Putting it all together...

[Jon.G]

I'm trying to take all the various knowledge from dvd, bluray, video conversion, and all that, and just put it together into what we should be doing for the future of video storage and playback.

As I see it, as we move further into the future, we are moving further and further from physical media. In the world of audio, it's simple enough....if you want to store your CDs on the network, it's easy to rip them to flac, which allows network storage of your music collection at CD quality. Flac also allows for the flexibility of various qualities....you can use it for different bitdepths and sample rates, and different channel configurations, which means that not only can your CD collection go to flac, but your dvd-audio collection can be ripped to flac as well, and if you can find a device that does 5.1 surround sound of flac gaplessly, you have the perfect solution for moving away from discs and physical media.

I now want to take this to the next step, and go this route with video.

Now then, ripping dvd to mpg is simple enough. But, I've been left with a few questions.

I know that often it's common to compress .mpg to something else, such as .avi. I know that .avi is a very vague thing, there are many compressions and formats for .avi. I'm wondering if there's a video equivalent to .flac, that is, lossless compression to keep dvd quality video, without having to keep huge .mpg files. Or is it just .mpg is the way to go if you want to keep things at dvd quality?

Also, it is quite common for there to be multiple soundtracks on a dvd. Now, in many cases it's just identical soundtrack in multiple formats, I see no need to keep both a dts and dolby digital 5.1 soundtrack, when clearly the dts is the superior, so ditch the dolby, and stick with the dts. But, then you have your stereo track. When dealing with something such as a dvd of music videos, which has the original stereo mix of the songs in the stereo track, plus 5.1 surround sound on the dts, one that is an audio nut would probably want to preserve both stereo and multichannel mixes. Or then you also have audio commentaries on dvds. So, if you really want to preserve all content from the dvd to a digital file, ripping to digital file with multiple audio tracks seems to be a must. Otherwise you have to rip multiple versions of the same thing, which would mean wasting space on ripping the same video content more than once. Is there a file format that allows this? dvd quality (not near dvd quality or like dvd quality, I mean no data thrown away) with multiple soundtracks?

The format should also be able to handle high def, to be able to do the same with bluray. And should be able to handle different audio formats.


Has technology not caught up to me yet, or does all this still need to be put together? Because, certainly, with today's technology, all of this should be possible, it's just a matter of whether or not something has already been developed that does all of this.

[Baldrick]

Nope, no lossless conversion to make them smaller. And you can't really compare with CDs that are uncompressed while a dvd is already compresssed.

But I don't think dvds are that huge. 4-8GB is small when you soon can buy a 1TB flash drive...

[Jon.G]

Ok....what about .mpg with multiple soundtrack, is that possible?

[Cornucopia]

I'm trying to take all the various knowledge from dvd, bluray, video conversion, and all that, and just put it together into what we should be doing for the future of video storage and playback.

As I see it, as we move further into the future, we are moving further and further from physical media. In the world of audio, it's simple enough....if you want to store your CDs on the network, it's easy to rip them to flac, which allows network storage of your music collection at CD quality. Flac also allows for the flexibility of various qualities....you can use it for different bitdepths and sample rates, and different channel configurations, which means that not only can your CD collection go to flac, but your dvd-audio collection can be ripped to flac as well, and if you can find a device that does 5.1 surround sound of flac gaplessly, you have the perfect solution for moving away from discs and physical media.

I now want to take this to the next step, and go this route with video.

Now then, ripping dvd to mpg is simple enough. But, I've been left with a few questions.

I know that often it's common to compress .mpg to something else, such as .avi. I know that .avi is a very vague thing, there are many compressions and formats for .avi. I'm wondering if there's a video equivalent to .flac, that is, lossless compression to keep dvd quality video, without having to keep huge .mpg files. Or is it just .mpg is the way to go if you want to keep things at dvd quality?

