Backup of movies from DVD & BR

I've had NAS now for around a year,
and find that I can't replicate the overall quality of downloads when attempting
to rip my owned movies/TV from discs.

Most 720p DVDs download at around 350Mb, 1080p Blu-Ray at around 750Mb.
Yet I can't get a single DVD to rip to anything less than around 3.5Gb.

I'd rather do it for free, but what are my options?
I've used HandBrake, MakeMKV, and associated extensions,
while the resulting filesizes are coming in at multiple GB.
How do I dip below that and those magical file sizes?
What are the uploaders doing to reduce their file sizes so much?

I want to start putting my library on the NAS, while file sizes discourage me.
Advice would be most helpful for my situation.

Have you tried WinX DVD Ripper Platinum? I've only used it a few times and haven't noticed any loss of quality.

You can find it at https://www.winxdvd.co​m …-rip-dvd-same-quality.htm and in spite of its name WinX there is a Mac version. Just scroll down at the webpage.

I used DVD Shrink in the past but not recently to backup DVDs. It's still around to download and still free. You can adjust the compression rate to get considerably smaller file size.

https://www.dvdshrink.​org/index.php

Hi,

I use DVDFab (purchased the ripper license for life) and have for many years now (8+ years) to back accurate backups of my DVD's. DVD's are not 720p (implying 1280x720), they are 480p. I do not compress the audio. I rip to AVI container but use H.264 or H.265 codec and I only apply a small amount of compress and I use the original audio (AC3 to preserve multichannel audio, in the language of my choice, I don't keep all the multi-language stuff I'm never gonna use). I embed the subtitles in English for non-English speech directly in the film, my preference, you can do it separate if you want. My resulting file is between 1.8Gb to 2.6Gb max for short and nearly 3 hour long films. The video is virtually indistinguishable from uncompressed and the playback works on anything without special work since its all within a common container and no external files with common codecs. I do this so that all my films can be streams from Plex to any device I want. I run Plex from a jail on my NAS.

Very best,

Thanks for the input so far, folks.
Decent information to chew on.

At this point, I'm thinking a good approach would be to use AnyDVD HD
to do the initial rip, then experiment with using Handbrake and/or MakeMKV
with various settings combinations. The new hardware in my rig should
greatly speed up the processing, too.

And DVDs are, in fact, used for up to 720p resolution.
They were fine for my purposes with my 1080p displays,
which is why I wasn't buying BluRay or UHD BluRay until
I updated to 4K displays.


As always, I will report on my results after some time of experimenting.

I'd second MalVeauX when it comes to DVDFab: it's the easiest software for picking any video profile and estimating file size (other program I have found that's really good at file estimates is Adobe Media Encoder). The only main issue with DVDFab is that they like to give you adware for all their products (the full utility can be pricey, but gives you the ability to rip DVD, blu-ray, UHD, direct copy, or convert movie files to a different encode).


If you're really concerned with file space, just encode with h.265: it's the latest standard that has the most efficient compression (4K sources are usually encoded in h.265). I can easily get a 2 hour 1080p video (5.1 surround) below 2GB with h.265 (4K is more variable as it gets into HDR color space and more advanced surround sound). About the only disadvantage with h.265 is that it's still a newer standard, so older playback devices might not support h.265 (instead you'd have to drop to h.264).

RE DVD resolutions....OK, cinema nerd here....they are 480p and not 720p. When they matured they were better than laserdisc because they would provide anamorphic digital 480p video signal vs laserdisc's 425i analog resolution. 720p (1280x720) and 1080p (1920x1080) are square pixel 16:9 (1.78:1) aspect ratios because it was a widescreen that could be in-between and overscan American widescreen (1.85:1) and European (1.66:1). DVDs were interesting in that they came out as widescreen TVs were just starting to come out. So they have their own "anamorphic" option in which the video source is 720x480, and then the pixel shape either shrinks to 640x480 for 4:3 or extends out to 1.2:1 with the pixel to go to 16:9. One of the first DVDs I bought was Army of Darkness, which was not anamorphic. When I got a plasma HDTV, it seemed like a postage stamp (because it was taking up the 4:3 with letterbox top and bottom).

Thanks for that, Dave.

I'd heard about the improvements of the H265 codec,
and my PLEX server will play it.

Unimpressed with DVDfab against its cost as compared to
other paid programs, and Handbrake & MakeMKV both
are free and provide many options. I think I just need to
get into experimentation in order to land on a good result.

Craig,

Yeah, I recommended DVDFab because I find it the most hassle free for defining a custom profile and it rendering a file size very close to its estimate. The creators do give you a lot of ads for buying into the whole suit (and then also buy in to their ripping a streaming service). I've found editing software can also be pretty terrible about compressing videos. When I was using Adobe, I did appreciate that exporting through Media Encoder: it would accurately estimate file size. I now use DaVinci Resolve for video editing, and it just has a few settings for render quality. So I just render out the video and then re-encode with DVDFab. You could spend some time with freeware software and a DVD and blu-ray to see if you come up with a particular bitrate that's good for SD and then another that's good for HD. Audio doesn't take as much (especially if we're looking at AC-3)...but if you are looking for the smallest file size, you can also convert to AAC (that does have good amount of compression for 7.1 surround sound). I keep the audio the way it was if the movie has the new 3D audio formats (Dolby Atmos or DTS:X).

