Perfect DVD copy with all the menu's but half the file size

[Kozanator]

I've read a few posts on this forum and I think what I'm trying to do is impossible but I guess I'm just looking for confirmation.

I want to copy my DVD Collection to my computer but I want the following to be true:

1) I want the video/audio quality to be the same
2) I still want all special features, Menus, etc to be included
3) I want the file size to be smaller than what was original on the DVD
4) I want to be able to stream the movie to my HDTV somehow.

I was thinking of storing all the movies on my Computer and then streaming them to my PS3 but I don't think that's possible if I want to keep the menus in tacked. So, I guess that forces me to buy a cheap Media Center PC for the Home Theater Room.

Anyway, is there any software that can do points 1, 2 and 3. If so, will I be able to stream that format to my HDTV?

Thanks

[MOVIEGEEK]

Use DVDShrink or buy a bigger HDD.

[nic2k4]

Why a PC? Get a set top box like the Western Digital media player:

http://www.onlybestrated.com//media-player-p-225.html?currency=USD

Check out the rest of that site too.

There are other brands like Markus. Check out NewEgg and TigerDirect.

[Kozanator]

Use DVDShrink or buy a bigger HDD.

So, I guess that means DVD Shrink must use an mpeg4 codec of some kind and then re-packages it back into an iso. If that's the case, than awesome. No lose of quality. I didn't think DVD Shrink could do that. I thought DVD Shrink would decrease the file size at the expense of decreasing the video/audio quality.

Thanks

[Kozanator]

Why a PC? Get a set top box like the Western Digital media player:

http://www.onlybestrated.com//media-player-p-225.html?currency=USD

Check out the rest of that site too.

There are other brands like Markus. Check out NewEgg and TigerDirect.

I looked into that product but couldn't see support for ISO's or streaming ISO's over a gigabit network.

[jman98]

Use DVDShrink or buy a bigger HDD.

So, I guess that means DVD Shrink must use an mpeg4 codec of some kind and then re-packages it back into an iso. If that's the case, than awesome. No lose of quality. I didn't think DVD Shrink could do that. I thought DVD Shrink would decrease the file size at the expense of decreasing the video/audio quality.

Thanks

No, that's not at all how DVD Shrink works. DVD Shrink doesn't touch the audio at all. All it can do is either keep an audio stream intact or remove, but there's no re-encoding. DVD Shrink uses some complicated trickery involving quantization to shrink DVDs in size. Theoretically a video compressed with DVD Shrink should be inferior to the original, but depending on a variety of factors you might not notice much difference if any. DVD Shrink does not use MPEG-4.

You need to understand that any time you convert from one lossy format to another (DVDs are a lossy format, so is everything that could make them smaller) the best you can hope for is it the final result won't look worse than the original source. You could compress your videos using H.264 if you wish and that would basically let you achieve #1 and #3 (if you do it right, you shouldn't notice any difference) but #2 is not achievable. If you use MPEG-2 technology like DVD Shrink you can get #2, but #1 is lost. Your best case scenario is that you can get 3 of your 4 wishes, but all 4.

[MOVIEGEEK]

Expanding on what I wrote earlier:
You have to sacrifice something,you can't reduce a file and expect to keep the same quality.If you want to fulfill all of your demands then you need to get a bigger HDD to store your ISO's.A 1TB HDD can hold ~120 DVD-9's or ~200 DVD-5's.
Here is a similar thread:
https://forum.videohelp.com/topic364313.html

[Kozanator]

Thanks for the clarification,

A little disapointing, but I guess I'll have to buy the extra hard drives. I was hoping I could decrease the size of a DVD ISO from the average of 7Gb to 1.5 GB. I have about 500DVD's which mean I'd need at least 3.5 TB of disk space. Actually I should probably create a raid5 setup just incase a hard-drive fails. I'd hate to go through all that work of ripping DVD's and then loose everything. And... I'd probably want to make extra room for my 50 blu-ray movies and future blu-ray library. Yikes... I'm scaring myself with how much disk space I'm going to need now. Hmmm... I think I'm going to have to look into some good NAS products.

Thanks for all your help even though the truth sucks. I hope in the near future there will be a solution.

[usually_quiet]

Here's something else to think about. As it is, it will take hundreds of hours just to copy your collection onto HDDs. Converting them to a different format would have added considerably to the time required for the project.

[ntscuser]

Thanks for the clarification,

A little disapointing, but I guess I'll have to buy the extra hard drives. I was hoping I could decrease the size of a DVD ISO from the average of 7Gb to 1.5 GB.

Have you considered DivX Ultra?

[Kozanator]

Have you considered DivX Ultra?

I saw someone else mention DivX Ultra in an other post. I went to the divx website and can't find anything about it anymore. I'll look more into divX Ultra later tonight. I hear that it can support menus and chapters. That sounds like it could be a good solution.

Thanks.

[TooLFooL]

1.5 TB HHD's are down to $129 now. We don't need to compress to archive anymore.

[Kozanator]

1.5 TB HHD's are down to $129 now. We don't need to compress to archive anymore.

True, they are a lot cheaper but.... that $129 you speak of is really $520.

1.5TB Hard-Drive x 4 in a Raid 5 Setup = 4.5 TB (or that's about $520 just for the minimum Hard Drive Space Required and a little extra room to grow.)

So, that's why I was trying to figure out a way to compress the Movies without loosing quality and keeping the menus alive.

$129 is cheap but $520 is not.