Also, it is quite common for there to be multiple soundtracks on a dvd. Now, in many cases it's just identical soundtrack in multiple formats, I see no need to keep both a dts and dolby digital 5.1 soundtrack, when clearly the dts is the superior, so ditch the dolby, and stick with the dts. But, then you have your stereo track. When dealing with something such as a dvd of music videos, which has the original stereo mix of the songs in the stereo track, plus 5.1 surround sound on the dts, one that is an audio nut would probably want to preserve both stereo and multichannel mixes. Or then you also have audio commentaries on dvds. So, if you really want to preserve all content from the dvd to a digital file, ripping to digital file with multiple audio tracks seems to be a must. Otherwise you have to rip multiple versions of the same thing, which would mean wasting space on ripping the same video content more than once. Is there a file format that allows this? dvd quality (not near dvd quality or like dvd quality, I mean no data thrown away) with multiple soundtracks?

The format should also be able to handle high def, to be able to do the same with bluray. And should be able to handle different audio formats.


Has technology not caught up to me yet, or does all this still need to be put together? Because, certainly, with today's technology, all of this should be possible, it's just a matter of whether or not something has already been developed that does all of this.

I'm going to posit a different perspective.

First, until at least 1, if not 2, generations have passed, Physical media as a form of getting and keeping IP (intellectual property) will still be commonplace, even if it is no longer the dominant form. People just don't give up on old habits that quickly. Think of the "resurgence" of LP sales in the last 15 years (not a huge amount, granted, but not enough to ignore either). There are plenty of old folks that are still trying to make do with VHS (going to close-out sales, garage sales & flea markets, etc) - at least until their players die.

Second, the IP has to reside somewhere unless you were to resort to pure VOD/streaming (which you wouldn't do with personal/family material anyway). But it's clear to me that this plays into the hands of the greedy producers who would have everything be "for rent only". Or PPV, if you like. If we are all attached to the umbilical of media corporations for our entertainment needs survival, our passivity will allow them to call all the shots, to the detriment of quality and variety.

Ok, so you don't want to go that route. Then you must have some form of storage.

So let's say you get everything you purchase as a downloadable file. You now have to store it. You can do so either via local hard drive/flash drive, or network/cloud storage, or even via optical disc. If you use HDD (whether single drive or RAID or NAS/SAN), you will need to have a backup that is separate from the HDD in order to guarantee the safety of your data. That means either MORE HDDs or backing up to optical disc or network/cloud. If you use the cloud, either as a main point of storage or as a backup, you incur a penalty of speed. Download speeds may be enough for realtime playback, but upload speeds will likely be 1/10th of that - not enough to do in realtime. Plus, you have the possible loss of capability should the internet connection be down. And then there's the fact that you don't OWN the storage that your stuff is residing on. This opens up a whole can of worms regarding both payment, ownership, control & privacy.
If that sounds like not such a good option after all, you can get HDDs as backups. This is good (3x cheaper than optical media per GB, and faster access time) (though that figure was pre-HD cost increases of 2012) unless you consider that you are "putting all your eggs in just a few baskets". Plus, you have to have a device that reads/writes in the format (FAT/FAT32/exFAT/NTFS...) as well as the interface (USB2/USB3/Firewire/SATA/PATA/SCSI/Thunderbolt...) in order to access the data. "Universal/General" media players are more common now, but still far from ubiquitous. Longevity of optical vs. magnetic media slightly favors optical, even though both are problematic. Nothing's perfect, but you still have to choose something. You don't currently want to try flash media as it is still way more expensive per MB than any alternative (plus there is still the matter of access form). Hmmm, so that can still leave optical media as a backup.
Well, if you are going to back up you media to optical discs, why not already have them ORIGINATE on optical media in an ALREADY COMPATIBLE format (that also has compatible format access)? There is nothing stopping one from transferring the data to home (or cloud) servers for general usage, keeping the optical media that they came on as the backups themselves. There might even be a time savings when it comes to transfer (sneakernet does have its place).

Also, as a plea to get out from under the clutches of "THE MAN", it makes sense to use the current physical media formats (4 of which - AudioCD, DVD-Video, DVD-Audio, BDMV - have had their CP bypassed, allowing less restricted personal use). There is no such guarantee for VOD/Downloadables.

Just a thought...

