Compress bluray

[chrisc983]

I've just begun experimenting backing up some of my bluray movies to my sage server. Picture and sound are great. Only problem is the size of the files. 25GB to 30GB per movie and thats removing the other languages. Is there any way to compress the m2ts file and also not lose too much of the quality??

[chrisc983]

I did more research and found a program call ripbot624 to compress the file. Has anyone else used this program and if so did it work well?

[toony]

Are you wanting to just strip the unwanted audio, video and subtitles out? If so that will get the size down on it's own without compromising the quality of the video. YMMV as there each disc is setup differently.

However if you are wanting to compress the movie it's self, as far as I know there is no one step program to simply convert the movie. There are quite allot of steps and it takes quite a bit of processing power and time. Check out doom9 forums there is more than enough info there to make you brain bleed.

I just stick with tsmuxergui rip out all the unwanted files and keep the bluray as is. It's much faster and with the cost of hard drives these days to save a few gigs isn't worth the work involved in transcoding everything.

[sleonard]

Your time and effort + processing costs are probably more than the amount of hard drive space you'll save.

S

[aflat]

I use ripbpt264, and its dead simple to use, and makes great compressed files. Most of my rips are about 15gigs, and it takes about 3 clicks to get them. The only issue I have is with DTS audio. The Sage HD200 doesn't play the sound on those, so I have to make sure to select the AC3 audio stream, which adds an extra click.

Still its about as 1 click as you can get.

[toony]

Originally Posted by aflat

I use ripbpt264, and its dead simple to use, and makes great compressed files. Most of my rips are about 15gigs, and it takes about 3 clicks to get them. The only issue I have is with DTS audio. The Sage HD200 doesn't play the sound on those, so I have to make sure to select the AC3 audio stream, which adds an extra click.

Still its about as 1 click as you can get.

Just curious how long does ripbpt264 usually take. Last time I looked into transcoding I was well into the 8plus hours... or 16 or something. It was so ridiculous I can't even remember.

[chrisc983]

aflat thats what I'm trying to use right now. Any tips on the settings? So far I had to use eac3to to extract the audio and then I use tsmuxer to remux the AC3 audio file and to remove all other unnecessary audio streams. Then I put that through ripbot264 and I'm currently converting it to .mkv. So far eta is about 4hrs for two passes. Also in your experience how much does it compress the file vs quality? Right now I am using Iron Man as a test and its currently 25.5GB.

[toony]

Don't take this the wrong way, but if your going to compress a Bluray why not just stick with DVD? Personally I don't understand what the point in compressing it is, Yeah it still might be "high Def", but it kinda defeats the point. DVD can quite good and you are saving tons of space.

[SWKerr]

DVDs only have 720x480 resolution while your BluRay Rips can have 1920x1080. I will usually reduce it to 1280x720. Both look better than the DVD except for maybe the animated stuff.

If it is something I want to put in the movie library I want to compress it to save space. I have about 4tb on the WHS but with duplicated folders and backups it doesn't go as far as you would think. I still have space for more drives but some leve of prudent disk management just makes sense to me.

I can reduce the resolution to 1280x720 and compress it to about 3.5-5GB and it will still look and play great on my 42" and 46" screens. I would guess that for some people with larger screens that 720 vs 1080 might be noticeable but I can't see it on mine. I use TSMuxer and MeGui at a bit rate of 4000 for the conversions and although the process will run 12+ hours there is very little effort on my part. The bit rate setting is something you can experiment with and set to your tastes.

I originally settled on 4000 because I was trying to compress to something that would fit on a DVD so I could play it on the xbox360 but over time I decide that anything more was pointless.

[toony]

I suppose you can do that, but this is a matter of personal needs so there is no right or wrong here. I'm on WHS but I don't use duplication, I'm going to implement Flexi Raid.

[aflat]

No need to rip out the audio streams, ripbot264 can do that for you already. I tend to use CQ of 18, which is no real compression at all, but does take all those m2ts streams and compress them into 1 mkv file. Most of the time I get about a 15-20gig file. I used to use CQ 22 which does some compression, and would get between 8-15 gigs, but then I bought a couple of terabyte drives, so no need to comrpees as much. Both compressions still look great. I don't notice much of a difference between the 2, but I never really sat down to find differences either.

As for time, it takes between 2 and 8 hours to convert using a Dual Core 7200, which is a pretty low end dual core. You can queue up a bunch of movies and let it convert until its done, and it sets it as a low priority process, so if something else needs the CPU, it takes it, and ripbot264 will take longer. So it really is a background process being done on a machine that is on all the time anyways. I run it in the background of my Sage server, while streaming 2 HDPVR streams to 2 HD200's with no issues.

