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  1. I recently decided to upgrade my home theater to blu-ray/1080P. I have been watching standard def dvds for a long time through my old IN72 pj. Well now the bulb has reached the end of its life and I decided to upgrade to a 1080 pj with 3d. I have a library of almost 700 DVDs backed up onto several networked drives in .iso format which I stream through XBMC. Now that I have a new pj, I have begun replacing all of my dvds with their blu-ray equivalents . I want to back them up on my networked drives so I can easily browse through them and stream with XBMC. I plan to replace the dvd .isos with the backed up blu-rays. Naturally I will not be ripping blu-ray images because it will take up far too much disk space. I plan on ripping with AnyDVD and converting only the movie to a 5-6 gb file size (suggestions on which freeware? Thinking BD Rebuilder). I know there are a million different ways to do this and I also realize its very subjective based on the individual viewer, but I was just wondering what others are using for settings to get the best picture (1080p?)while maintaining at least 5.1 digital sound in a 5-6GB file size?
    Last edited by redwudz; 14th May 2014 at 13:21. Reason: Title change
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  2. Mod Neophyte Super Moderator redwudz's Avatar
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    ssusca, I changed your title to make it easier for others to find this thread in a search. In the future, please use a title that more describes your subject.

    What I do is rip to my HDD with AnyDVD HD, then convert to a ~ 8GB MKV with AC3 surround audio. I use RipBot264, two pass and set a output size of 7900. This size fits on DL DVD media for backup or Blu-ray media for backup, mainly in case I lose a HDD on my computer.

    I have a 10 foot projector screen and the MKVs look very good. I can also play them back with my WDTV Live or my BD player that's networked.
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  3. Thanks for the input. I'll be sure to try those settings. Does anybody else have any suggestions?
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    Originally Posted by ssusca View Post
    but I was just wondering what others are using for settings to get the best picture (1080p?)while maintaining at least 5.1 digital sound in a 5-6GB file size?
    You're asking a question that can only be answered by a very specific demographic. Replace the 'are using' with 'would use' and you might get more responses.

    (redwudz response wasn't actually valid given your criteria, since he encodes towards 8GB DVDs)

    I know some so-called 'experts' think that there's not enough actual information within most movies to justify a full 1080p picture, so they downsize them to 720p or less. I'm not entirely sure what you're asking actually, if you're not going to filter them then H.264 and AC3 or AAC are the only way to go and how you get there is kind of irrelevant. If you want 5-6GB then 2-pass encoding is the only option. You could encode the sound track using Nero, constant quality and a variable bitrate before you encode the video, just so you can give the video the correct bit-rate to get an exact size. There's probably a similar program for AC3. But really, no settings will make that much difference.

    Are you happy with MKVs or MP4s or do you want to keep it in a Blu Ray structure?

    I'm rambling, because you didn't ask an answerable question.
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  5. I use constant quality settings, since content varies widely in compressibility. To take two movies as an example, I encoded both using Ripbot, constant quality, crf20, default profile/speed, output MKV. The movies are Wall-E and Saving Private Ryan. File sizes are 2.81 and 19.1 GB, respectively. Yes, runtimes are different, but you get the idea.

    File size will be unpredictable, but one generalization can be made: clean animation compresses a helluva lot smaller than grainy film. Those are stark examples, everything else will be all over the place. So I'd say if you encode to a set file size, you'll be under or over-compressing every time.

    Since you say storage space is a consideration, I'd suggest Ripbot and constant quality, crf 18 to 22. Your display size as well as how discerning your eyes are will affect what looks "good enough" to you. Lower crf value yields higher quality/larger file size, but space savings will be substantial within that range. Using one quality setting for all your Blu-Rays assures you that the visual quality will be approx the same each time. I use crf20 for my 70" LED/LCD.

    Anyway, BDRB is certainly faster due to how it's tuned, and with Ripbot you have more control and smaller file size (slower presets yield smaller file sizes in Ripbot, generally). Also, with Ripbot you can convert the Blu-Ray *.sup (subtitle) files to Vobsub format and remux them as selectable. Or hardcode a sub stream, for that matter (useful with forced subs).

    That's one way to do it, at any rate. There is something to be said for encoding to set file size if archiving to optical disc.

    Good luck.
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  6. Thanks Fritzi. That's the type of information I'm looking for. I have been backing up my DVDs for years but I am a noob at ripping blu rays.

    ndjamena, Thanks for the input. I will be streaming the movie only through XMBC, so keeping the blu-ray structure is not important to me, nor is the container. I'm just trying to get the best quality backup, while trying to minimize storage space. If my file size needs to be larger than 6 GB, in order to get a quality backup, then I'll just have to accept that and get more storage space.
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  7. I'd say that with crf20, default presets in Ripbot, the *average* file size is around 8 GB. Average, mind you. CRF22 might get you down to approx 5-6 GB on average. Try and see if that's acceptable.

    Once you figure it out, Ripbot is easy to use. I think the developer (a member here) has a guide. If you want dead simple and don't care about subs BDRB is what you want. And if your computer is slow, BDRB is also faster.
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