With that in mind, I will now directly answer your questions:

1. Flac - Good alternative when storage is a problem and when opensource format is preferred. However, it is not nearly as common as it should be, making it still not viable for LOTs of people (particularly regarding sharing - though one can always convert from lossless, there is a space/time penalty). All the "features" mentioned about Flac are available with standard LPCM WAV or AIFF files (multiple bitdepths, channels, samplerates). If the 2GB/4GB limit is a problem with standard WAV, there is the option of W64, though that would seem to be the only area where Flac would probably still have superiority.
2. Audio is different from video in that Video is always "richer" in raw data, and always therefore costs about 10-1000x what it costs audio (in terms of size/bitrate). This will always be the case. Therefore, one cannot simply use lossless storage (as a consumer) for video. It's just too big! True uncompressed SD video alone is 270Mbps. That makes your average SD movie ~237GB (just for the video stream alone). HD video would be 4x-8x larger than that. I'm sure you wouldn't want to use up your brand new 3+TB HDD just to store 2-4 movies! (and lossless compression of this hasn't really greatly improved in efficiency; it's still only ~2.5:1 at the best of times).
So, lossy compression will be with us for a long time. Yes, it's good to be MORE EFFICIENT, but for compatibility (and universal sharability), you want to stick to the standards. That's MPEG2 (e.g. from VOBs) or h.264 (e.g. from M2TS files). Yes, you can re-mux them into new containers (you surely don't want to re-convert them and lose a generation of quality), but that would only be necessary for particularly strict media player requirements (many will take them as-is).
3. If multiple soundtracks, menu options, etc are part of your requirement, why not just make an ISO discimage of the data from the physical disc and use a media player that plays ISOs?
BTW, ALL formats can handle HD material (with the possible exception of RealMedia). I can verify that AVI, MKV, WMV, MOV, MP4, M2TS/MTS, MPEG-PS/VOB, MXF/GXF, and even MPEG1 can handle HD material. It's really a matter of what YOUR PLAYER(s) can understand & handle. If ISO isn't your bag, and the original format isn't either, you should WORK BACKWARD from what you CAN use (via reading your players' manuals) to get to what you need to make. These days, that often means AVI, MP4 or MKV, though none of these is by any means universal. I would suggest that you DO NOT re-convert the V+A streams at all unless your player specifically requires it.
4. Depending on the bitrate chosen, AC3 is neither more nor less compressed (and therefore neither more nor less quality) than DTS. They each have their pros & cons, and neither is really more efficient than the other. It's a unique case every time that should be analysed and compared prior to making any decision to remove streams (if such a decision has to be made a all).

To summarize: Nothing is universal yet (and probably never will be). You are getting ahead of yourself (not the industry). Figure out WHAT you really want to do with your collection, first. and Physical Media still has (and hopefully after my rant, always should have) an important place in most consumers' collections.

Scott

[Jon.G]

See, the thing is, when I rip .iso to hard drive, I'm just emulating physical media. Which I'm trying to get away from. I'm not quite at the place where I really want to purchase downloads, this is more for storage. I still like purchasing physical media, especially as used physical media gets cheaper and cheaper, and a physical disc acts as a great backup to what I rip. Of course, I am thinking down the road about having a large raid array, plus backing up to either another hard drive or optical media of some sort. to have redundancies and backups in the file storage setup. It has been my experience, and mind you I am quite an audio nut, that the compression of dolby digital is normally quite more than the compression of dts. Plus, dts 2496 coming into play makes it an easy choice when going up against dolby digital. Of course, there is still the element of mastering, certainly the possibility exists for a disc to have an ac3 and dts that were mastered differently, resulting in a better sounding ac3, one should still review before ripping, but as a general rule, I'm thinking dts is going to win out more frequently.

I still say flac is the answer for audio, not as common place as it should be, but in my opinion that needs to be the direction we are moving towards. It is the obvious choice for audio, and what I rip all my audio to.

What I really want is central storage of all of my physical media, that doesn't unnecessarily emulate something that it doesn't need to be.

I suppose .iso is the best easy solution to have bit for bit online content. But, I just see things moving in the direction that, if we could get multi-soundtrack on an mpg, it would make more sense to rip to that, and have storage done that way. No unnecessary menu navigation, all your content is at your fingertips, easy to access, available to import and convert to other things for other uses, easy to cue up in playlists....


