Need help deciding how to store moves on me home LAN

[nzdreamer55]

Hello everyone,

I've got a HTPC set up and am using a network drive for storing my DVD collection (or at least that is what I want to do). Since I own these movies I am interested in storing them in a digital format that won't take as much space as the original DVD does and also will maintain a relative normal look when played on a LCD TV ~ 42 inches. I would also like to do as little manipulation as needed as I have a lot of disc to rip to my LAN drive. My goal is to get some good compression without losing much and to make the ripping process as pain free as possible. I would be able to use commercial software as long as it was less than $80.

Thanks for your opinion

Steve

[jagabo]

DVDFab + Xvid4PSP. Make x264+AC3 in MKV. Free. Easy. Good quality. Not so fast though.

[nzdreamer55]

Thanks jagabro

DVDFab + Xvid4PSP

So what format would you recommend they be converted to (mp4, avi, wav,)?

What is the Xvid4PSP for?

Steve

[jagabo]

DVDFab to rip (decrypt the DVD and copy its contents to the hard drive), Xvid4PSP to compress the video with x264 and save as an MKV file. That will cut the size in half or less with very little loss of quality (you can pick the quality you want).

[redwudz]

Xvid4PSP can convert a VIDEO_TS folder from a DVD to MKV format with small file size and still very good quality. DVDFab is just to decrypt the DVD and rip it to your hard drive. Size varies by the DVD, but is usually less than two gigabytes. The downside is it takes a bit of time, but try one out with your setup to see how it works out for you.

I've been using MKV format, 'x264 Q21 DXVA-SD-HQ F' with the audio set on 'Copy' to preserve the 5.1 surround audio.

[nzdreamer55]

Thanks red!

I'll give those settings a try. Is there a way to batch process them?

Steve

[jagabo]

Regarding the settings in Xvid4PSP:

The Q value determines the quality. The lower Q used the higher the quality (and larger the file). So Q18 will give you better quality than Q22.

Using the DXVA (DirectX Video Acceleration) presets guarantees compatibility with hardware decoding by the computer's graphics card (GPU). Some of the other presets may cause problems for GPU decoding and require CPU decoding (and a fast, multicore CPU).

The HQ, HQS, and Insane settings determine how much time the encoder spends looking for the best compression. The more time it spends the smaller the resulting file will be.

For best picture quality from DVD sources enable Settings -> Global Settings -> Misc -> Maintain Anamorphic Aspect. Some players may have problems (showing the video with an incorrect aspect ratio) with this setting though.