Compressing Movies

[Gummy]

I have about 1tb worth of ripped DVDs just in raw format with the audio_ts and video_ts folders, however even with a 4tb hard drive that filled up pretty quick, and then trying to add blu-rays to my collection is brutal with them coming out around 20-30gb a movie. I will take quality over file size any day, but is there a way I can compress these without losing ANY quality, what about a little bit? Downloading a 1080p movie from only for example is around 6gb and looks great to me, is my raw format really that much better? What is a good compressor to use, and at what compression settings, for optimal quality?

[Blake]

Use Handbrake, you can merge the video and audio, and also strip out any foreign audio tracks you don't need. If the result is still too large, you can also look at adjusting the bit-rates etc.

 

Handbrake also has a bunch of pre-set settings for quality based on the device that will be viewing, i.e. 1080p tv 720p tv or iphone, etc

[Tallix]

Just so you know for future reference, directly copying the audio_ts and video_ts folders off of a dvd is generally a bad idea. Movie companies use complicated methods of encryption, scrambling, etc. to avoid pirating and this can cause a computer to treat raw files off of a dvd quite... strangely. That 30 GB per movie that you are getting could be an artificially inflated value in the first place (even for raw video) due to things such as this. Using a lossless ripping method like the one mentioned above will almost always be better.

 

It's the same sort of thing for CDs. Some music CDs use the .cda format for their audio, which isn't able to be played if it isn't on a CD, so you have to rip the audio. Most use .wav files, which are fine to just copy over, but there are still certain advantages to ripping to, for example, FLAC files.

[Gummy]

Use Handbrake, you can merge the video and audio, and also strip out any foreign audio tracks you don't need. If the result is still too large, you can also look at adjusting the bit-rates etc.

 

Handbrake also has a bunch of pre-set settings for quality based on the device that will be viewing, i.e. 1080p tv 720p tv or iphone, etc

I'm not looking to cut down the size too much, most of my library is DVD not blu-ray so even in raw format they are only 6gbs give or take a bit. I'm looking to convert and keep the best quality because it will be viewed on all kinds of devices (The movies are hosted on a server, so anyone on any device can watch them if they are on my network). So what would be the best preset or are there some good tutorials out there that explain the advanced settings and so on. Also is it possible to keep subtitles as a separate file rather than writing them on top of the movie? 

 

Just so you know for future reference, directly copying the audio_ts and video_ts folders off of a dvd is generally a bad idea. Movie companies use complicated methods of encryption, scrambling, etc. to avoid pirating and this can cause a computer to treat raw files off of a dvd quite... strangely. That 30 GB per movie that you are getting could be an artificially inflated value in the first place (even for raw video) due to things such as this. Using a lossless ripping method like the one mentioned above will almost always be better.

 

It's the same sort of thing for CDs. Some music CDs use the .cda format for their audio, which isn't able to be played if it isn't on a CD, so you have to rip the audio. Most use .wav files, which are fine to just copy over, but there are still certain advantages to ripping to, for example, FLAC files.

 

I play everything with VLC and it seems to handle everything well so far, same with XBMC but I will keep this in mind, you'd suggest directly ripping with Handbrake? Isn't that lossy, and not lossless like you say? How can I use handbrake for a lossless rip?

[ionbasa]

I would just use MKV. You'll lose things like the dvd menu, but it does have some lossless compression (very little).

 

Or you could take the folder structure of your movies and just individually compress them in a .ZIP archive if you want to save space. Not sure how efficient it would be, though.

 

Personally, I just have full DVD and BD disk images (ISOs) saved in my NAS. Kodi (XBMC) plays these without a hitch (most of the time). For anything that needs to be transcoded, I just save the main movie to an MKV file.

[Pomfinator]

I play everything with VLC and it seems to handle everything well so far, same with XBMC but I will keep this in mind, you'd suggest directly ripping with Handbrake? Isn't that lossy, and not lossless like you say? How can I use handbrake for a lossless rip?

You can't reduce the size of an already lossy source with lossless compression, at least not anything really noticeable.  The only way you can reduce the size of the video is to reencode it.

[Blake]

I'm not looking to cut down the size too much, most of my library is DVD not blu-ray so even in raw format they are only 6gbs give or take a bit. I'm looking to convert and keep the best quality because it will be viewed on all kinds of devices (The movies are hosted on a server, so anyone on any device can watch them if they are on my network). So what would be the best preset or are there some good tutorials out there that explain the advanced settings and so on. Also is it possible to keep subtitles as a separate file rather than writing them on top of the movie? 

google, and the built in help tell you everything you need to know. With the subtitles, there is a tab for that. to keep the subtitles separate, just make sure you don't click the burn subtitles check box, as that will add them into the video stream. MKV is just a container, which will hold the audio, video and subtitles (think of it like a folder that explorer cannot open).

 

For movies/audio lossy versus lossless doesn't look to be a big deal for you, you're writing once and reading multiple times. The writing is where you lose the quality.

 

With regards to cutting out audio tracks I purely mean the tracks that you will never use, i.e. assuming English is your native tongue, why do you need to keep the Russian audio? you will find that a lot of these languages have a 2.0 and a 5/7.1 surround track, simply not needed (unless it is a foreign film where the dub sucks -> redcliff parts 1 and 2). for the video stream, I would leave it alone. Sure you can increase the bitrate above the source, but this wont do a thing for your quality, as handbrake cannot add quality, it can maintain the same quality however, look in the help file for the settings.

[dalekphalm]

I have about 1tb worth of ripped DVDs just in raw format with the audio_ts and video_ts folders, however even with a 4tb hard drive that filled up pretty quick, and then trying to add blu-rays to my collection is brutal with them coming out around 20-30gb a movie. I will take quality over file size any day, but is there a way I can compress these without losing ANY quality, what about a little bit? Downloading a 1080p movie from only for example is around 6gb and looks great to me, is my raw format really that much better? What is a good compressor to use, and at what compression settings, for optimal quality?

If you want to compress the file size, you will lose quality. There's no such thing as "Lossless compression" when it comes to DVD rips.

 

WITH THAT IN MIND, there is such a thing as "no perceptible quality loss", meaning that while there is some quality loss, it's very hard to visually detect.

 

I suggest you do the following:

1. Download and install MakeMKV - http://www.makemkv.com/download/- this program allows you to rip a DVD or Blu-Ray directly to an uncompressed MKV File, and allows you to choose which Subtitles and Audio Tracks get ripped along with it

2. Rip the DVD to your HDD using MakeMKV - http://www.makemkv.com/onlinehelp/

3. Download and install Handbrake - https://handbrake.fr/downloads.php- this program allows you to compress the file, you can also control things like how much compression, subtitles, etc.

4. Encode the ripped file into an MKV format. Choose an "RF" setting of around 20. Make sure deinterlacing is ON (DVD's are Interlaced). Select the x264 codec. Make sure that you pass through any Audio Tracks and Subtitles that you selected in MakeMKV. Wait for the process to be finished, and enjoy. All chapters, audio tracks, and subtitles should be preserved.

 

This will save you a sizable amount of HDD space per movie file.