Am I asking for a lot? - 5.1 PC & PS3 compatible video AND batch jobs?

[Tirade]

Here is what I want to do:

I have about 2TB of DVD's that were ripped with DVD Shrink. Each DVD is ripped to its own folder. In some cases it was Movie Only w/ multiple audio tracks, but its usually Movie Only w/ English 5.1. I also have about 60 DVD's not yet ripped.

I want to batch convert all of the rips and rip all of the DVD's to h.264 and be able to play them through Windows Media Center (or TheaterTek) and if possible I would like to be able to play/stream them through the PS3 whenever I convert my HTPC into a media server.

I assume I need to answer a few questions first.

What container?
I figured MKV is the smart choice but I don't believe this will work on the PS3. I guess Im stuck w/ Mp4?

What audio?
I believe my receiver can decode AAC (Panasonic SA-XR55), so I figured that would be the way to go for PS3.

What quality?
Im sitting around 4-6GB per movie at the moment. Very little compression was used (if any) on the DVD shrink rips. I assume with the current 4GB limits on the PS3 I need to keep that in mind. Im looking for quality over space savings but Im also wise enough to know there is a point when you just cant easily see a difference. What sort of bitrate or bitrate ratio should I be looking at? Is a 50% size reduction unrealistic?

Encoding time isnt important as I plan to do this as a batch job and just let it run for a few days at a time.

So after those questions get answered... what are my free/cheap choices for batch converting stuff once Ive got the settings figured out?

Handbrake? – Ive read a few things on this. It appears it would work.

RipBot264 – Does it do batch re-encoding?

PS3 Video 9- Havent looked into this much.

[YouDontKnowMe]

you can do this easily with meGUI...

I really dont know why people out there arent willing to read.... everything what is playable on ps3 is also playable on the pc... so just use MeGUI rip it the way you like with the PS3 profile... MeGUI supports batch encoding and has really a lot of features... try reading some tutorials I learned it this was aswell :P

good luck with your project

[Tirade]

you can do this easily with meGUI...

I really dont know why people out there arent willing to read.... everything what is playable on ps3 is also playable on the pc... so just use MeGUI rip it the way you like with the PS3 profile... MeGUI supports batch encoding and has really a lot of features... try reading some tutorials I learned it this was aswell :P

good luck with your project

Thanks for the info.

Ive seen the meGUI threads but they looked pretty complicated for a newbie like me. Maybe I'll do some experimenting!

The other thing though is that while everything is playable on a PS3 that is playable on a PS3 is not true when you factor in streaming.

AC3 and AVC do not work together on PS3 unless its in VOB format. In VOB format you lose the ability to FF or RW on the PS3.

AAC and AVC is what I must use on the PS3 and luckily for me my receiver can decode AAC (PS3 will pass AAC but will decode it only to 2 channel stereo).

So then the problems lies in how to make Windows Media Player decode AAC. I am not sure it can. Maybe TheatekTek can? I get confused on this part. I am using MyMovies MCE extension and I believe it only supports WMP or TT as a player. I am using FFDSHOW so perhaps it will pass the AAC stream to my AVR just like the PS3 does if I use TheaterTek. Maybe there is a way to have mymovies use ZoomPlayer or something.

[Tirade]

Man what a journey...

Quick update on my situation!

I tried RipBot and was never able to get my audio and video to sync no matter what I tried.

I then tried Handbrake and it worked flawlessly. I ripped a DVD to AVC/AAC 5.1

I was able to stream the MPEG4 file I created in Handbrake to the PS3 using Tversity and it worked great.

I then added the new movie to MyMovies and tried to play it but Media Player would not decode AAC so I had no sound.

I wanted to use TheaterTek instead but it was $50 and I already owned Zoom Player Pro so I used that instead. ZP worked great w/ MyMovies after a little tweaking but the MCE Remote would not work w/ ZP.

I installed Girder and the MCE replacement driver which worked but then I could not get the MCE keyboard to work. I uninstalled Girder and installed IR Information Suite and that worked great.

So the end result is I am using Handbrake to rip new DVDs and to batch convert old DVD rips to MPEG4 AVC w/ AAC 5.1 160k using the PS3 preset (using only 1500bitrate instead of default 2500). All these rips stream fine using Tversity to the PS3 and play correctly and my receiver decodes the AAC stream w/o a problem. I can also load these rips into MyMovies for MCE and play them just fine using Zoom Player and I can control everything with my MCE remote and keyboard by using the IR Information Suite software.

I plan to take a closer look this week and see how 1500bitrate looks say compared to 70% CQR and compared to 2500bitrate. Other than finding the sweet spot for video on my setup, Ive gotten the hard part out of the way.