I may be getting ahead of myself, but I think I'm also way ahead of the industry, which is still stuck in the mode of wanting to control us all, not really fully understanding the content they are selling, just understanding business and making money. Not that making money is unimportant, but losing sight of the products they are actually selling is certainly costing them. Just look at what a joke the music industry is these days. And that they think it is acceptable to adopt a standard that is of lesser quality than the CD, which itself is outdated as far as sound quality goes, shows just how out of touch the suits calling the shots are.

[Cornucopia]

Flac is only "obvious" to YOU if you have players that can play it easily. It's certainly not obvious to everyone else (much as I'd like it to be). If it already works for you and you don't do lots of sharing with others, nor intend to change your playback setup, you're fine and can continue happily.

As a seasoned sound engineer, I can tell you what you've been comparing is apples vs. oranges with DTS vs. AC3. Usually because the DTS track is given way more bitrate. Or the samplerate/bitdepth is better (or both). Assuming the compression matches it, there is probably no comparison. But a 5.1 track at 754kbps DTS vs. the same 5.1 track at 640kbps AC3 is very hard to tell apart.

You CAN easily get multiple tracks in an MPG-PS or an MPG-TS, or an AVI or MP4 or an MKV or an MOV. They're all built with the capability for multiple tracks of audio (or even video!). If you need tools to do this, let me know and I'll point you in the direction of them. Difficulties start arising when ancilliary data (like subs or menus or chapters) start being required, and format options stop being consistent.

Get used to it: the industry will ALWAYS be slower than media enthusiasts would like it to be. They are reactive, not proactive.

BTW, I don't consider well-made CD audio to ever be outdated in terms of quality. Sure it could get better (surround/binaural/vr, higher bitdepths & samplerates). But that's a bonus; it doesn't negate the great stuff that's often more quality than many can perceive.

Scott

[poisondeathray]

I still say flac is the answer for audio, not as common place as it should be, but in my opinion that needs to be the direction we are moving towards. It is the obvious choice for audio, and what I rip all my audio to.

For uncompressed audio, maybe.

To reiterate what baldrick said : you can't compared compressed vs. uncompressed source (either video or audio)

For audio: Flac is huge in size compared to compressed audio . e.g. if you start with some itunes aac, lossy AC3 audio, etc.. and convert it to flac, the filesize will balloon. However if you start with uncompressed lpcm, then flac will reduce the size.

Same thing for lossless video compression. Yes , there are lossless video compression codecs analogous to flac for audio eg. lagarith, huffyuv, ut video codec, ffv1, many others. Many of them are not suitable for realtime playback at HD unless you have a very fast setup, they are more suitable for archival purposes . Filesize will be much larger than the the original MPEG2 video. Lossless compression is measured compared to uncompressed video or audio, not the compressed versions

if we could get multi-soundtrack on an mpg, it would make more sense to rip to that, and have storage done that way.

A popular container is MKV. It can store many tracks, subs, etc... Many devices have support for MKV now, including some blu-ray players, media players like WTDV, asus oplay etc...



TO summarize, for lossy video & audio, leave it as is (perhaps put it into a new container like MKV or transport stream). For uncompressed video & audio (you won't find uncompressed video via typical distribution channels), it might appropriate to use lossless compression like flac for audio, and something for video. But there can be compatibility issues that Scott mentioned above . For Lossless HD audio, I typically leave it as is (e.g. DTS-MA , TrueHD, from blu-ray)

[El Heggunte]

.............
Is there a file format that allows this? dvd quality (not near dvd quality or like dvd quality, I mean no data thrown away) with multiple soundtracks?

The format should also be able to handle high def, to be able to do the same with bluray. And should be able to handle different audio formats.

You have various options --- MPG (a.k.a. program stream), TS, MKV, AVI, MP4/MOV. All of these containers do support several video and audio streams at the same time. Regarding MPG especifically, you just need to find a decent and comprehensive multiplexing application (such as mplex, for example).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_container_formats

[Jon.G]

Please elaborate on mplex, what it is, how to obtain it, and how to use it to create an mpeg with multiple audio programs. Of course, this raises the question of playback of an mpg with multiple audio tracks, and navigating it.....I may need to check out what mkv can do as well.....is there a good resource on mkv? Can I create an mkv that consists of the original mpg.....I want to maintain the same quality as I extracted from the dvd, I don't want to add any additional process like re-encoding or anything like that....

