New to this, need advice on storage and cropping, etc

[thesnappysneezer]

I have been experimenting with makemkv and handbrake for compression for the last few months and I have decided Handbrake is too much trouble. It takes far too long and the end results are not always as desired. I am going to go lossless as well as makemkv makes them but this requires much more hd space than I have. I am currently practicing on a 2tb internal but I believe I am going to have to get three 5tb hard drives to do this, maybe more. My plan is to build them in my main computer then take them out and place them in another computer I plan to hook up to the back of the tv. I have an old one running ubuntu on a relatively small hd though I am debating removing that hd and installing an ild copy of vista on the new 5tb hd so I have more connections for future hd add ons. Someone advised me to use kodi and get a pc remote which makes me lean toward vista for ease of compatibility of devices. I never used the ubuntu, I picked up the shell for 5 bucks a while back. It is probably from 07-09.

This all being said part of me just wants to make the case into a hd tower without the os but I do not know how I would go about doing that or if it is a better option. My tv has a usb port for external hd but one of those things isn't enough for my future plans. Buying a tower that is meant for this is too costly. Is this a good idea to pursue or is it better to just hook it up through thr pc slot. I have heard that some tvs do not recognize some video files, would mkv be one of those? I would also wonder the ability to change audio tracks.

How is kodi as a program? I have been using plex to stream the videos in my hd to my roku but I have not been happy with that programs knack for ignoring some files or renaming them, for example I went to the trouble of naming every episode of a tv series and plex decided episode 1, 2, etc was a better way of naming them.

Now I have several dvds that were, I believe I am using the term corrctly, they were hardmatted. This is to say that the black bars on top and bottom were added to the film for full screen tvs to preserve the aspect ratio. These are not anamorphic so when you play them on an hd tv you wind up with blackbars on all four sides. Of course when I play the dvds I zoom in but one thing I really liked about handbrake was it did chop these off automatically. Is there a way to do that in make mkv or could you advise me on the proper setting to use handbrake to convert the file without compressing? Or another program to do this?

Likewise I have some older dvds that actually tack the special features onto the end of the video file. I would like to snip this off the end. I also have a few dvds that have serveral tv episodes as one long file I would like to seperate into multiple files. Does anyone know of a good program for this.

Lastly I have purchased over the years, when chances upon, a few DVDs with no English language or subtitle track. I have been exploring options online that allow for one to convert a subtitle track to english using online translation tools. It would not he perfect but it would be better than nothing. What I have is a large box set of a German tv series called Loriat which is apparently their Python. It seems funny but I need the language. I also have a few anime releases never brought to the US. I probably would not have picked these up had I not found them in thrift stores for a few bucks. Has anyone had experince here with doing this and if so can you reccommend a program? I have tried with the Loriat but it failed in the end. I could see in the program it translating the words but I could never get it to actually apply to the final track.

I have around 3000 discs from 1500 releases. Not all are being converted. I wonder how much hd space I will need.

[Woodstock]

Cropping requires decoding the video, then recoding it with just the information you want. That means a tool like Handbrake. Not to mention that the size can be significantly reduced by using the better encoding algorithms (h264 instead of MPEG2 from DVDs). Frankly, if you're at ALL worried about space, it's worth the time to encode with Handbrake, although I would really suggest having at least 4 cores to do it. a 4-core Intel processor will function about as well as a 6-core AMD processor at the same speed. And, if you have a modern Intel motherboard, you might experiment with using QSV encoding. (I don't use QSV because the software encoding gives 10% smaller files for the same settings)

Storage - I recommend using a "network attached storage" device, either one your make or one you purchase. Basic ones that can use external hard drives are available from a number of sources. Synology makes a number of different units that work well, AND can act as DLNA servers for smart TVs and accessories. My friend has two of their 2-drive units, one with an external 4-drive USB3 tower attached. I went with the 8-drive server, which currently has over 22,000 video files on it. Plex is option software for Synology, but I've been using the less complicated "Media Server" application to feed the TVs in the house. That's about 10TB of mixed DVD and BD sources, to give you some idea of what is possible with compression (that is, using handbrake).

A lot of routers now have DLNA server capability... I own a couple, and do NOT use them for that, because they are very slow as storage servers.