Just make sure you don't do your conversions on the same hard drive as your liveTV buffer drive, I did get some studdering then, but I'm using slow drives as well, not sure if they are 5400 or 7200rpm, so a faster drive may help if you have to do that.

[stanger89]

So you're recompressing to save maybe 10-20%, and incuring a (if I read you right) noticable but "not significant" quality loss?

The thing with Blu-ray is, you're usually not recompressing to a better codec, most BDs are H.264 or VC1 already, so every bit you squeeze out, comes directly from the quality/detail of the movie, not from "inefficiencies" in the codec used (like MPEG-2 DVD to H.264).

[Taddeusz]

Quality is a VERY subjective thing. To me the 20-30Mb of BD movies is utterly ridiculous to store on a server for playback. Even though storage is cheap it's not free and it's not going to get you very far trying to store those movies.

I use MeGUI with a CQ of 26 which reduces the movies to about 2.5-7GB with 640Kb AC3 audio depending on content. To me this is not horrible quality and is still better than DVD by leaps and bounds. Even on my 42" 1080p LCD.

And sure it takes time. But the average movie can be processed in a single day.

Maybe when the economy recovers and storage flows from the faucets like water storing a raw BD rip will be a reality. Till then I will trancode my BD movies to a more reasonable size for storage on my server.

[stanger89]

I mean there's nothing wrong with transcoding, let's just not kid ourselves saying there's "no quality loss", especially not when unlike DVD, most BDs are already in the best codec(s) out there.

And definitely if you're talking about an order of magnitude reduction in size and you're happy with the quality, go for it, it makes a lot of sense. I really only question the usefulness if the reduction is only 10-20%, given the time to transcode+lost quality. And for me, if I were unwilling to pony up the space for "raw" BD rips, I'd just not rip them, rather than go half way.

Again, not trying to say re-encoding is bad, it's just I think the false premise that transcoding is "lossless" or "indistinguishable" has beed overused over the years.

[sleonard]

Hard drive space is not free but neither is your time and effort and neither is the processing time during which the PC is dedicated to the task.

Granted, you already have the PC so it doesn't require any additional cash out of your pocket but you still have to wait until the transcode is finished before you can use the PC. (essentially dedicating an entire PC for the duration of the job)

1TB drive are now going for $100. That's 10 cents per Gig. Transcoding a 40 GB BD down to 10 GB saves 30 GB or a measly $3.00.

An extra hour spent at work vs transcoding earns me the money to buy a lot more drive space than that.

S

[SWKerr]

MeGui runs in the background at low priority and I can go about my business while it runs. I have edited HD video while encoding before so to say you can't use your PC is a bogus argument. The only real cost to the encoding is the energy cost to the extra cpu cycles. I doubt that really adds up to much.

I have never actually calculated the cost benefits of compressing it on disk space saving but if it is $3 per movie then thanks, I take it.

To me this is a quality argument. I have already learned that you can not convince an audio and video purist to give up any real or perceived clarity. What I can say with out a doubt is that I can play a highly compressed file on my equipment and not see the difference to the original. If I had the equipment to capture both I am sure I could zero in on a segment of the screen and capture a measure difference but knowing that does not affect my raw analysis of what I see. Part of my lack of enlightenment may be due to the fact that I don't have the money or inclination to buy the highest end equipment on the market but I am never the less very pleased with my current setup.

Oh Ya: For those purist that believe that you can't capture the true essence of the original analog soundtracks on digital and must buy it on an LP. I am laughing at you. I might still buy the LP for the Album artwork but the sound still sucks.

[chrisc983]

Well so far thanks for all your great input. But like most people posting here after doing the first conversion I can't see much of a difference. It still looks a lot better than DVD.

My other question is when I use ripbot do I need to convert the trueHD to AC3 first?? When I first did the conversion not converting the audio it would skip on playback. I am using the HD200.

I am experimenting with it right now using the option to bluray disc and has about 4hrs left. Does this mean that it keeps in the .m2ts format?

[toony]

I don't know, I like to future proof myself. I am sure if I transcoded my collection it would be fine on what I have right now 57" but I know that in the next few years I will be upgrading and when I get closer to the 100"+ range I will be kicking myself for not leaving them as is.

I know that's not everyone's reality but it's mine, and I am a bit of a videophile.

[chrisc983]

So it looks like by choosing the bluray movie button that it does keep it in the bluray folder format which is perfect for me so I don't have to remux it again. 720P looks great. Went from 41GB to 10GB. I'm going to try it with 1080P and see how it looks.

[tmiranda]

I like to transcode to reduce size so I can store more movies on my NAS. If I want to watch with no quality loss I go to the closet, get the original disk, and put it in the player......