I know there's lots of information out there, I just can't seem to find quite exactly what I'm looking for.

[Kerry56]

Getting an mkv with the same quality as the original dvd is quite simple. MakeMKV will do this, and it can also decrypt commercial dvds for you. It can also decrypt and rip blu ray.

[Cornucopia]

Imago is a good mpeg ps muxer that can do multiple channels of audio. (There are others: TMPGEnc, Manzanita)

Scott

[manono]

I want to maintain the same quality as I extracted from the dvd

Then keep the DVD, at the same time removing things you don't want (logos, warnings, audio and/or subtitle streams, extras, etc.). Something wrong with that? There's no need to try and get fancy just for the sake of getting fancy.

[Jon.G]

Hmmm....none of these options seem to allow me to create separate video files with alternate audio tracks without altering the audio. Imago looked interesting, but will only add compressed audio. Like....see, I've got the flaming lips dvd-a discs, and I've got the videos dvd.

I guess for most applications, the basics in ripping to .mpg or mkv would work out. If I just want to extract a movie, extract it to an mpg...extract the extras....good to go. If it has a commentary, multiple audio mpg. Although.....can the chapters be brought into the mpg as well? I guess I do want to hold onto some aspects of the physical media when it comes to movies, to be able to easily navigate.....blah......

....nevermind, unless you have some thoughts to add to that....

....I guess what is clear is my focus is mainly audio, and what has really drawn me into this is when we get to the music video dvds, which I would like to store in an audio type of way, rip out tracks, and store them like I store flacs, but they have video added....

And then I wanna combine the best of everything. For example, the Flaming Lips videos dvd is cool, in that it has 5.1 surround for all tracks, plus stereo, plus commentary. But, it's all crappy lossy ac3. Bleh....didn't even bother to give us DTS. Meanwhile, tracks from The Soft Bulletin, Yoshimi, and Mystics, I have in glorious hi-res 5.1 and stereo. My goal in this case would be to combine the video experience with the hi-res experience, without having to author a bluray disc, and basically just create something that emulates a bluray disc, since I'm not planning on going to a physical medium anyways.

I mean, why should I have to settle for no video when enjoying hi-res, and compromised audio when watching the videos?

So, yes, it'll take some editing and work to take the .flacs I ripped from my dvd-a discs, and time them out to be able to sync up with the video from the dvd, add or subtract a little silence at the end and/or beginning, and hope that things don't drive, but apply a small amount of pitch shift if I do get a drift to make the hi-res audio match the timing of the video.....but once I have extracted video, and hi res audio that times out right.....how could I combine them into a file that has the untouched mpg video from the dvd to preserve the quality, and the hi-res audio?

There's got to be technology to allow this, without basically having to author it to an image of a physical disc, complete with menus and such....how ridiculous it is the only solution I can seem to find is to make a new file that emulates physical media, when I just want to store this on a network.

[robjv1]

I don't think you'll find any format that is going to support combining FLAC tracks with various types of MPEG2/MPEG4 video (or uncompressed versions for that matter, if they actually existed or were created from compressed versions). At this point, I imagine it could be done by a custom built player or some kind of scripting system, but I don't think software exists to allow it all to be combined in one neat package.

The FLAC audio tracks can be converted to PCM WAV files though, which are compatible with DVD-VIDEO and BR standards, so why fight it if you can play it back over a network with thousands of programs that support DVD-VIDEO and the like? You don't have to be married to a disc and you can make a menuless version, but still retain the ability to switch between multiple audio tracks.

Since everything you'll use except the FLACs (which can be converted with no quality loss) is within either the DVD or BR spec, then it's really your best option at this point. Otherwise I guess you can hold onto the raw materials until something comes along that gets more at what you're looking for.