Bottom line - you have to decide what is important to YOU. Maximum quality? Store the "raw" MKV files. Same applies if "minimum work" is your criteria. Any other decision involves either money, time, or both to accomplish.

[thesnappysneezer]

Well time is the most important thing to me right now followed by quality. Space is an issue however, as is money. I have not been very happy with the video downgrade in quality. It has seemed, from lack of a better term, thin, hollow, I just can't say but I notice the visual difference in compression, at least the ones I have done. It is very frustrating. Having a pc built over time with just 4 hds hooked up that are loaded seems best right now but again I would love it without an os and hooked up to the usb port but I have read elsewhere it would look better through the computer port and it would be much more likely to read the files. I think leaving them as they are copied with makemkv would possibly be better to to prepare for better larger hds in the future too. This is sort of a lark, a random idea that popped into my head but it has stuck there for some while. I can not invest so much time into it though as well I don't have it and life is short. Doing this is something of a choir but it will also be really convenient in the long run and I may pack away my dvds after I complete this. Room in my place is needed. I bought too many dvds in my youth, too much of a packrat to get rid of them but hiding them, well I can live with that but hiding them without access and then all of a sudden I want to watch this that or the other. Plus the thought has crossed my mind if I have to leave in an emergency, I could just grab one thing with all of them in it a bit more easily and at least save the content. Really I want to do this because I am too lazy to hunt down the disk, it is too much and a mess physically. I have put all of my cds to hd and downgraded the quality to 128 m4v and I am fine with this, I can't really tell the difference but I can note it in video quality. I am a visual artist this may be why? I can take things in dvd quality, I am ok with that being less than bluray but that is as low as I go it seems.

[Tapioka]

Well... What exactly is your question? That last paragraph didn't really contain any, I think. Least amount of space used while maintaining highest visual fidelity in the least amount of time is MakeMKV -> Handbrake.

[ndjamena]

MakeMKV->Avisynth->X264 is better actually, but that's a bit fiddly.

It depends on how much deinterlacing and other filtering needs to be done.

[Tapioka]

I didn't count Avisynth as a serious option because of OP's time constraints. Fixing filters for "3000 discs from 1500 releases", even if it's not all of them, is probably a major pain . Unless lots of them respond positively to the same settings, but only OP will know that...

[GreyAreaUK]

Cropping requires decoding the video, then recoding it with just the information you want. That means a tool like Handbrake. Not to mention that the size can be significantly reduced by using the better encoding algorithms (h264 instead of MPEG2 from DVDs). Frankly, if you're at ALL worried about space, it's worth the time to encode with Handbrake, although I would really suggest having at least 4 cores to do it. a 4-core Intel processor will function about as well as a 6-core AMD processor at the same speed. And, if you have a modern Intel motherboard, you might experiment with using QSV encoding. (I don't use QSV because the software encoding gives 10% smaller files for the same settings)

With Handbrake I use the following settings altered from the default (all on the Video tab):
Quality: Constant Quality, 19
x264 Preset: Slow
Sometimes I add in a de-interlacing filter as well, but that's title dependant.

With Blurays I also lower the horizontal resolution to 1280

This gives me a file size that's acceptable, with quality that looks fine to me and doesn't take too long to encode.

Storage - I recommend using a "network attached storage" device, either one your make or one you purchase. Basic ones that can use external hard drives are available from a number of sources. Synology makes a number of different units that work well, AND can act as DLNA servers for smart TVs and accessories. My friend has two of their 2-drive units, one with an external 4-drive USB3 tower attached. I went with the 8-drive server, which currently has over 22,000 video files on it. Plex is option software for Synology, but I've been using the less complicated "Media Server" application to feed the TVs in the house. That's about 10TB of mixed DVD and BD sources, to give you some idea of what is possible with compression (that is, using handbrake).

I'm using a Netgear ReadyNAS 104. It can serve up fileshares in a number of ways, including DLNA.

As I'm using WD LiveTV boxes for my streaming I'm actually using NFS, but that's by the by.

[ndjamena]

I didn't count Avisynth as a serious option because of OP's time constraints. Fixing filters for "3000 discs from 1500 releases", even if it's not all of them, is probably a major pain . Unless lots of them respond positively to the same settings, but only OP will know that...

Hmmm, if the point of the thread is to get the best quality without putting any actual effort or resources into it then he's pretty much just wasting everyone else's time. I hate threads like this.

