset and should pick another one?
</cut. This is what happens when your fandom is Plex, yes.

Comments

[nic]

I think we have different versions of Handbrake, but the setting that immediately jumps out to me is this one:

Video Tab: Constant Quality: 0 (lossless)

In my version, that results in a bigger file that the original. I have mine set to 20.

Try that and see if it changes anything!

[seperis]

Oh boy you were right about size.

Original: 1080p, pure, straight, lossless rip from the bluray with MakeMKV, Size: 28.3 GB
New File from Handbrake: 720p, Size: 46.5 GB

...so yeah. what I can't work out is why. I mean, I get Constant Quality is lower number equals higher quality but--I mean, logically, is the video quality of the 720p now exceeding that of the original? By like a lot? How?

[nic]

The compression algorithm (or lack thereof), I would guess?

[seperis]

I thought that too so I double checked, but I do a straight lossless rip using MakeMKV; the only thing MakeMKV does is creat the mkv container. That said: blurays don't have consistent codecs, so it makes me wonder if if I should be matching that as well. Until now, I was using H.264 as the basic standard when re-encoding.

This is one of those times I could really benefit from an expert breaking down for me all about video.