HandBrake

In terms of speed, encoding quality, space savings, whats better? Using makemkv to rip an mkv from the bluray, and then compressing with handbrake, or compressing straight from the bluray with handbrake?

Handbrake cannot encode "straight from BD"; it has to have something in between to remove the encryption. If that something is MakeMKV as a stand-alone ripper or acting as a proxy to remove the encryption, the results will be identical, for the same handbrake settings.

Using MakeMKV as a proxy limits you to the speed of the encode. Using MakeMKV separately, you can be ripping more than one disk while handbrake is encoding the first.

Cool, but i thought handbrake could decrypt and rip blurays aswell? Maybe i was mistaken.

No it can’t.

For ripping use a ripping tool like makemkv.

For encoding use an encoder like HB.

That way you can chop and change if needed.

Handbrake uses libraries to read DVD and BD structures, but those libraries do not remove encryption. In both cases, though, there are THIRD PARTY libraries that can do the decryption to a point. The BD library requires access to a "key" file to work.

Even when the 3rd party libraries work, they do not handle errors well. When the data stops flowing, handbrake assumes that the rip has finished, and stops encoding... without saying that there was an error, because it didn't know it.