For DVD/BR though, all you'll need is a NLE of some kind to do that sort of editing. It's really not that hard to do these days with frame-accurate NLEs. Depending on the formats you are working with, there are lots of options. For DVD based video sources, Womble's MPEG Video Wizard is a simple and easy one to use. You simply import your MPEG2 tracks in and your remastered audio files, throw them on the timeline and synch them up. If you need to do your audio adjustments while you're editing it all together, you'll need something with more audio capabilities as MPVW is pretty light on those types of features, but really it's the domain of a dedicated audio program to begin with. Once you get the timing all synched up you can export it with no re-encoding at all. If you don't want a DVD, then don't author it -- just leave it as a MPEG2 file. I did a somewhat similar project with a film I liked that has come out on various formats, combining audio commentaries from two different releases (DVD and laser disc), along with the best video and audio tracks available for the movie, plus some rare extras from a VHS release. It came together nicely -- no re-encoding required to either the audio or video. You don't have to keep it as an ISO -- you can tear it apart and re-author it into something with your own menus (or no menus) and the like.

If you're more set on having a "FLAC" for video than actually having something you can enjoy and use -- then Huffuv or Lagarith are your options, but at DVD resolutions and 4:2:2 YUY2 you're talking ~27 to 30 gigs an hour. You could always store that for the future and use the DVD / BR originals in the meantime, but you'll need deep pockets for the hard drive / cloud space required.

[Jon.G]

I'm not married to flac, I can deal with .wav pairing with the mpg....it's just that I want to stay away from any lossy compression on the audio, which means flac or wav. When it comes to dvd, you can't do 5.1 hi res wav, the best you can do for 5.1 is dts 2496, which is lossy. This is why dvd-a was created, to allow hi res audio on a dvd disc, but you get no video that way. So, really, bluray is the only way to do it. Which just seems silly that we're still tied to physical media, whether it means an actual disc or emulating a disc, to do all the things that the technology is capable of. Someone needs to create a better container that is more flexible, and it needs to become universal. Audio has flac.....what does video have? You just don't have it yet for video, it just hasn't all quite come together yet it seems.

Ah well, it's been a thought provoking thread, thanks for all the info, I have taken in some of this knowledge, and downloaded some programs to add to my tool box.

[robjv1]

Well, Huffyuv and Lagarith are ostensibly FLAC for video -- they are lossless compression schemes that greatly reduce the filesize required to store lossless video (uncompressed RGB video is more like 70 to 100 gigs an hour at 720x480 instead of 30). Just like FLAC though, they have no inherit functionality, unlike a DVD or BR stream might. As you said, you're looking for a dynamic container that doesn't exist.

I guess your best bet at this point is just to keep all of your raw materials together until something like that comes along.

[El Heggunte]

Please elaborate on mplex, what it is, how to obtain it, and how to use it to create an mpeg with multiple audio programs. Of course, this raises the question of playback of an mpg with multiple audio tracks, and navigating it.....I may need to check out what mkv can do as well.....is there a good resource on mkv? Can I create an mkv that consists of the original mpg.....I want to maintain the same quality as I extracted from the dvd, I don't want to add any additional process like re-encoding or anything like that....

I know there's lots of information out there, I just can't seem to find quite exactly what I'm looking for.

Hmmm, it seems the Force is extremely weak with you.

OK, mplex is part of the MJPEG Tools bundle

( http://sourceforge.net/projects/mjpeg/files/mjpegtools/2.0.0/mjpegtools-2.0.0-mingw-bi...r.bz2/download ). AFAIK, dvdauthor uses it, therefore it supports even LPCM and DTS audio.

Regarding the Matroska container, just download and use MKVtoolnix. Since 2010 IIRC, mkvmerge no longer has bugs when dealing with interlaced MPEG-2. And if you want to try the MP4 container, MP4Box still is the only freeware tool which accepts MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 video so far. For muxing to transport streams, go with TSmuxerGUI.

Every decent media player software can playback multitrack AVIs / MKVs / MP4s / M2TSs correctly. With or without the help from the LAV filters, MPC-HC, PotPlayer and ZoomPlayer normally work fine. I cannot say the same about the infamous Windows Media Player though.

[Hoser Rob]

Not surprised you can't seem to find quite exactly what you're looking for either. You're kind of all over the place there. And you do not know where to start.

I agree that physical media is going to die. This stuff about vinyl coming back is mostly noise created in a vain attempt at pproduct differentiation. I've been hearing it for 20 years. When I see LPs for sale in Walmart I'll believe it.

