File size

[tdiguy 89]

So, the new emby stable now supports converting to hevc. Looking it up i thought for sure this would mean a reduction in file size.

However after converting a movie it has doubled in size. The movie previously was a h264 at 618mb. I had emby convert it to hevc and it is now 1.2gb.

What am i missing here? everything i read online says that hevc should provide better compression to the tune of 40-60% compared to h264.

[Luke 24287]

what quality did you select?

[tdiguy 89]

what quality did you select?

Its at the very bottom, 1.5.

[ebr 10385]

I don't really know for sure but there may be some minimum limits here.  Reducing the size of a 618MB video file is not really what HEVC would be designed for.  More for reducing the size of a 60GB one...

[Luke 24287]

We'd have to go over an example. Thanks.

[tdiguy 89]

Ok, it seems that that for some reason having hardware acceleration makes a big differance. I turned it off and now its down to 334mb

[tdiguy 89]

Well, this might take a day or 2 but i am converting one of my libraries over to hevc. Its current size is 153gb. I will try to remember to come back and post the folder size after converting over to hevc. 

So far the compression seems to be holding to the 40-60% reduction in size. It is however taking much longer to switch to hevc. My normal use of 3 cores was normally going along at a 3x rate, for the 2 movies it had completed .8 has been the average.

Its probably going to take weeks to convert everything to hevc. However if this reduces the file size by at least 40% this will mean i wont need to increase my storage for probably a year maybe 2. It will also mean i might be able to fit multiple movies on a cheap thumb drive.

Edited November 26, 2019 by tdiguy

[tdiguy 89]

There is more bang for your buck for larger files for sure, but even on smaller files there is a noticable difference between h264 and hevc my library is only 9% done and it has shrunk from 153gb to 147gb. Since its only at 9% i imagine once complete it will be significantly smaller.

Where this really makes a difference though is streaming, its not really a issue on a LAN network that is gig full duplex or better from server to endpoint during normal playback. However if you FF and rewind or seek a lot you can see the little bit of buffering. This is reduced even more if your media is in hevc format. After all smaller file less to transmit. Course this is primarily if your device also supports hevc natively, which thankfully for me the old mi box 3 does support. 

[Luke 24287]

Conversion log?

[tdiguy 89]

Conversion log?

This is a log with hardware acceleration turned off.

 

I have a conversion program for my laptop also which is a far beefier machine than the server. It seems hevc is just brutal on processing power. Even my laptop converts at only 1.5x running full steam with hardware acceleration turned on.

So, its going to take somewhere in the neighborhood of forever to convert my library. It will save a lot of space though. 

conversion.txt

[Spaceboy 1424]

What size is your drive that you are worried about 150gb? Seems mental to me to be going through all that effort for such little gain when drives are so cheap these days, 8tb for c100 $ or £ on Black Friday. And I see absolutely no indication of buffering on my install, coming up to 150tb of storage now

[Luke 24287]

This is a log with hardware acceleration turned off.

 

I have a conversion program for my laptop also which is a far beefier machine than the server. It seems hevc is just brutal on processing power. Even my laptop converts at only 1.5x running full steam with hardware acceleration turned on.

So, its going to take somewhere in the neighborhood of forever to convert my library. It will save a lot of space though.

 

Is this an example of something that was larger than expected?

[tdiguy 89]

Is this an example of something that was larger than expected?

Sorry no. I have since stopped using hardware acceleration. I can generate an example will take a minute.

[tdiguy 89]

What size is your drive that you are worried about 150gb? Seems mental to me to be going through all that effort for such little gain when drives are so cheap these days, 8tb for c100 $ or £ on Black Friday. And I see absolutely no indication of buffering on my install, coming up to 150tb of storage now

Maybe if i was still single and had a disposable income. The price of that 8tb hard drive you listed is almost half the cost of my entire rig. I will also guarantee you will see buffering if you seek to the half way point of a movie right after starting it. It would be impossible not to unless your server can instantly shove the entire movie down the pipe at startup.

Also, why do you think my drive is 150gb? 

Edited November 28, 2019 by tdiguy

[Spaceboy 1424]

Maybe if i was still single and had a disposable income. The price of that 8tb hard drive you listed is almost half the cost of my entire rig. I will also guarantee you will see buffering if you seek to the half way point of a movie right after starting it. It would be impossible not to unless your server can instantly shove the entire movie down the pipe at startup.

