Prefered Video Compression/Resolution (divx, 480p, 720p, 1080p)

[lcdguy]

personally i prefer the raw rips with no compression other than the one on the original source media. (ie: iso files and m2ts)

[Arinoth]

Wait 720p content is even more storage space for movies...bah... i had seen some around 4GB and thought that wasn't 'that' bad, but 10GB for one movie, that really limits the number you can have...

[lcdguy]

Originally Posted by Arinoth

Wait 720p content is even more storage space for movies...bah... i had seen some around 4GB and thought that wasn't 'that' bad, but 10GB for one movie, that really limits the number you can have...

your only limited by the number of HDD you have. and with enclosures from the likes or norco or super micro and with increasing hdd capacity it's not really a big issue. (my WHS box for example could have a max storage 20TB 10TB if Folder Duplication is enabled and no need for an expensive Raid controller.) Your average DVD rip for the movie is usually in the 3.5 to 8GB file. blu-ray is around 35-50GB (i think my avatar blu-ray came out to around 47GB in m2ts form.)

[Arinoth]

Well right now i am limited to 2 1.5TB hard drive due to case limitations and well funds.

[lowfat]

Originally Posted by lcdguy

Your average DVD rip for the movie is usually in the 3.5 to 8GB file. blu-ray is around 35-50GB (i think my avatar blu-ray came out to around 47GB in m2ts form.)

Maybe if you leave all the menus are crap they will be that big. A good h.264 rip of a DVD can easily be under 2GB for most movies. And considering that DVD's use a lossy MPEG2 encoding originally, moving to h.264 you will lose very little quality when using proper strong h.264 settings.

Most blurays are around 20GB once the menus and other languages are removed. Very few are above 30GB. Out of the hundreds of blurays I've ripped I think I had maybe 3 of them that were over.

[Arinoth]

So what do you think its the best resolution vs space it takes up for me?

[lowfat]

It really is up to you. Personally I can't stand watching low quality 350p rips. If you don't mind the quality then by all means go for them.

[Arinoth]

Well i definitely want to move up from 350p rips, especially for movies, tv shows i dont care as much.

720p will then be what size? They the 4GB stuff i see or whats that? (not talking about dvd rip/iso)

[ipaine]

I say your best bet would be 720p. I myself use 720 for TV and mostly 1080p for movies.

As for the size, I have never seen a 720p movie ripped that was 15GB, that is way too big of a file size for 720p. As it is 1080p rips can vary but as an example, Avatar is 19.5GB, while Me, Myself, & Irene is 12GB. Don't get me wrong you can always have larger sizes, but I just don't see the point, unless you are going lossless. I know that the bitrate of my Avatar rip is 15.5Mbps and most of mine are 10-12Mbps average.

The 720p stuff I have would range from about 4 to about 9GB. For TV, a good quality rip will be around 1-1.3GB for a hour long show and about 500-600MB for 30 minute shows. An example is I have the first season of Big Bang Theory and it is just under 10GB for the full season 17 episodes). Then again I also have some other TV episodes that are 720p and 2.3GB each.

The thing is they can all vary quite a bit, but for you I think 720p is the way to go. It is absolutely better than 480p or anything else lower.

[Arinoth]

I think thats what i am going to go for movies. For TV shows there are just too many especially since i archive seasons to put to 720p, plus its not as noticable in a 'lower production' tv show versus the big screen movies.

I'm finding some 720p stuff ranging from 2.2GB up to 10GB. Would lowering the audio rate have that much of an effect on the file size?