Overkill for PS3 / Streaming

[neorecon]

I'm new to this whole idea but after doing a lot of reading I'm not sure if my idea is overkill or not.

My goal is to get all of my DVD's ripped to my server and streamed to my PS3 and a few other related devices through Twokyvision.

Is Ripping the DVD's through DVD Decryptor and then using a tool such as MeGUI to make them into MP4's overkill? I'm trying to cut down the size of the movies too, and my understanding is that I should try to maintain about 80% minimum of whatever the ripped file size is if I don't want to lose any image quality. I'm only ripping the video and the main audio track (no subtitles, etc...)

Any suggestions would be appreciated as I don't want to waste my time with MeGUI (the process takes forever for each DVD) if there is something else I should be looking at for a process.

TIA!

[Adub]

Not, it's not overkill. In fact, it's even recommended, especially if you want to save space. By encoding it to mp4 you are reducing the dvd to a mere fraction of it's original size, with virtually the same quality (depending on your settings).

[neorecon]

Thansk for the response. Then I will continue my process.

One other quick question, the 'Anime' option in MeGUI, is that really only for Anime, or would any animated show (computer generated or otherwise) be under that option?

I did a search and really couldn't find my answer in this forum.

TIA!

[trott]

My goal is to get all of my DVD's ripped to my server and streamed to my PS3 and a few other related devices through Twokyvision.

My experience is that, although mpeg-4 is an established standard for video encoding, its implementations are far from standardized as in, say, a DVD/VCD/SVCD. When using a PC this is not much of an issue. However, when using other devices (ps3, ipod, whatever) something wich works perfectly in one device might not work (or only partly work) in another, even though both will claim to support mpeg-4 video.
So, I would advise you to find the lowest common denominator for all playback devices you own and use that...


and my understanding is that I should try to maintain about 80% minimum of whatever the ripped file size is if I don't want to lose any image quality.

I believe this only is a a guideline for DVD-9 to DVD-5 transcoding tools. Unfortunately video encoding has long had its focus on getting as much data as possible on a CD-R so much encoding tools do not seem to support a quality-based preset.

Modern, advanced mpeg-4 codecs will get you excellent image quality but take a longer time to encode. I find that using h.264 in quality-based mode takes about as long to encode on my dual core, 2 GB ram laptop as encoding a DVD to an mpeg-2 svcd using cinemacraft used to do back in the days when I was using a 1 Ghz P4 desktop with 256 MB ram...(It usually takes about 3-4 times the length of the movie).

Also, try not to transcode a transcoded rip of a transcoded movie...Every time you transcode you will lose image quality...

[fibbingbear]

One other quick question, the 'Anime' option in MeGUI, is that really only for Anime, or would any animated show (computer generated or otherwise) be under that option?


My understanding of the anime setting is that it'll work best for anime or animated things, but computer animation, probably not.

I believe the anime settings have higher deblocking, which means less detail is preserved. For animation, this is fine since most areas don't have a lot of detail, but for computer animation, where there may be a lot of detail in small areas, this may not work out so well.

In general, I don't think the anime settings are that different from the regular ones. I think there are more reference allowed frames, which shouldn't hurt you even if you're not encoding anime. It just won't give you any extra compression, like it normally would with anime.