Also, why do you think my drive is 150gb?

im impressed you have a setup working for less than $200.

 

Second question, you said

 

There is more bang for your buck for larger files for sure, but even on smaller files there is a noticable difference between h264 and hevc my library is only 9% done and it has shrunk from 153gb to 147gb.

 

I’m not having a go, I just think there’s a bit of a fallacy when it comes to conversion, which is also not free with your pc drawing additional power for days/weeks on end to do this. For me quality is king these days and I always try and obtain the highest quality for any single media file I want to keep for ever.

 

I’m not really sure I understand why you are starting a movie at the beginning and then seeking to the middle either? If I select a chapter roughly in the middle of the movie it starts immediately whether that’s a 1gb file it a 100gb file. Unless you are talking about transcoding, which I also never do. Everything, even remotely, is played direct from the original file

[tdiguy 89]

Is this an example of something that was larger than expected?

Ok, this is an example of a conversion with hardware acceleration on. converting to hevc. I will also run this same file with hardware acceleration off for comparison.

bad-conversion.txt

[tdiguy 89]

im impressed you have a setup working for less than $200.

 

Second question, you said

 

There is more bang for your buck for larger files for sure, but even on smaller files there is a noticable difference between h264 and hevc my library is only 9% done and it has shrunk from 153gb to 147gb.

 

I’m not having a go, I just think there’s a bit of a fallacy when it comes to conversion, which is also not free with your pc drawing additional power for days/weeks on end to do this. For me quality is king these days and I always try and obtain the highest quality for any single media file I want to keep for ever.

 

I’m not really sure I understand why you are starting a movie at the beginning and then seeking to the middle either? If I select a chapter roughly in the middle of the movie it starts immediately whether that’s a 1gb file it a 100gb file. Unless you are talking about transcoding, which I also never do. Everything, even remotely, is played direct from the original file

Its amazing what can be done with how little if planned out a bit. A little technical know how and a little research and your money can go very far. I could have set up my rig with a pi if not for needing live tv. 

The reason to seek to the middle of a movie after starting it is simple, to compare the differance in buffering. The less data the server has to transmit to get playable content to the client the less buffering will be needed. This will also change how fast a movie can be started up when you hit play. Its normally not much especially on the lan but I am all for anything that makes it less.

I am not sure if these conversions really do anything to the quality.

[tdiguy 89]

This is an example of the conversion going well. I kept all the settings the same except for hardware acceleration, it is off for this one.

good-conver.txt

[tdiguy 89]

Anyway, its turkey day today. Dont spend any time on this today please its curious to me but that is about all, i have a work around by just turning hardware acceleration off.

[Spaceboy 1424]

 

 

The reason to seek to the middle of a movie after starting it is simple, to compare the differance in buffering. The less data the server has to transmit to get playable content to the client the less buffering will be needed. This will also change how fast a movie can be started up when you hit play. Its normally not much especially on the lan but I am all for anything that makes it less.

but again, you seem to be doing this to prove a point rather than its how a normal person would use it.

 

And from my testing (i'm currently on the other side of the world from my server) it takes no longer to start a file that is 29Gb in size from time =0 than it does to start the same movies from the middle using a chapter or resume marker. so i don't really understand the point

 

I am not sure if these conversions really do anything to the quality.

 

well then with all due respect you must be old or sitting a long way from your tv. a) it stands to reason that of course quality is reduced when the file size is reduced, its not packed with air i can tell you from my own testing that i have never seen a conversion that i have been truly happy with in terms of quality. the drop may vary from very slight to quite significant but i've never had a conversion i've been 100% happy with. I tried to do exactly what you are doing last year, couldnt find a way of converting that i was happy with. thought about it for a while and decided that given we are headed to larger and larger screens there was just no point in converting given the cheapness of HD space, the cost of conversion (if you have one of those smart plugs that can report power usage its very interesting to watch how much more is consumed by the cpu running at 100% for extended periods of time is, i did this) and the loss of quality on conversion

Edited November 28, 2019 by Spaceboy

[tdiguy 89]

but again, you seem to be doing this to prove a point rather than its how a normal person would use it.

