Hello, new guy here! After reading alot on this forum and especially a couple of the guides, I have been able to backup my Blu Rays to my computer for streaming to my PS3. I have even been re-encoding VC-1 files to .264 so they are compatible with the PS3. So far I have just been leaving the .mt2s files thier original sizes and when encoding VC-1 to .264 I have been trying to match the original file size so I don't lose quality. My question is what bitrate would you recommend for my backups? Most of the guides deal with shrinking the video to fit on another optical disk (BR-25, DVD5/9), but I have no need to burn the movies to disks. Quality is my primary concern as I watch movies on a fairly large 1080p TV. However, I wouldn't mind saving hard drive space if there is a lower bitrate that wouldn't sacrifice quality. Perhaps you might even have an encoding recommendation to make my .vob files from my DVD backups smaller too. Thanks for the help Jason
I don't have a console, but the only thing I could suggest is to download Ryu77's MEGUI x264 profiles. He has written some Blu-ray profiles which give the bitrates & go from there. I don't know where the profiles themselves are on this site, but if you download a version of MeGUI he setup for someone else, they are in the profiles' folder. Here it is. Just access them from the 'configure' button on the MeGUI interface as normal.
I am using Ryu77's profiles, but the way I understand it is you have to choose your bitrate (directly affects the size of the output file). Or is there some automatic bitrate in the profile if I don't set it myself?
Having just looked at Ryu77's profiles inside MeGUI, ALL his Blu-ray ones have the same bitrate: 15000, this compares to his DVD5/DVD9 transcodes of 8000. As you aren't worried about working to a specific filesize, I would say use either his Blu-ray high quality, or very high quality: depending on how long you are prepared to wait for a transcode: ie. how much grunt your machine has.
Yeah, 15000 is about what makes the output file size match the input file size. What I want to know is, if there is a bitrate that will reduce the file size (to save storage space) but not have a noticeable affect on the quality of the video that I watch.
To save space and keep the picture pristine use 8000kb/s, guarantee you will not notice any difference. If you have an external HDD there is a way to watch movies without recoding, regardless of audio or video codec. If you are interested let me know... however if you are only interested in streaming then you will need to recode to h264... and transcode to AC3 (or LPCM).
Thanks for the recommendations, I will try at 8000kb/s. By the way, where do you find more profiles in MeGui? I only see one Ryu77 Blu-Ray profile. Also, are there any good profiles for DVD encoding? I assume there is more to the profiles than just bitrate settings. At this point I am only want to stream the video, but I would be interested in hearing your idea with the external HDD. My computer is pretty fast, it took a little over 8 hours to encode a 2:31 movie (The Departed) from VC-1 to h264 using the Ryu77 profile at about 15000kb/s, so it finishes overnight. Not bad I think.
Here's the whole MeGUI package, complete with all of Ryu77's profiles, filters, and extras. When you say DVD profiles, are talking about converting BD to standard def DVD, or DVD to DVD... or full BD to high def content on a DVD? MeGUI is generally for converting to h264. With the external HDD method it only takes about 1/2 from rip to watching the movie. With this method you can keep VC-1, DTS HD-MA, TrueHD, as many streams, subs (not hardcoded). Let me know if you're interested and I'll point you to some links and instructions.
Thanks for the full package it has quite a bit more that the one I was using. I there a description anywhere of what each profile does? Regarding my DVD question, it may be the wrong subforum. I was refering to my DVD rips (.vob files) and possibly encoding them to h264. Hopefully to save more storage space, emphasis on quality again. If you can post a link to the external HDD method I would like to learn about it. Does it involve AVCHDMe?
You could always use MeGUI for DVDs, as well. There is an encoder setting for DVD rips in Ryu77's MeGUI package. Haven't used it myself, so don't know what it's like.
Yes it does, if you already know about this then that's half the battle. AVCHDMe AVCHD Manager You can also use MeGUI to encode your DVD rips to h264 and compress up to 75% without sacrificing perceivable quality loss, however I haven't experimented with DVD to h264 yet. You may want to try DVD rebuilder to compess and keep the DVD structure.