And LPs weren't abandoned because customers didn't want them anymore. Most people were quite happy with vinyl. It was retailers who wanted CDs. Most record stores were in malls. Paying rent by the square foot. Ditching LPs for CDs means you can move the store into another location in the same mall with half the floor space. Which is exactly what they did.

So it's not like the customer is always right.

However, I really don't see why you want to go to this much bother. Have you ever actually looked up mplex in a search engine? Why do people who know nothing expect knowledgeable users to explain everything to them in detail? It's a command line linux utility, and the stuff it's been ported to in windows doesn't really look that easy to use either.

To reiterate a previous point, why don't you just get a nice big Hdd and simply rip (not reencode) the movie from your dvd to a video_ts folder? No loss of quality, you can keep the audio or subs you want. Just open the folder with any decent software player.

Like el heggunte said, that does not include windows media player. I don't really understand why microsoft media software is so wretchedly bad. But it is. In fact it's kind of like Norton security software. An indicator that the user doesn't know what he or she is doing.

[Moontrash]

for me this is one of those "on the fence" issues. I can go both ways on an opinion but for me I look at blank dvd media. It's been around a solid 10 years and it's still around. Slowly in the last year or 2 physical media is thinning out compared to large hdd sales. I'll say what I've said before...if you wanna take the chance of your hdd dying with hundreds of titles on it...be my guest. I have dvd media with all kinds of data on em from 10 years ago and they read and play fine. I've yet to see a 1tb or larger hdd been around that long and with moderate use...last. In fact, hdd's have not been my friend. I've lost 4 or 5 in the last 5 years.

That being said, for storage in terms of "physical" space, blank media will only make sense if you use blank BDr's because if you use blank dvd's...your looking at a pile of discs over time because of the limited storage capacity. This is were hdd's have an advantage. Using BDr's you can pile close to 6 dvd-r size files on a disc...that's almost 6 to 1 space savings. Obviously you wanna get the best media possible for long lasting and that's Verbatim but another issue is...will blu ray drives still be around in 10 years to read these data discs?

it really comes down to how comfortable you feel with the reliability of large storage hdd's or if you would rather use up some physical space and store your stuff on blank media (preferably BDr's).

oh yeah...also..if you have the money to proceed with the project

[_Al_]

John.G. - I seem to be lost here, what are you trying to achieve? Seriously I do not understand.

If DVD, BD is ripped and then muxed into some container , while dropping streams that are not needed then mkv (with VC1, mpeg2,H.264, AC3, DTS+MA, TrueHD+AC3 and other formats can be in it ...) or m2ts will suffice or even mpg for DVD's. No Uncompressed, lossless is needed, it will not make that movie better.

For CD's why not to have flac or wav, sure.

[poisondeathray]

John.G. - I seem to be lost here, what are you trying to achieve? Seriously I do not understand.

If DVD, BD is ripped and then muxed into some container , while dropping streams that are not needed then mkv (with VC1, mpeg2,H.264, AC3, DTS+MA, TrueHD+AC3 and other formats can be in it ...) or m2ts will suffice or even mpg for DVD's. No Uncompressed, lossless is needed, it will not make that movie better.

For CD's why not to have flac or wav, sure.

Exactly; lossless video will only make it (much) larger because you're starting from lossy compressed video

To add - mkv can hold your beloved flac as well, and you can use chapters

It doesn't support menus (like DVD/blu-ray) - that's one reason I can think of NOT going this way. The other is the compatibility issues you might have (although as mentioned earlier many devices support MKV now, even BD players from disc or USB attached storage)

[robjv1]

Not directed at anyone in particular or the original OP -- but I don't really understand why so many people argue against the use of DVD-Rs on the point of the physical space they take up. I can understand the argument against them from many other viewpoints, but that one is odd to me.

Yes, it's true that other storage methods (such as a large hard drive) takes up a lot less space (ignoring the fact that if you want access to all of the drives at the same time that you need a large computer/NAS), but DVDs can lay flat and stacked upon each other in a spindle, so you can still store a ton of DVDs in a very compact space without causing undue harm to the discs. It's an issue, but overall it seems like a minor one.

[Jon.G]

Ok, here are some observations and thoughts here....

