Converting video folder to MP4

[AWSHO]

I have a lot of video folders on a lot of hard drives accumulated over many years. I have a program (VideoProc Convertor AI) to convert my video folders to HEVC MP4 files.

I am curious of the thoughts from the professionals on this site of doing this. Doing this primarily to save a whole lot of hard drive space. I am understanding that any loss of video quality will be nominal. Mostly all the video folders are from original copies of DVD's.

Any thoughts or suggestions are appreciated. Thank you all in advance.

[jagabo]

If you have mostly older files the are likely to be lower resolutions. The biggest benefits of HEVC (over AVC) don't really kick in until you get up to 4K frame sizes. DVD is MPEG 2 but at 720x480 frame sizes. HEVC can get smaller sizes but it has to be done right. In my opinion it's a waste of time and energy when you can get a 4TB external hard drive for US$100. Or 8TB drives for less than US$150.

[AWSHO]

Thanks for your thoughts. Probably a good time to update the files to a better resolution. Something to do when as I am retired.

[jagabo]

Every media player or TV upscales during playback. Quality varies, of course, from poor to adequate. Upscaling yourself from DVD usually isn't worth the time and effort. At best you get a bigger files with a bigger frame with sharp edges but no detail between them. Cartoons can be upscaled pretty well (because they're all sharp edges with no detail between them to start with) but with real world film/video people look like mannequins. You'd be much better off getting real high definition video (Blu-ray?) if those are available.