Not a noob, but looking for a more viable solution

[shirowarrior]

I currently have my own Video-On-Demand system set up here at home, where all my DVD movies have been ripped, recoded to mpeg2's, and stored on NAS server that currently has a storage capacity of approximately 750GB (soon to be upped to approximately 2TB). I use Prismiq media devices to stream movies to one crt tv and one HDTV monitor. Most of the movies were ripped and recoded using DVD::rip on linux, some had to be done on a Windows XP machine using Magic DVDRipper. To maintain as close to DVD quality as possible, I kept the final file sizes around 1.5GB to 2.5GB per movie. I know I can get a better compression, same quality, and a somewhat smaller file size if I recoded the dvd's into avi's, however I was wondering about the H264 format and what the pros and cons of using it as compared to avi's or mpeg2's. I plan on doing away with the prismiq devices over the course of the next several months and possibly using knoppmyth to build a htpc and using that to view the movies on the crt tv and the hdtv. Any input would be greatly appreciated. If this question was specifically answered in another post, I couldn't find it. I looked for 3 days.......wasn't quite sure what to search for.

[aedipuss]

if money's not really a consideration, then i wouldn't be compressing them at all, especially if an HD tv is in the mix. why bother if it's NAS? add more as needed and watch the movies without artifacts. i'd rip them all over again, movie only is my preference, but leave them at whatever they are, 4 - 8GB per flick. i'm not a compressed format fan, i like the color and detail afforded by the originals and full ac-3 6ch. or dts audio.

[shirowarrior]

if money's not really a consideration, then i wouldn't be compressing them at all, especially if an HD tv is in the mix. why bother if it's NAS? add more as needed and watch the movies without artifacts. i'd rip them all over again, movie only is my preference, but leave them at whatever they are, 4 - 8GB per flick. i'm not a compressed format fan, i like the color and detail afforded by the originals and full ac-3 6ch. or dts audio.

After ripping the movie from the dvd, would you recommend leaving them as individual vob files per movies, or as an individual unshrunk mpeg file?

[Ansuer]

After ripping the movie from the dvd, would you recommend leaving them as individual vob files per movies, or as an individual unshrunk mpeg file?

I would highly recommend converting them to XviD, DivX, or x264. There are many great free tools for this, like avisynth and virtualdub. It's easily possible to get the files down to 1/3 of their original size and still have them look great.

[shirowarrior]

After ripping the movie from the dvd, would you recommend leaving them as individual vob files per movies, or as an individual unshrunk mpeg file?

I would highly recommend converting them to XviD, DivX, or x264. There are many great free tools for this, like avisynth and virtualdub. It's easily possible to get the files down to 1/3 of their original size and still have them look great.

I already do that now using Linux. My original post was asking about the pros and cons concerning H264/x264 format. Aedipuss recommended since I am using a NAS server to store all the movies on, that I leave the movies intact, and uncompressed since I have an HDTV as one of the clients accessing the movies.

[shirowarrior]

I just did some checking on my NAS server, and it will not allow individual file sizes over 4GB per file. So if I want to keep it as one file per movie, I will have to compress it somewhat to meet the 4GB limit per file.

[Soopafresh]

You've pretty much answered your question. The choices are

1) Transcode to lower bitrate Mpeg2 (fast transcoding speed, quality might be so-so)

2) Convert to Xvid (good quality, relatively fast encoding speed)

3) Convert to H264 (best resolution for the size. Slowest encoding times)

[FulciLives]

Problem with H264 is that it is DAMN slow. Of course the faster the CPU the better. I pretty much wouldn't do it (H264) unless I had a very fast dual core or maybe even a quad core processor.

I have no idea how many DVD discs you have but what about buying a "jukebox" style DVD player (or two or three etc.) and just play the DVD discs directly. Last time I checked I seem to recall that Sony made a 400 DVD disc jukebox player and I think you can link them together for more than one machine linked to another ... or something like that.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[shirowarrior]

Problem with H264 is that it is DAMN slow. Of course the faster the CPU the better. I pretty much wouldn't do it (H264) unless I had a very fast dual core or maybe even a quad core processor.

I have no idea how many DVD discs you have but what about buying a "jukebox" style DVD player (or two or three etc.) and just play the DVD discs directly. Last time I checked I seem to recall that Sony made a 400 DVD disc jukebox player and I think you can link them together for more than one machine linked to another ... or something like that.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

The set-up I currently have allows me to view a different movie in each room of the house, independent of each other, on regular tv's and a hdtv. I've just been noticing that how I currently rip and recode the movies does great for regular crt type tv's, but on the hdtv some of the flaws are really obvious. I was just looking for a better option to improve the quality all around, for all tv's, without having to have multiple dvd players. I really appreciate the suggestion, though. Thank you.

[Ansuer]

I'd still recommend H264 even though it is brutally slow. I have very powerful encoders and decoders, however, so I leave my hi-def content in it's native resolution.

After all the filters and processing the video's are much better than the original, especially for DVD's and native TV content which are upscaled. File sizes end up being less than 1/3 of the original.