File sizes are over 9gb!

General questions or discussion about HandBrake, Video and/or audio transcoding, trends etc.
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noob
Posts: 3
Joined: Fri Mar 25, 2011 4:01 pm

File sizes are over 9gb!

Post by noob »

As my name suggests - me = noob.

I have a ton of dvds and am heading off to college in the fall. I grabbed handbrake to upload all my movies and shows to my computer. From there I either watch it on my computer or through the network onto my xbox via Playback (yes I am on a mac, but I do have a windows partition). All of my files are on my mac side, but I soon ran out of space. I just ordered an external to keep movie files on, but I know that means I will have to plug it into my xbox directly - which also means the hard drive has to be formatted with FAT32. With this format, as I'm sure you know, I can't have files sizes larger than 4gb. Unfortunately when I put most of my movies on my computer - not really knowing how, and failing to understand help forums - I just selected a constant RF quality pushed all the way to the right and "large file size" hoping for the best quality possible. (yup - noob, i'm aware ;) With these settings, my files range from 4-15gb and I have come to a frustrating stalemate.
I have searched all over these forums, but no one seems to have worked their way into my situation. I still want awesome quality, but it has to be >4 gb. Everything is .M4V and.. please help!
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JohnAStebbins
HandBrake Team
Posts: 5712
Joined: Sat Feb 09, 2008 7:21 pm

Re: File sizes are over 9gb!

Post by JohnAStebbins »

This is covered in the FAQ
https://trac.handbrake.fr/wiki/SupportF ... melosesome

And there are numerous posts discussing what a good RF value is. A value of 19 is going to give you output that is indistinguishable from the source. Depending on the quality of your TV and how far away you sit when viewing, higher values (lower quality) may be suitable.
noob
Posts: 3
Joined: Fri Mar 25, 2011 4:01 pm

Re: File sizes are over 9gb!

Post by noob »

Is there any way to compress it without having to start over completely?
rogue23
Enlightened
Posts: 137
Joined: Thu Dec 16, 2010 7:51 pm

Re: File sizes are over 9gb!

Post by rogue23 »

You could just reencode the existing files in order to avoid ripping things again, but you'll lose quality.
noob
Posts: 3
Joined: Fri Mar 25, 2011 4:01 pm

Re: File sizes are over 9gb!

Post by noob »

Thank you both for your help! :)
MikeEckman
Posts: 10
Joined: Fri Sep 18, 2009 2:14 am

Re: File sizes are over 9gb!

Post by MikeEckman »

There are already good replies here, but just for the sake of giving you what works for me. When selecting 19.5 RF, I usually end up with MKVs between 1 - 1.5GB and am very happy with them. Even a long movie like one of the Lord of the Rings movies is just a tad bit over 2 GB...well under your 4 GB limitation.

Now, if you ever venture into the world of HD, you'll have problems, as I've found that 720p rips range between 3-8 GB and 1080p rips range from 6 - 15 GB.
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