Okay, I simply don't like DVDFab, largely due to its use vs. cost.
I've found better freeware options which provide more control
over the conversion process.

Hankbrake is now churning along at a roughly 50-percent utilization
on all 16 threads of my newer CPU, hitting on 100% on a process
which used to be literally hours. This took around 15 minutes.
The Core i7 3700K would've taken hours for this rip.

But you're right, Dave and MalVeauX:
The DVD format only went to a 720p resolution, while BR picked up the slack.
Such is my expereince in just now instigating a DVD rip.

I'm now going to experiment with various rip encodings on this one,
even though it was initially done with the H265 codec.
AAC audio isn't the problem with filesizes; it's the encoding of video.
I have Stellar and Gravity in 4k video, and they look great, but one
comes in at just a few gigs, while the other is over 10 gigs.
Quite a large difference, and I'd like to learn how others are reducing
filesizes for their own uses.

And yet, I was just reading, a couple of days ago, about how HDD makers
like Seagate, Toshiba and Hitachi-Goldstar are planning to introduce
20Tb to 40Tb drives to the market within a few years.
Makes my 10Tb RAID system seem trivial, doesn't it?

RE DVD: I'm not sure why you'd render in 720P (1280x720) when the specs for DVD-Video is 480P (720x480). Chances are your playback device is more than adequate about upscaling a 480P source, and you are increasing file size. There's a lot of DVDs that have different interlacing methods (that were 480i instead of 480P)...so I've found the main important settings for DVD is using software that can properly automatically set de-interlacing. Or if we need to have more specs about DVD formats, 720x480 resolution was for NTSC (at 60hz interlaced, 30fps or 24fps progressive pull downs). 720x576 was PAL (at 50hz interlaced, 25fps progressive pull down).

Then for broadcast HDTV, ATSC standards included the two HD resolutions: 720P (1280x720) and 1080i (1920x1080) at roughly the same bandwidth (720P favored for sports channels to have 60fps, while 1080i favored for movie channels to have greater detail at 1080 30fps). When I got my large screen plasma HDTV, they weren't yet fully 1080 resolution (mine had its own that was in between 1080 and 720). To deferientate later HDTVs, manufacturers then did advertise how they were "full HD" (or 1980x1080 native resolution). I did find that to be mainly marketing, as I spent enough on my earlier HDTV that the picture quality still looked better than a lot of newer TVs due to its processing and color reproduction. Later, when I was buying 1080P devices like HD-DVD and then blu-ray...they were devices that converted 1080P to my TV's 1080i input. I did find that the TV's de-interlacing and scaling to give a much clearer image with 1080i/p sources than 720. I'm reading that ATSC 3.0 standards do include broadcast channels being 4K/HDR. There's only been one TV station in the US that has had a 4K demo with these standards. South Korea has led the pack by actually having a channel in 4K. I'm guessing there may not be as much of a push here in the US, as more people are cutting cable and channels are becoming different streaming services.

I'm not familiar with any release of Gravity in 4K (blu-ray.com doesn't list a release, and streaming services don't have one). The best specs it has is 1080P with Dolby Atmos surround sound (so that could be the one that's a couple gigs, as it's also 1.5 hours long). Kind of funny that it does have a lot of positional surround sound while out in space, when technically there is no sound in space (granted in many scenes it seems sounds may be isolated to different radio sources or reverberations). Interstellar is 2 hours 50 mins and is 4K Dolby Vision (streaming, HDR10 on UHD disc). If you're getting the HDR space I'd be expecting around 20GB or so (for that length and REC.2020 color space). Barring even that movie's length....yes, adding HDR and lossless audio (as you would to keep True-HD for Dolby Atmos on a disc) does significantly add to an acceptable compression size on modern equipment (on top of 4K resolution over 1080P that is 4 times the size).

I can respect your decisions for finding software that's free. DVDFab is not the most intuitive, but I do find that when you do get into custom profiles and set encoders, it's accurate in estimating file size. It's also not the most intuitive about subtitles, but it does have options for using an external srt, remux subtitle stream, or render in video. In the past, I found it wasn't good with encoding h.265 with ATI video cards....but it does fully utilize CPU and NVidia cards for faster h.265 encoding.

When it comes to HDD sizes, 20TB is especially feasible now. The largest HDD I have is 14TB, and I see on Amazon that there is a single external 18TB WD drive for $340. Wonder if a 40TB drive might be delayed with current economy/semiconductor shortages (effecting controllers and probably some other fabs).