 

And from my testing (i'm currently on the other side of the world from my server) it takes no longer to start a file that is 29Gb in size from time =0 than it does to start the same movies from the middle using a chapter or resume marker. so i don't really understand the point

 

 

well then with all due respect you must be old or sitting a long way from your tv. a) it stands to reason that of course quality is reduced when the file size is reduced, its not packed with air i can tell you from my own testing that i have never seen a conversion that i have been truly happy with in terms of quality. the drop may vary from very slight to quite significant but i've never had a conversion i've been 100% happy with. I tried to do exactly what you are doing last year, couldnt find a way of converting that i was happy with. thought about it for a while and decided that given we are headed to larger and larger screens there was just no point in converting given the cheapness of HD space, the cost of conversion (if you have one of those smart plugs that can report power usage its very interesting to watch how much more is consumed by the cpu running at 100% for extended periods of time is, i did this) and the loss of quality on conversion

Not as old as you might think, but I do know a few things about encryption and compression along with file formats. Not exactly a guru when it comes to video and audio. However i do know especially in the computing world there are many ways to represent data, some take far less room than others. Then there is also the human limitation. Fact is when talking 1080 most people wont notice a pixel or 5 that are out of place, dead or incorrect there has to be pretty large problems for someone to notice unless someone is staring and looking for an issue at the screen and there is no real motion or change of scenary. I suspect your notice of quality is likely the placebo effect, or bad configuration. The science behind all this basically says you have to be far closer than what most people are to get un-noticable quality differance. Scroll down to the bottom to see the chart: https://www.forbes.com/sites/kevinmurnane/2017/11/01/when-a-4k-tv-looks-just-like-a-1080p-tv/#34752dd24db7 if you have a 75 inch 4k tv you need to be under 5 feet from it to get full benefit. I doubt anyone with a tv that big sits that close hell would the whole tv even be in your field of vision?

[tdiguy 89]

Also, i am still using those incredibly "underpowered" mi box 3 devices which now that emby made some corrections a while back can now direct play live tv without issue. Funny that hu?

[Spaceboy 1424]

Not as old as you might think, but I do know a few things about encryption and compression along with file formats. Not exactly a guru when it comes to video and audio. However i do know especially in the computing world there are many ways to represent data, some take far less room than others. Then there is also the human limitation. Fact is when talking 1080 most people wont notice a pixel or 5 that are out of place, dead or incorrect there has to be pretty large problems for someone to notice unless someone is staring and looking for an issue at the screen and there is no real motion or change of scenary. I suspect your notice of quality is likely the placebo effect, or bad configuration. The science behind all this basically says you have to be far closer than what most people are to get un-noticable quality differance. Scroll down to the bottom to see the chart: https://www.forbes.com/sites/kevinmurnane/2017/11/01/when-a-4k-tv-looks-just-like-a-1080p-tv/#34752dd24db7 if you have a 75 inch 4k tv you need to be under 5 feet from it to get full benefit. I doubt anyone with a tv that big sits that close hell would the whole tv even be in your field of vision?

ok but even then its a personal opinion on something that doesnt matter because if you start the movie from a chapter in the middle of the movie there is no buffering.

 

actually you are getting a smaller file but at a cost of conversion. can't be bothered to compare the price per byte saved against the cost of conversion but you are not making a convincing argument

 

but each to their own. you want to convert at a cost, i want to buy more drive space at a cost. no biggie

Edited November 28, 2019 by Spaceboy

[Deathsquirrel 602]

i can tell you from my own testing that i have never seen a conversion that i have been truly happy with in terms of quality. the drop may vary from very slight to quite significant but i've never had a conversion i've been 100% happy with. I tried to do exactly what you are doing last year, couldnt find a way of converting that i was happy with.

 

I've done conversions I'm happy with but the settings are different for every movie I rip.  There are no universal settings.  Hell, there aren't a few settings that I can cycle through for testing.  It's trial and error, and error, and error.  It's not worth it.  I switched to full rips and just buy more drives.  Drives aren't any more expensive than shelves used to be before I moved to binders.

[Spaceboy 1424]

I've done conversions I'm happy with but the settings are different for every movie I rip. There are no universal settings. Hell, there aren't a few settings that I can cycle through for testing. It's trial and error, and error, and error. It's not worth it. I switched to full rips and just buy more drives. Drives aren't any more expensive than shelves used to be before I moved to binders.

true, I think that is also the issue. Unless I have time to check each converted file I wouldn’t be happy to delete the original. As I have like 80tb of movies that’s never going to happen