MKV vs MP4

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by SWKerr

The latest edition of DVDFab will rip and convert to a mp4 or mkv all in one step. The process after you setup your preferred defaults cant take more than 30 extra seconds compared to a DVD rip. It encoding seems to run in 1-2 hours but it is not like I sit there waiting for it and I can work on my PC while it runs. I can pick the size\quality setting myself and can not see any difference in the picture even pushing it to 1/3 of the original size. h.264 is just a better codec that is why they come up with it rather than just using the old DVD standard.

FWIW, my trials were with H.264.

[aflat]

Originally Posted by stanger89

For me it's quite a number of things. First there's the effort, you can't just hit a button to transcode a DVD, you've got to find the right parameters, and then check that the encode is good, that takes quite a bit more time than just ripping (even if that ripping includes removing extras). Then there's the functionality, you lose chapters. Then the quality loss is just the push over the edge, I have to crank the bitrate so high to make the encoding indistinguishable from the original so as to make the whole process worthless in terms of space savings. I can't come anywhere close to even a 50% reduction without noticing quality loss....

That and when you start ripping Blu-ray, at 30GB+ a pop, a gig or two here or there is pretty insignificant.

For Blu-ray, I use ripbot264, which is almost a 1 click encode, I think its 3 total clicks. It converts a 45gig blu-ray to about 15gig mkv, with pretty good quality, keeps the sound, includes subtitles, and chapters. This allows you to go from about 22 movies per terabyte drive to about 66. Of course not all of those mkv features are supported in Sage yet, but if your going to transcode, your choices are limited.

Of course with the new beta 6.5.11 and native BDMV folder support, the pros of transcoding just lost another advantage, in a good way.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by aflat

For Blu-ray, I use ripbot264, which is almost a 1 click encode, I think its 3 total clicks. It converts a 45gig blu-ray to about 15gig mkv, with pretty good quality,

Yeah, for me "pretty good quality" defeats the purpose. If "pretty good" quality were OK, I'd stick with DVDs and probably transcoding them to 1GB. I'm only accepting 100% original quality.

keeps the sound,

You sure about that? Don't you lose the TrueHD/DTS-HD?

Of course with the new beta 6.5.11 and native BDMV folder support, the pros of transcoding just lost another advantage, in a good way.

Sweet, I'll have to start beating on that