What is the best format for viewing?

[OmegaWulf 0]

Hi, gang,

 

I've been playing around with Emby for about a week now and I'm getting the hang of it.  I want to now start moving all my DVDs and Blu Ray movies into Emby.  For me, I'm more concerned with quality over file size.  All things being equal, the smaller file size is better, of course.  But I don't want to sacrifice video/audio quality.

 

Given that, what is the best format to rip to that sacrifices the least amount of quality? Should I use mkv, mp4, or avi?  Or should I just basically copy the disc's files over without changing the format?

 

 

[lorac 118]

MKV is generally popular, AVI not so much. Handbrake is a good ripping tool although not sure if it works with BluRay discs. I believe you need MakeMKV for that. You shouldn't have a problem compressing the DVD's. BluRay a lot depends on what audio formats you keep. I'm sure if you look around your can find some settings that people use. I think it is a lot of trial and error though. Personally I just downloaded everything. Quality DVD rips are around 1.5GB.

 

Sent from my STV100-3 using Tapatalk

[tman 47]

MKV or MP4 are probably the best, with MKV being the most flexible, but MP4 being the most compatible. They're both just containers anyway, and with the same resolution, you wouldn't notice any difference in quality.

[zigzagtshirt 55]

My philosophy:

 

Storage is cheap.  Copy blu-ray/DVD at original quality via makemkv.  

 

Watch in original quality whenever possible.  Emby will transcode to other formats/smaller bitrates if necessary.

 

I didn't buy a gorgeous new TV to watch my blu rays at lame netflix/hulu/amazon bitrates.

[lorac 118]

Save yourself the extra GB and compress your DVD'S. New TV or not you're not going to notice a difference. For exceptional BR with DTS-HD you can be under 15GB usually. Storage is cheap but the more media you have it gets eaten up quickly.

 

Sent from my STV100-3 using Tapatalk

[Guest asrequested]

To be clear, matroska is only a container. It has nothing to do with quality. It is the most versatile container, and is why so many of us use it. For Blu-ray folder rips that you already have on your system, all you need to do is open the largest file in mkvtoolnix and remux it. It's very quick and easy.

[zigzagtshirt 55]

Save yourself the extra GB and compress your DVD'S. New TV or not you're not going to notice a difference. For exceptional BR with DTS-HD you can be under 15GB usually. Storage is cheap but the more media you have it gets eaten up quickly.

 

Sent from my STV100-3 using Tapatalk

 

Full BR mkvs are more like 25-30GB on average.  Out of my collection of 150+, only like 5 are less than 20GB.

 

I can tell the difference easily between full BR and compressed, both in picture and sound.  Some people can't, or don't care even if they do.

 

The biggest driving factor for me to just rip them full is that I spend my time watching and enjoying vs. spending time messing around with compressing them.

 

But yeah, if you're really limited on storage obviously you would elect to compress them.

[legallink 187]

Full BR mkvs are more like 25-30GB on average.  Out of my collection of 150+, only like 5 are less than 20GB.

 

I can tell the difference easily between full BR and compressed, both in picture and sound.  Some people can't, or don't care even if they do.

 

The biggest driving factor for me to just rip them full is that I spend my time watching and enjoying vs. spending time messing around with compressing them.

 

But yeah, if you're really limited on storage obviously you would elect to compress them.

I keep both a compressed MP4 and uncompressed original mkv to lessen the load but for clients that can handle full bandwidth and uncompressed to have that available as well.

[Deathsquirrel 745]

I had been compressing the rips but storage is pretty cheap so I've stopped.  I'm actually reripping now with full copies of everything instead of ripping and running through handbrake.   If you use software encoding you really can cut the size with almost no drop in quality but it does take about forever to process.  Intel QSV encoding is faster but it doesn't do a great job with dark scenes in my experience.  That's what prompted me to suck up the storage purchase and just re-rip all my discs.  It does add up though.  I'm getting about 250 movies per 8TB drive.  With current costs that means about a buck per movie to store them.

Edited April 15, 2017 by Deathsquirrel

[Waldonnis 148]

To be fair, even Blu-Rays use codecs that compress the video and audio.  Try transcoding to raw video and you'll see just how much the file size balloons, almost always beyond the capacity of a Blu-Ray disc     The difference is in encoding settings and codec choices, which are tailored to the standard since it can safely be assumed the players will comply with it (there are max video bitrates, max audio bitrates, fixed storage/size limits, and so forth).  You can do professional quality encoding with free tools (x264/x265), but the sheer amount of options and figuring out how they affect output is a steep learning curve.

 

I prefer to do my own manual transcoding rather than letting Emby handle it because I'm particular about encoder settings and sometimes have to target specific playback scenarios/clients (and audio-wise, the ffmpeg defaults are awful when transcoding heavy instrumental soundtracks, IMO).  To give you an idea, I have about 10 different "presets" that I use regularly depending on the source material, but often manually alter some of those presets/settings if the source requires it.  Movies that have a lot of dark scenes, for example, require a different set of options than a movie that's mostly daylight scenes - otherwise you get a ton of macroblocking and detail loss in the low-light scenes.  Same with old/grainy, animation, high-action/motion, CG-only, and so forth.  My favourite example is that I had to re-encode my Godzilla (2014) rip about six times because it just didn't work with any of my typical "low light" settings (I'm a big 'zilla fan - film was fun, encoding it was not  ).

 

My personal recommendations would depend on how much you want to transcode on-the-fly (added server load), how much storage you have available for your library, and what devices you're playing the media on.  If doing on-the-fly transcoding is fine for you and you have tons of storage, you'll also have to consider how many clients may be watching at once vs. server capability.  If your goal is direct-playing as much as possible, then you'll want to focus on finding a common "profile" for all of the playback devices (max bitrate, supported containers, supported codecs, and so forth), then tailour your encoding to that.

 

Container (mkv, mp4/m4v/etc) is mostly irrelevant, but some devices prefer certain containers if you want to direct play (looking at you, idevices) or don't support certain types of audio stream arrangements.  Encoding settings are largely personal preference anyway, as many viewers wouldn't know the difference between a really crappy "less than legal" rip compared to a Blu-Ray copy.  For those of us that can, finding the right balance between quality, bitrate requirements, and storage is a never-ending struggle.

 

And, as Deathsquirrel pointed out, re-encoding takes time to "do right".  Quicker options like hardware encoding (QSV or NVENC) shave off a ton of time if you're satisfied with the resulting quality, but still benefit from a little tweaking/learning if you're transcoding manually.  Several of us around here are handy with ffmpeg and other encoders, so if you decide to transcode your own files and have questions, feel free to lob em up on the forums.

Edited April 15, 2017 by Waldonnis

[OmegaWulf 0]

Wow, thanks. I didn't know there was so much that could be done.  I'll skip the manual transcoding, though.  Too much work/learning for me.