Help reset my expectations - how big the rip will be, time it takes to..

[AndyD]

So I used ClownBD to rip my copy of Hot Fuzz HD DVD - what I wasn't expecting was a 20gb iso. I had browsed the disc before ripping and thought that the large 9gb file would be essentially what I get. I was wrong.

Is that the typical size of a rip without extras and missing audio tracks?

And I guess I realize now that I'm going to have to re encode to cut down on the size. Any recommendations on what to use to re-encode to half the size while still being 1080p or is that too much to ask? Hoping for something like 8gbs

And will keeping only 5.1 audio track still work just as well on a 2.0 setup? I only ask because I see options for both so I want to be sure

[redwudz]

20GB is about average. I've had a few that were as small as 17GB and some up around 30GB. How long the rip takes depends on your BD drive speed. Probably a bit less than an hour with AnyDVD to my HDD.

I just use RipBot and convert to a two pass ~8GB MKV, AC3 6 channel @ 640Kbps. That takes about 5 - 6 hours with a quad core @ 3.4Ghz. I keep the video at 1920 X 1080 progressive.

What format do you want for output? BD or DVD AVCHD or HDD storage?

[AndyD]

Thanks redwudz. I intend on streaming all my rips to a HTPC.

Do you only use Ripbot along with Anydvd to convert to mkv?

And why AC3?

[redwudz]

Depends on the format of the BD for audio. Most I keep in DTS audio format. DTS takes up about 1GB in the MKV, so it is a concern if you need to 'shrink' your BD down below 8GBs. The AC3 file is about half that size. It sounds the same to me.

EDIT: I had checked two MKVs I had made from a BD for the previous post and they showed AC3 audio. But all the rest were DTS.

I don't mind a bit of video quality loss, still looks good to me, especially compared to SD DVDs. And I have the original BDs, so I can play them if I want full quality. But the 8GB MKVs are handy for playback from my servers over my LAN and I also chose that size for easy back up to DL DVD in case of server crashes.

I use RipBot because it works well for me. There may be better methods, haven't really tried them. I occasionally need to use tsMuxeR on some BD discs that RB won't accept directly and most times I rip the BD to the HDD. I have three 500GB HDDs on the computer I use for BD processing. But RB works with most discs ripping directly from the BD drive to RB.