DVD Compression

[deadend5001]

Hey Guys,

As I'm just starting to digitize my DVD collection, I figured I'd toss the question out there. How are you guys storing your DVD's? Are you guys compressing them to H.264 or just copying the video and audio ts directories to disk?

Currently I am using DVD Fab to extract the main movie only to disk uncompressed...but as I put more and more onto my raid disk, it makes me think about total # of dvd's per raid array.

Thanks,
--DE

[pjpjpjpj]

I just rip them "as is" (VOBs in the audio and video_ts folders). They're not that big (relatively) and you have all of the disc functionality and extras and such.

Being able to choose a DVD from the menu and have it then function as though you were using a standalone DVD player is a big plus in the WAF column.

[deadend5001]

Yeah I don't find value in the extras that are typically on the DVD. If i want to see the extras, I'll just pop in the DVD. My biggest concern is digitizing my 600+ DVD collection and saving as much space as possible without degrading the video and audio quality so it looks horrible on my 61" TV.

[BFisher]

Mine are all stored with just the movie - no extras. No compression, just VOBs. Hard disks are cheap... picture quality isn't

[lobosrul]

I compress with mencoder x.264 2-pass High-profile. I leave the resolution @ 720x480 (no matter if there are black bars or not). I use a bitrate of 1300-1700 depending on aspect ratio, what type of movie/tv show it is, and if its B&W or color. I generally get something thats *almost* indistinguishable from the original. I used to encode to AAC audio, now I leave it alone (AC3).

[deadend5001]

Originally Posted by lobosrul

I compress with mencoder x.264 2-pass High-profile. I leave the resolution @ 720x480 (no matter if there are black bars or not). I use a bitrate of 1300-1700 depending on aspect ratio, what type of movie/tv show it is, and if its B&W or color. I generally get something thats *almost* indistinguishable from the original. I used to encode to AAC audio, now I leave it alone (AC3).

What sort of size difference are you seeing?

[lobosrul]

Originally Posted by deadend5001

What sort of size difference are you seeing?

From the original DVD? Depends on what sort of extras and unused audio tracks are on there. Generally 3.5x to 5x smaller.

[dvd_maniac]

I use Staxrip with X264/AAC. I have 1600+ movies and they take up 620GB for an average of about 380MB/ movie. I make the action, SciFi and my favorite movies a little bigger in size and Low-Motion, older or my wife's crappy love stories smaller.

[Taddeusz]

Originally Posted by dvd_maniac

I use Staxrip with X264/AAC. I have 1600+ movies and they take up 620GB for an average of about 380MB/ movie. I make the action, SciFi and my favorite movies a little bigger in size and Low-Motion, older or my wife's crappy love stories smaller.

What resolution do you convert them to for them to come out that small. I've been keeping my conversions at 720x480 and can't stand anything below about 800-850MB for a 90min movie. Of course, I also keep the original AC3 audio. But any smaller than that and the macro blocking just becomes ridiculous. I'm using AutoMKV which uses x264.

[dvd_maniac]

I am not an Audiophile by any means. I do have a decent surround sound setup but only convert them to AAC HE 32kbps stereo so that saves a ton of space compared to an AC3 file (2 hour movie ends up around 40MB for audio).

I keep the good stuff at 720x480 except for the black bars get cropped out. The older slower motion stuff gets knocked down a bit to like 608x336 or something close.

I do keep in mind what I'm encoding. Darker movies get a little more bitrate because macro blocking is more apparent.

[stanger89]

I just suck the main movie out with DVD Shrink.

I've tried encoding but, anything under about 2Mbps (which ends up being about 2GB for a 2hr movie) isn't even close to acceptable for me, and it takes way to much futsing to get a decent encode, my times worth more than the cost of extra drives.

[deadend5001]

Hrmmm....and here I am storing all of my movies as the raw files (4.5gb per movie). I'll have to look into some of those two compression types because the more videos i can squeeze onto my RAID array the better (long as it doesn't look like junk on my 61" TV).

[stanger89]

The only way to do it is to try it yourself and see the results. I'd probably try doing it the "hard" way of MeGui/x264 and the MKV to remux the new video and original audio.

[tmiranda]

Originally Posted by dvd_maniac

I use Staxrip with X264/AAC. I have 1600+ movies and they take up 620GB for an average of about 380MB/ movie. I make the action, SciFi and my favorite movies a little bigger in size and Low-Motion, older or my wife's crappy love stories smaller.

I've been using Nero Recode and found the best I could do without losing a lot of quality resulted in files about 800-850MB. (This is for a normal 2 hour movie.) I'm using the HD100 connected to a 42" 1080i LCD TV.

Is staxrip that much better than Nero? (I've not tried it because it seems to require .NET 3.5 and I do not want to install that monster.) What settings are you using?

