Let the back up begin.. but one question remains.

[Husar]

Okay, I have been playing with Handbrake enough now that I am ready to start backing up my DVD collection. I think my HB setting are pretty solid for my needs. As I am reviewing Media Center software now to use and make my final decisions on that. But I have come down to one final questions.

To use HB or not? That is the question.

A lot of the Media Center software will play video_ts folders just fine. This of courses gives you perfect quality with no compression at all. But it also is much larger files. Of course with HB I can take the DVD backups down to between 1.7 and 2.2 GB. You can't argue the value of this and how it is going to impact the hard drive space I need over the new few months.

The reason I am having this debate with myself is the the time it take for HB to do its magic. And it is nothing short of magic! In my case after ripping with MTK it takes between 3-4 hours a DVD to get the mp4. That is a lot of time with my small collection of 400 DVDs.

So has anyone else debated just ripping and saving as video_ts and not doing any compression? With hard drives getting cheaper and cheaper I think it is a valid argument.

I am just wondering if anyone else debated this? And what made you go one way or the other. But I am sure since this is the HB forum all of you are using it. Otherwise you probably wouldn't be here.

Cheers.

[sdm]

I am toying with the idea of just ripping to video_ts for the same reasons.

at about 35 cents/GB, many dvds have a movie-only size of about 3-5 GB.
or $1.75 HD space. Is it worth my time to save $1.00's worth of HD space (and decrease video quality (slightly) and lose proper surround*)?

Hmmm ... think I just answered my question.

But wait ... I enjoy encoding video, smaller file sizes etc!

There are also other factors to consider for me.
I've spent time getting my library organised in iTunes, which won't take a video_ts I'm pretty sure.

* because I'm using front row/mac mini, I've opted not to use mkv with ac3 passthrough ... but thats another debate with myself. Also I've tried the qt/perian ac3-passthrough-optical-cable-to-reciever. I cant get it working!

Well now, I babbling, but you're not alone in your personal debate!

--sdm.

[Husar]

Good point on the video_ts not cataloging in iTunes. But you can play them and assign dvd covers to video_ts rips in Front Row. I did it with DVD Assist. Seem to work just fine but you still can't drag them into iTunes.

Here is a link to DVD Assist if you have not tried it yet: http://mysite.verizon.net/resohjb1/Projects.html But it takes a little time to set them up with creating directories. Kind of a pain if you ask me.

I am going to use HB at least to start and see how long it takes me to do about the first 100 dvds.

My next experiment is going to be to set the file size at 2.5Gb per movie. This is larger than anything I get at my current settings but I am wondering how much it will save off the HB time. It is more important to say cut an hour off the HB time over saving the extra 1GB of space. Maybe that is a good solution for still be able to catalog them in iTunes as well.

Cheers.

[John Meyer]

this is exactly what i do. i have the original video_ts folders saved on my hard drive and then encode ipod versions so i can take them anywhere i go. i don't have a wireless setup yet that will allow me to stream movies (still on a g network), so my ipod is what i use to watch movies in my room. the computer is hooked up to the tv in my living room, so there i watch the movies straight off the hard drive.

[Husar]

I ended up getting my Dual G5 setup to do 5.1 with AVI. So that is my plan for my conversion. Convert everything to high qualityh AVI and still support 5.1. I just don't want to do a backup and lose the 5.1. I have no need for iPod conversion and just focusing on home theather.

[Feynman]

I ended up getting my Dual G5 setup to do 5.1 with AVI. So that is my plan for my conversion. Convert everything to high qualityh AVI and still support 5.1. I just don't want to do a backup and lose the 5.1. I have no need for iPod conversion and just focusing on home theather.

I was thinking about doing something like this myself.

Can you buy HDMI cards where you could hook up a HD screen up the Mac? That would be amazing....I'd invest in an Xserve RAID and an entry level Mac Pro in a heart beat!

[Maury Markowitz]

To use HB or not? That is the question.

Great question!

My encoding is aimed at an AppleTV (which I'm waiting on) and in this case there are bugs in the current QT implementation that makes encoding less "universal" than it should be. The lack of 5.1 sound in the main problem, forcing an encode to MKV, which has all sorts of annoying side-effects. So basically as it stands, I would rather stream a VIDEO_TS than encode, but from what I've seen over on the Awkward forums, this simply doesn't work.

There's also the possibility that I might end up with an iPhone. In this case the value of HB is obvious. However, the need to encode separate versions for the iPhone and AppleTV is a huge annoyance, that once again makes the value of encoding for the ATV rather questionable.

The reason I am having this debate with myself is the the time it take for HB to do its magic. And it is nothing short of magic! In my case after ripping with MTK it takes between 3-4 hours a DVD to get the mp4.

I get about 45-55 fps on my Mac Pro.

Maury