Keep Orginal MKVs or Recompressed?

[swampdaddy]

I’ve ripped about 30 of my BluRay discs. However, with 32-40gb per movie (with extras) I’m consuming disc space rather quickly. Although, I’m a purest and always go for uncompressed audio (AIFF) when ripping CDs, I wonder what most people are doing, are you decompressing with something like Handbrake after the rip? I notice that Netflix and iTunes versions of movies seem, which must be more compressed due to the smaller file sizes, look pretty good to me. With my setup (55” VT30 Panasonic Plasma) should I be noticing the BRD looking or sounding better than Netflix/iTunes? I think one of the benefits of the MKV files is that I have all of the audio sources, including uncompressed. Also, I’m presenting all of my movies via Plex. I look forward to your workflow ideas.

Thanks,

Robert

[T'hain Esh Kelch]

I only rip english and my native language tracks/subtitles (Unless of course, some other language is the only audio track), to save space. I always run them through Handbrake to compress the video track, because honestly, I can't tell the difference visually, and I prefer M4V containers over MKV for compatibility with Apple products. I usually convert the video track using Handbrakes standard settings, removing about 80-50% of the original file size. I always do passthrough for the audio tracks, because they take up practically no space in comparison. Then run the MKV through Subler to extract and OCR subtitles. Then serve everything using Plex.

[Woodstock]

The only thing I've kept the original MKV of was the one 3D movie I own. Everything else gets ripped, then run through handbrake to reduce its size.

Still doesn't stop it from eating up disk space... I had to replace my 24TB NAS with a 70TB unit last year, in part because it was getting too full. The new one has 25TB of video on it already, with most compressed to 10-20% of the original size...

[swampdaddy]

Okay, thanks for the input. So, anybody out there keeping the original files from make mkv?

Thanks,

Robert

[SamuriHL]

I don't compress any of my MKV's and that includes UHD's.

[swampdaddy]

I think not compressing preserves the best quality and many audio tracks can be present and I think it’s the only way to preserve uncompressed audio quality. Also, if you use Plex all of your Apple devices can access this just fine via Plex client/player. The only downside is disk space consumption and I suppose if you have crappy LAN your files might buffer. Or, if you are accessing your Plex server from another network, you would typically be transcoding to lighten the streaming requirements over the internet. And when transcoding your Plex server might not easily handle this on the fly transcoding. Well my current server is a 2014 Mac mini and it seems to serve the uncompressed just fine but chokes on the on the fly transcoding.

Thanks for the input,

Robert

[SamuriHL]

All of my files are on my NAS and/or my HTPC meaning they are shared over my gigabit network. I have a SHIELD running Plex. It transcodes even UHD just fine through hardware encoding. Never had a real issue with the setup. Works great.

[swampdaddy]

@SamuriHL, I was using Plex via Apple TV (4K) and when my GFs crappy gigabit network was choking on the stream (yes, I wanted her to experience Plex at her house so I relocated my Plex server for a few days), I selected a transcode setting via the player (2 different places as I recall) and (as I recall) the client app on the ATV reported that the server did not have enough muscle or resources or power to transcode the chosen movie. Are you saying that your Nvidia Shield (running Plex client or player) is doing the transcoding? I thought this was always done by the server.

BTW: I think I chose for the transcoding to be 1080P when the source was already 1080P.... also, I tried "Auto" setting which did not seem to do anything. I'm not sure what was the bottleneck in this situation. I know the uncompressed files works well on my network with UNIFI switches and a powerful EdgeRouter. My GFs router has serious issues on routing LAN traffic reliably... however for some reason she can stream Netflix without an issue.

Okay, keep your ideas coming--thanks!

Robert

[swampdaddy]

All of my files are on my NAS and/or my HTPC meaning they are shared over my gigabit network. I have a SHIELD running Plex. It transcodes even UHD just fine through hardware encoding. Never had a real issue with the setup. Works great.

Does your NAS run the Plex server? Or do you have more than one Plex server? Or your NAS is just serving the files and you have just one Plex server on your HTPC?

Thanks,

Robert

[SamuriHL]

No no, the SHIELD *IS* a plex server. And a damn good one. It's got a very powerful nVidia Tegra chip in it that can perform hardware encoding of a few streams at once. My NAS *COULD* run plex but it's got nowhere near the horsepower of the SHIELD. The SHIELD mounts the NAS and my HTPC as file shares and plex serves up the library. When a plex client (such as a roku) requires transcoding, the SHIELD takes care of it using the hardware encoding of the nVidia processor. I have a second SHIELD in my bedroom so no transcoding is needed in my case but I've used a roku outside of the house to stream while traveling and it works just fine.

[swampdaddy]

So if the Shield is the server is there another device setup as the player? Also, if you have Plex setup on a regular Mac or PC, can the server also be the player? My current setup is a headless Mac mini (with direct attached storage) as the server with AppleTV, iPhone and iPad able to use the media on the server using the player app on each device. Thoughts?

Thanks,

Robert

[SamuriHL]

The SHIELD is both server and player. When I'm on my living room SHIELD, it's the server and all content I'm playing on it is on through that device. When I watch something in the bedroom on my other SHIELD, that's acting as JUST a client connecting to the server on my living room SHIELD. And since the SHIELD can play mpeg2, h264, and h265 with hdr, it doesn't have to transcode anything while I'm on the LAN. If I travel, as I'll be doing soon, I'll have the bedroom SHIELD with me and it'll do adaptive streaming based on the bandwidth of the internet connection I have available. It'll transcode that on the fly using hardware encoding. It's by far the best setup I've ever had for movie/tv watching. All my ripped MKV's play perfectly, full bitstreaming and HDR and all.

[swampdaddy]

Understood, many thanks!

[rivey]

I am something of a purist when it comes to my videos. I never compress them and I tell plex to always stream in original quality. To some this can create storage problems but it just got me to build a FreeNAS server with 5 8TB WD reds. This currently gives me a storage capacity of about 21 TB of which I have used less than 8TB so far. The advantage is that this has made me learn a new operating system as well as give me really great picture quality on any TV in the house. Just my opinion, but this is they only way to do it. I figure if I am going to spend the money for Blu-rays or UHD 4K discs, I should be able to watch them in the original quality. Good Luck

[swampdaddy]

Hey, thanks for the reply. So, tell me about your streaming setup. Do you have something like Plex server on another machine and that server references the media files via your lan and where there are separate Plex client apps running on something like an Apple TV connected to each TV?

How are you backing up your NAS?

Thanks,

Robert