I've figured out that using vob2mpg does in fact allow me to rip .mpg files that contain multiple audio programs. This is handy.

However, pairing flac and mpg video, not possible. No biggie.

So, that left me with the question of, how to pair high res multi-channel audio to .mpg without lossy compression?

And, now I'm thinking.....well, certainly bluray can hold dvd quality .mpg, and bluray can hold dts-ma audio, which is lossless high res.

So, in theory, if I were to create a bluray disc, using the dvd quality .mpg video, and alternate audio options of highres .wav stere, and highres 5.1 dts-ma.....in theory, I should somehow be able to extract that back out to an .mpg with those 2 audio options.

Of course, the question is.....can I create that without having to deal with the creating of a bluray to extract it from?


I'm looking for a versatile, flexible, program that will allow me to combine .mpg video and audio sources into one .mpg file, without re-encoding or re-rendering anything. The end result is doable, I'm just looking for the easy process to create it.

[poisondeathray]

Ok, here are some observations and thoughts here....

I've figured out that using vob2mpg does in fact allow me to rip .mpg files that contain multiple audio programs. This is handy.

However, pairing flac and mpg video, not possible. No biggie.

So, that left me with the question of, how to pair high res multi-channel audio to .mpg without lossy compression?

And, now I'm thinking.....well, certainly bluray can hold dvd quality .mpg, and bluray can hold dts-ma audio, which is lossless high res.

So, in theory, if I were to create a bluray disc, using the dvd quality .mpg video, and alternate audio options of highres .wav stere, and highres 5.1 dts-ma.....in theory, I should somehow be able to extract that back out to an .mpg with those 2 audio options.

Of course, the question is.....can I create that without having to deal with the creating of a bluray to extract it from?


I'm looking for a versatile, flexible, program that will allow me to combine .mpg video and audio sources into one .mpg file, without re-encoding or re-rendering anything. The end result is doable, I'm just looking for the easy process to create it.

mkv is the most versatile container, you have the most options

bluray is made up of a transport stream (but doesn't support flac, or several other compression types that mkv supports), also the overhead is about 6-7% larger than mkv container

.ts, .m2ts, .mts => these are mpeg2 transport streams (it's called "mpeg2 transport stream", but it can hold other compression types like VC-1, MPEG2, or h.264 )

.mpeg , .mpg is a mpeg2 program stream . (it's called "mpeg2 program stream", but it can hold h.264 as well, but DVD's will always use MPEG2 video). When you demux it, you are left with elementary video (.m2v) and elmentary audio. You can place those audio & video streams into various containers like mkv, .m2ts etc...

The problem with what you suggest muxing and demuxing a blu-ray, you're not left with mpeg2 program stream. You're left with elmentary audio & video , not mpeg2 program stream (.mpg) . ie. if you were able to multiplex into mpeg2-ps in the first place, there would be no reason to make a blu-ray in the first place on ly to demux it later

[Jon.G]

I see....I haven't dealt much with bluray extracting, so my (wrong) assumptions would be that it would be similar to dvd extracting.

Ok....what's the best program for authoring mkv in the ways I describe?

[poisondeathray]

I see....I haven't dealt much with bluray extracting, so my (wrong) assumptions would be that it would be similar to dvd extracting.

In that respect, blu-ray is analogous to DVD. DVD uses mpeg2 program stream, blu-ray uses transport stream. When you demux either, you're left with elementary streams

But you probably meant something different with "DVD extracting". Demuxing means taking it out of the container so you're left with elementary and accessory streams

Ok....what's the best program for authoring mkv in the ways I describe?

mkvtoolnix . You can add as many streams as you want. When you demux a dvd, you're left with elementary video + all other streams, you can just add which ones you want back in (maybe you only want 2 specific tracks, but discard the others), or add from other sources, flac , etc... whatever you want . Same thing for blu-ray, often there are many audio tracks, and you might not want to include them all

If you're starting with a DVD you can also use some GUI's like makemkv (mentioned above)


When you demux audio or video , there is no quality loss. When you put those streams into another container, there is no quality loss. Think of it as putting those streams into 1 "box" and then moving them to another "box". The underlying streams are the same quality. However, when you re-encode with a lossy format, the quality changes