Compressing Video Files for Plex?? Help

[AMD Lover]

So I've been using Handbrake to compress my video files after ripping onto my server. There has got to be a faster option however.... Using Handbrake on every episode in a season takes forever.

 

Thanks guys

 

[Ashiella]

"Every episode in a season" Anime?? Hehehe.

 

butwhycompress...

[DieselWeasel]

I use MediaCoder x64 - for free you can create a batch of 50 but you'll have to solve some equations every few videos. For 10AUD you get rid of them for a month. There is a premium version (around 180AUD I think that lets you transcode 4k and bigger batches)

 

EDIT: 

and a nice thing is if every video is in it's own folder you can just drag and drop all the folders and it'll find the files itself.

[AMD Lover]

3 hours ago, Ashiella said:

butwhycompress...

The only reason I compress is mainly to get it in the right codec. I agree with you that there's not a huge space savings to be had while retaining quality.

[Ashiella]

3 minutes ago, AMD Lover said:

The only reason I compress is mainly to get it in the right codec. I agree with you that there's not a huge space savings to be had while retaining quality.

I mean, most of my files are in mkv format, but knowing how to make them mp4 would be helpful without a loss in quality... (size isnt the problem) so if you know how, dm me.

[AMD Lover]

1 hour ago, Ashiella said:

I mean, most of my files are in mkv format, but knowing how to make them mp4 would be helpful without a loss in quality... (size isnt the problem) so if you know how, dm me.

You can do it with Handbrake but you run into the same problem of it taking an ungodly amount of time.

[Ashiella]

40 minutes ago, AMD Lover said:

You can do it with Handbrake but you run into the same problem of it taking an ungodly amount of time.

13000 passmark/ 931cb x5650 + gtx 580?

[AshleyAshes]

On 24/01/2018 at 2:01 PM, AMD Lover said:

The only reason I compress is mainly to get it in the right codec. I agree with you that there's not a huge space savings to be had while retaining quality.

Exactly what codec do you need?  Even if you Remux from a Blu-Ray the compression will be boring old 8bit h.264 (I mean I guess SOME used VP-9 and MPEG-2, but you don't even see those anymore) and DVDs are MPEG-2.  Most toasters can decode that.

[anothertom]

Try MPEG Streamclip, it's free and can create batch jobs with no size limit. Also has very good codec support.

[Strayan_Hades]

I sadly I can only suggest upgrade your motherboard and cpu.

 

Because sadly encoding no matter what software you use results from the power of the CPU.

 

Believe me I understand the insanity of encoding a file that takes nearly a entire 8 hours. Im also running an i7 4770k and it drives me insane.

 

The way i tackled this was just to put up with Plex's trancoding from the orignal source.

 

It's really a hard decision which works out better for you. Cost vs Time.

 

Also what ripping software you using?

 

hope this is helpful.

 

 

 

[kirashi]

On 1/24/2018 at 11:01 AM, AMD Lover said:

The only reason I compress is mainly to get it in the right codec. I agree with you that there's not a huge space savings to be had while retaining quality.

Ummmm.... isn't this literally what Plex is supposed to do on-the-fly for every device your stream content to from the Plex server?...

[AMD Lover]

On 1/27/2018 at 11:51 PM, kirashi said:

Ummmm.... isn't this literally what Plex is supposed to do on-the-fly for every device your stream content to from the Plex server?...

That's what I thought but it ends up streaming really choppy. I have the settings at make my cpu hurt, that maybe why my stream is choppy but I thought it would make the quality better.

[AshleyAshes]

6 hours ago, AMD Lover said:

That's what I thought but it ends up streaming really choppy. I have the settings at make my cpu hurt, that maybe why my stream is choppy but I thought it would make the quality better.

Maybe you should detail the media files you're playing, the server's hardware and the client's hardware before you try to transcode your ENTIRE media library....

[kirashi]

12 hours ago, AMD Lover said:

That's what I thought but it ends up streaming really choppy. I have the settings at make my cpu hurt, that maybe why my stream is choppy but I thought it would make the quality better.

Choppy streaming could be a variety of things: the CPU, the storage drives, or more likely, your wireless network being unable to handle the quality Plex is trying to stream at. You'll definitely want to check each of the variables listed above before you go re-encoding your entire library, since that would defeat the purpose of even using Plex.

[dalekphalm]

On 2018-01-24 at 10:10 AM, AMD Lover said:

So I've been using Handbrake to compress my video files after ripping onto my server. There has got to be a faster option however.... Using Handbrake on every episode in a season takes forever.

 

Thanks guys

 

Just as an FYI, handbrake has a very robust batch queue feature. Prep a file in handbrake, and instead of starting it,

just add it to the batch. Rinse and repeat. Let the batch run overnight. 

[AMD Lover]

On 1/29/2018 at 7:57 PM, AshleyAshes said:

Maybe you should detail the media files you're playing, the server's hardware and the client's hardware before you try to transcode your ENTIRE media library....

 

On 1/30/2018 at 1:00 AM, kirashi said:

Choppy streaming could be a variety of things: the CPU, the storage drives, or more likely, your wireless network being unable to handle the quality Plex is trying to stream at. You'll definitely want to check each of the variables listed above before you go re-encoding your entire library, since that would defeat the purpose of even using Plex.

Did a little messing around. Plex transcodes all my movies just fine without first compressing them in Handbrake. I don't know what my problem was the first time around but I had high CPU usage and the stream was choppy. That was on a different computer with different hardware as well. The new Plex application is on a dedicated server now and it's not having any problems so I would say it was a hardware issue. Also the answer @kirashi's question my wireless is fairly robust. I use Ubiquiti, got an AC-AP-PRO and it handles things very well.