Which format & bitrate is better to download for long-term collecting?

[gs684]

Hi everyone,

A few years I started to download my favorite movies and TV shows from streaming services to replace all my old DVD's and even some old VHS tapes. Everything I own is 1080p FHD as most of my stuff isn't available in 4K and much of it either won't be for a long time or may never get to 4K. My goal is to replace my old DVD's and have everything last for the long-term in terms of compatibility years later.

I've been downloading in AVC/H264 because at the time I started, there was still concern over HEVC licensing issues and whether the format will stick around in the future. Now HEVC usage seems to have grown and I'm beginning to reconsider if maybe that's the way to go.

When downloading, I've also gone for the highest available quality, which has usually been around 8-10mbps bitrate. Lately though, I've noticed that much content has become available at around 12-13mbps.

Now I'm beginning to run out of space on my NAS and will have to upgrade soon. While I don't mind upgrading and hard disk space isn't that expensive, I know that eventually I will run out again in the future, and this has made me reconsider my strategy. I would like to ask everyone's opinion as to whether I should switch to storage in HEVC/H265 or keep AVC/H264. Also, do you think 12-13mbps bitrate is noticeably better than 8-10mpbs (for H264 format)? Or should I stick to slightly lower at the 8-10mbps version? Quality is very important to me, but only to the extent that I can actually see the difference.

Thanks for everyone's input.

[CrymanChen]

I also have the same question, since each time I was in a dilemma when I was making a decision about which to choose.

My preference is that as for the shorter ones, AVC is acceptable, while HEVC for the longer ones.

[PhilipG]

HEVC/H265 is great, I use it for re-encoding BBC stuff (after removing the stupid logos in the corner which distract me and damage my screen). I'm not pixel-peeping but the quality is very decent.

If you're ripping your old blus & DVDs, I'd say it is definitely worth redoing them in H265.

OTOH if your (web stream download) source is H264, I wouldn't re-encode it to H265 (but if I did I'd make sure I was "copying" audio).

I bought two SSD 2TB drives. This isn't "enough" but I feel I shouldn't have absolutely everything available at one time (or my life would be spent on this). It certainly is enough for months of viewing. Periodically, recently-watched series can be archived (either to BD-R or a cheap HDD), and replaced with other series I really want to watch. And so it goes on...