[thesnappysneezer]

I didn't count Avisynth as a serious option because of OP's time constraints. Fixing filters for "3000 discs from 1500 releases", even if it's not all of them, is probably a major pain . Unless lots of them respond positively to the same settings, but only OP will know that...

Hmmm, if the point of the thread is to get the best quality without putting any actual effort or resources into it then he's pretty much just wasting everyone else's time. I hate threads like this.

That is not the point of the thread. Read the initial post. Gosh I hate posts like this. I asked several questions. Some have not been answered at all. Way to go out of your way to try and scare off new people. I asked about storage. I asked if it was a good idea to hook a pc to the tv or build one of those hd towers to hook up through a usb. I asked about kodi for playback of the files and stated I have been using plex. I asked about cropping and splitting files. I asked if there were ways around makemkv to do such things or if I should be looking at other programs. I asked about subtitle conversion programs too. I thought there might be some helpful people here who have done this all already.

I am experiencing some difficulty with the program not doing what I expected it to do, or what it was doing before. I am new to this, I seek advice. I am happy with the way make mkv makes the file look, I am ok with the size though if I can trim it by getting rid of that Spanish language track then I will. I would like to make things easier. I have done conversions to save space with handbrake and do not like what I see. The only thing it ever did that I really liked was cropping the video of hardmatted films so I wanted to use it without compressing the film as much as it did before.

I'm sorry if asking for help is wasting your time. I will try to go to a forum dedicated to makemkv instead so I can find the support I need.

[thesnappysneezer]

Cropping requires decoding the video, then recoding it with just the information you want. That means a tool like Handbrake. Not to mention that the size can be significantly reduced by using the better encoding algorithms (h264 instead of MPEG2 from DVDs). Frankly, if you're at ALL worried about space, it's worth the time to encode with Handbrake, although I would really suggest having at least 4 cores to do it. a 4-core Intel processor will function about as well as a 6-core AMD processor at the same speed. And, if you have a modern Intel motherboard, you might experiment with using QSV encoding. (I don't use QSV because the software encoding gives 10% smaller files for the same settings)

With Handbrake I use the following settings altered from the default (all on the Video tab):
Quality: Constant Quality, 19
x264 Preset: Slow
Sometimes I add in a de-interlacing filter as well, but that's title dependant.

With Blurays I also lower the horizontal resolution to 1280

This gives me a file size that's acceptable, with quality that looks fine to me and doesn't take too long to encode.

That was the setting I was using but I just couldn't accept the video quality. For alack of a better term, the video seemed paper thin, lacked depth to me. I could have been looking for the flaws too closely but I couldn't stop thinking about it. What is jarring to me now, while watching many of my dvds, especially of old tv shows from the 70s I am noticing flaws I never noticed before, on the same tv I watched them on 6 months ago. Shoot I am noticing them more on Netflix and regular tv than I use to. Deinterlacing helps some but not much but I can accept it just the compression does something even though it is all there and I know I have seen much worse than this but it still bothers me.

Grey, my computer is is older and not up to those specs.

[ndjamena]

Try the videohelp forum, there are more people there with more experience in these sort of things, they even have a whole download section with all the programs you could possibly want, look through them and see what you like.

This forum is mostly for MakeMKV itself. Even doom9 would be better than here for your kind of questions, although a little advanced.

Subtitles:
- Subtitle Edit (multi-purpose)
- [DVD]Subextractor (OCR pgs/vobsub)
- BDSup2Sub (convert between pgs/vobsub, I think it can separate forced subs from normal subs as well)

Kodi is just payback software, much like all the others. It depends on what your actual preferences are whether you should use it. No one can answer that for you.

Most forums have in their rules NOT to ask what's best, there's a reason for that. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Search through videohelp and download some programs, if you have specific questions about the programs or need a program that does something specific, then ask about that.

Same for storage, I've got a RAID controller on my PC with eight HDDs attached to it. That's what I use to store rips on, then I play it on a WDTV Live through the network. It's sufficient for my purposes for now, although if I start this again I'll need more HDD space but I'll need money for that. We can't tell you what you should be doing, it's up to you to figure it out.

And we have all done it, but we've all done it differently. What Woodstock does is nothing like what I do, so who are you going to listen to?