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Simple Software for Batch Encoding Video Files to Save Space

Dr. Will0hlep
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At the moment I have quite a large collection of ripped TV shows and Films, but space is starting to become an issue. So, I've been considering the idea of encoding all of it to a more efficent format. However,

  1. I have no idea what software would be good for encoding an entire directory of files: any recommendations?
  2. I have very little idea about video codecs: I'm thinking h265? - as I understand it, if I encoded the files to AV1, the 2060 in my Jellyfin server wouldn't be able to transcode them, as it dosn't support AV1. Also, from what I've heard AV1 encoding is quite slow.
  3. I have no idea about what bitrates make sense: is the best option here just trial and error?

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1. ffmpeg

2. just target a specific container (.mp4, .avi, .mov, whatever your server can play)

3. that depends on the display you'll use to view them and the quality you'd be willing to trade for the sake of lower file size. if you want 4K, minimum bitrate should be 30Mbps for 30FPS and 100Mbps for 60FPS

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Software: I think Handbrake can do batch conversion but I haven't used it much, so I'm not really familiar with it to that level.

 

What format are the videos currently in? H.264 or even older? Each codec generation (to H.265, then to AV1) provides some gain in data size reduction per visual quality. So if I were to do something similar, I'd aim for AV1 even if it means getting new hardware. Personally reencoding will result in quality loss so something I'd avoid. Maybe another disk, depending on pricing. Don't know what used pricing options on RDNA3, Arc, Ada (or newer) are like, but they all have AV1 encoders. Intel CPUs with Xe graphics could do AV1 decode so depending on the CPU used, that could be a path.

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1 hour ago, Thomas53 said:

Handbrake is at it's core simply a GUI front end for ffmpeg.

GUI are good I hate commands 🙂

Clever buggers will be along later to help until then ya stuck with me 🙂

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