Best Quality vs. File Size Video Codecs?

EmeraldFlame · November 21, 2015

So I currently have a pretty large library that is a mixture of Blu-Ray, DVD, and downloaded media (mostly x264 video) and simply for archival purposes I'm looking to transcode these to x265 since it seems to be giving equivalent quality to x264 in many cases at much smaller file sizes. I'm using handbrake to rip/transcode most of these and wanted to kind of pick everyone's brains on what your preferred settings are for the video and audio streams.

Currently, I have quality set to a constant with a level of 20, which is the handbrake default. Will I see significantly better video by going to like a 15 or 10, or is 20 kind of like the equivalent of 256/320 mp3's where the quality above that can make a difference but is generally unnoticeable?

Also, what is everyone recommending for 5.1 audio? Currently I'm going with a 384kbps AAC file. From what I read on the handbrake wiki, that seems to be what they recommend, does anyone have thoughts/feelings on that?

techguru · November 21, 2015

So I currently have a pretty large library that is a mixture of Blu-Ray, DVD, and downloaded media (mostly x264 video) and simply for archival purposes I'm looking to transcode these to x265 since it seems to be giving equivalent quality to x264 in many cases at much smaller file sizes. I'm using handbrake to rip/transcode most of these and wanted to kind of pick everyone's brains on what your preferred settings are for the video and audio streams.

Currently, I have quality set to a constant with a level of 20, which is the handbrake default. Will I see significantly better video by going to like a 15 or 10, or is 20 kind of like the equivalent of 256/320 mp3's where the quality above that can make a difference but is generally unnoticeable?

Also, what is everyone recommending for 5.1 audio? Currently I'm going with a 384kbps AAC file. From what I read on the handbrake wiki, that seems to be what they recommend, does anyone have thoughts/feelings on that?

getting the files a bit smaller will only help a bit

you really need to do 1 of 2 things

start burning off your movies to dvdr or getting a large nas

EmeraldFlame · November 21, 2015

getting the files a bit smaller will only help a bit

you really need to do 1 of 2 things

start burning off your movies to dvdr or getting a large nas

I already have a home server with plenty enough storage. I simply want to transcode most of my media because x265 is pretty much showing that it is just simply a more efficient codec and I have the processing downtime to do so, so I might as well. Just trying to dial my settings in for high quality without going into placebo levels of quality. That's why I asked in the fashion I did, thanks for ignoring the questions.

techguru · November 21, 2015

I already have a home server with plenty enough storage. I simply want to transcode most of my media because x265 is pretty much showing that it is just simply a more efficient codec and I have the processing downtime to do so, so I might as well. Just trying to dial my settings in for high quality without going into placebo levels of quality. That's why I asked in the fashion I did, thanks for ignoring the questions.

That's why I asked in the fashion I did, thanks for ignoring the questions....no problem

ONLY you can tell what settings you prefer

just encode 30 seconds and see what settings you like

and personally I would be using megui