compressing 4gb hd files

[shadowfire36]

i have sveral hd 720p files i would like to make smaller and unaware how. what tools do i need to make a 4gb bdrip into something smaller ? my desired is 1gb or under

[Cornucopia]

More info!
Length, bitrate, destination equipment, reasoning. Maybe time & money budgets.

Scott

[aedipuss]

start over again with the blu-ray disc and choose a smaller bitrate.

[shadowfire36]

length 1:51min--bitrate = 2400 in a mkv... i have 9 machines ... 3 mac, 3 linux(2 ubuntu 1 dragon), 3 windows , but i dont know what software to use to compress it smaller ... windows preferred...money unemployed....i hate files lareger than 1gb and this one is almost 5gb

[jagabo]

file size = bitrate * running time

So use a lower bitrate to get a smaller size.

[shadowfire36]

yea i did that but it looks like crap
im trying to keep it without loss
i use xbmc and vlc player to watch my movies , but man i used avs video converter and the movie looks extremely blocky

[aedipuss]

as you found out you can't reduce the file size by 75% on a file that's already been compressed 75% from the original blu-ray and not expect crap. 4 to 8 GB is about what it takes to maintain decent quality on an HD movie.

[Krispy Kritter]

If it was possible to encode files smaller without loss, Blu-Ray would never have been needed.

Your expectations are unreasonable. It has been and always will be a balance between quality and file size. DVD conversions under 1GB often look bad, I can only imagine how an HD conversion of that size appears.

[jagabo]

as you found out you can't reduce the file size by 75% on a file that's already been compressed 75% from the original blu-ray and not expect crap. 4 to 8 GB is about what it takes to maintain decent quality on an HD movie.

For the OP: If you reduce the frame size you will get less blocky video. But what you're doing is trading off resolution to get less blocks. You'll have to decide for yourself what the best compromise is. For example, a 640x360 will look a lot cleaner at ~600 kbps than 1280x720. But when you view that 640x360 frame on a large screen TV it will be blurry compared to the original 1280x720 source.

[shadowfire36]

can anyone tell me why i lost my subtitles on transfer ?

[Krispy Kritter]

"Transfer" to what? What exactly did you do and with which program?

Most likely, they are soft subs and they weren't selected during your "transfer".

[yoda313]

Most likely, they are soft subs and they weren't selected during your "transfer"

Most likely.

Simply use any muxer tool that supports your converted file and the subtitle file.

To be a 100% about it take the demuxer and demux each file that has your subtitles in it and save the subtitles in a separate folder. Then use the muxer program to remux the converted file with the subtitle to make a new file.

Please note muxing doesn't involve reencoding, its merely copying it into a new container with the subtitle in it (selectable). If you want it hardcoded you would have to reencode the video and "burn" it into the video.

Let us know the format and codec you used in your conversion so we can recommend a muxing program.

Mp4box or mkvtoolnix or mkvmerge are probably the most likely candidates. All have guis so far as I know.

I've done this myself recently using ripbot264. I converted a batch of videos but the batch mode didn't have an obvious way of auto selecting the subtitles in the conversion batch. So I had to extract the subtitles and remux them with the converted files. A bit of a pain but straightforward and doesn't take any time to speak of.

[katipo]

I can't resist adding to the "why would you want further re-compress a 4GB HD rip" especially to "1gb or under" ??

I think one needs to rethink the paradigm of what is an acceptable size for media storage. I know I had to when switching to HiDef, and this is applicable to anyone dealing with HD video for the first time (not just the OP).

e.g. Why do you really need it to be under 1GB? - because it's the size of your memory stick, or is it just an old throwback to the days of CD storage and early DVD rips?

If you want below 1 GB, then stick to SD rips (480p or less). If you want all the advantages of HD - you do an HD rip, which generally means a bare minimum of 4 GB for say a 720p rip (4.36 GB fits nicely on a DVD±R), and approximately double for a 1080p rip (DVD±R DL). If you want a super quality HD rip (> 10GB) then chuck it on a BD-R, problem solved! No need to waste time re-compressing and losing all that terrific HD detail. I sometimes remove extra languages if it's borderline to just fitting on a disc.