Thanks,

Tom

[ONLYinHD]

It depends what you're viewing on.

I've tried (just experimenting at this point) dvdshrink and autoGK and nero with settings ranging from 400MB to 2GB per movie and view on 50" HD, a 720p proj on a 92" screen, and SD tvs. I have to give the nod to 2GB unless PQ is totally unimportant to you. I just hate the color banding and pixelization.

On large screen:
For action or dark/color-rich movies = 2GB
For drama/comedy movies = 1.2GB

On regular SD tvs:
600MB - 800MB and 600MB respectively

Now factor in your time for converting each movie (my time is limited so I can only finish one per day or less). Compare that to the small amount of time for straight copy of entire DVD structure and come up with a compromise that works for you. Keep in mind if menus are important (personally not for me but WAF absolutely yes).

My $.02.

[chiledog]

I encode with AutoMKV (uses x264).

I use CRF of 18. (so it is a single pass encoding with no set video size). I also use anamorphic and cut the black bars (if any). AutoMKV will do all the hard work.

The picture quality is great. I have a hard time telling the difference on my 57" TV.

The average video size is about 1G / hour.

(I used to use AutoGK and Xvid, but I think H.264 videos look better. Plus H.264 supports anamorphic.)

[Taddeusz]

If I'm diligent about it with the two computers I have I can process 6 movies per day. I start 1 movie on each computer before I leave for work, start 1 movie on each once I get home from work, and start 1 on each before going to bed. It takes approximately 1.5-2.5 hours for each movie depending on the length and complexity of the movie.

[dvd_maniac]

Is staxrip that much better than Nero?

Staxrip is just the frontend but it uses X264 which i find has the same PQ at 10-15% smaller filesize over Recode.

I just suck the main movie out with DVD Shrink.

I agree with everyone that has small collection of DVD's or just want to keep a couple hundred movies. But for those that want to keep a large collection then just copying the DVD is not a viable solution. For my 1600+ collection I would need a 7TB array just for Movies! I would say that with the Intel Q6600 at $215.00 that it would be cheaper to create an encoding machine for a similair situation.

If I'm diligent about it with the two computers I have I can process 6 movies per day.

On my Q6600 it usually takes me less than 2-1/2 hours to rip and encode a 90 minute movie using 2-pass. And for the slow-motion girlie movies I use 1-pass with a CQ of 26 and it takes around 1-1/2 hours.
StaxRip has a batch feature, so what I do is rip one movie. Load it into Stax and encode. While that's running I keep ripping and loading into a second instance of Stax using it's Batch feature. When the first movie is finished I usually have about 15 movies ready to roll and X264 uses low priority in case I want to use PC for something else. I do usually once a month to keep up with all the new DVDs we buy as well as Movies recorded from TV for the month.

[Taddeusz]

Originally Posted by dvd_maniac

On my Q6600 it usually takes me less than 2-1/2 hours to rip and encode a 90 minute movie using 2-pass. And for the slow-motion girlie movies I use 1-pass with a CQ of 26 and it takes around 1-1/2 hours.
StaxRip has a batch feature, so what I do is rip one movie. Load it into Stax and encode. While that's running I keep ripping and loading into a second instance of Stax using it's Batch feature. When the first movie is finished I usually have about 15 movies ready to roll and X264 uses low priority in case I want to use PC for something else. I do usually once a month to keep up with all the new DVDs we buy as well as Movies recorded from TV for the month.

It's my understanding that 2-pass doesn't necessarily mean higher quality. That h.264 only really shines when you use constant quality mode (i.e. variable bitrate). Supposedly particularly when you give it a target size.

I'm actually kind of on the lookout for a new ripper/converter. AutoMKV has been working fairly well but it has it's problems. Particularly in the area of calculating anamorphic AR's. The guy can't seem to get it right and doesn't seem to care that it doesn't work as it should.

I'd like to start cropping but AutoMKV doesn't do those calculations correctly and it's too hairy for me to do by hand for each and every movie. I tried it on a movie last night and the size just isn't quite right. Probably due to rounding error. This is the primary reason I've been sticking to the original 16:9 and 4:3 AR's so I don't have to deal with oddball ones you get from cropping. At least from my experience last night when using CQ mode the size difference is quite negligible between cropping and non-cropping.

I'd also like a program that is capable of doing HD stuff, particularly reading VC-1 from an m2ts. I just got a Blu-ray drive and am experimenting with ways to archive those movies onto my server. I'm definitely going to need more storage.

[dvd_maniac]

Cropping without worrying about AR is pretty easy in Stax as the assistant will notify you of any issues with AR after you set the crop points. It is also ALOT more accurate then Recode when it determines the crop points. I barely ever have to adjust any of them but I check them all to make sure(10 seconds/ movie).

I have done a few downloaded HD clips with some success and some failures...