Full Hard drive

Devastater6194 · 7 Sep 2013 at 21:35

Okay so simply put I have a 2TB WD HDD and it's starting to become full. The biggest folder i have is my folder of films i.e. DVD rips in MKV file format. I know that MKV isn't the most efficient file type concerning size so I was wondering if anyone knew of a way to shrink them without losing quality. I normally convert them to MP4 using Handbrake when putting them on my phone but they are of lesser quality (doesn't matter as much due to smaller screen size) and don't come with subtitles. Can anyone help at all?

Sasahara · 7 Sep 2013 at 21:57

MKV is just a container, it's not a codec. The MKV part is going to be tiny under 1%, probably under 0.01%.

If they are encoded with the H.264 codec the you only going get them smaller if you reduce the quality, unless they were originally ripped using a stupidly high bit rate.

So just experiment with Handbrake, but you can stick with MKV format.

But you probably just have too many.

How big are they per hour?

Devastater6194 · 7 Sep 2013 at 22:34

Sasahara said:
MKV is just a container, it's not a codec. The MKV part is going to be tiny under 1%, probably under 0.01%.

If they are encoded with the H.264 codec the you only going get them smaller if you reduce the quality, unless they were originally ripped using a stupidly high bit rate.

So just experiment with Handbrake, but you can stick with MKV format.

But you probably just have too many.

How big are they per hour?

They range from Resi Apoc @ 3.2GB to T2 @7.3GB
There's only ~160 films plus boxsets. Nowhere near enough

The games i've finally downloaded from the steam sale and humble bundles (damn crappy internet) hasn't helped the space loss. Games are nearing ~600GB as well now but i can't do anything to them.

demon8991 · 8 Sep 2013 at 23:01

Devastater6194 said:
Okay so simply put I have a 2TB WD HDD and it's starting to become full. The biggest folder i have is my folder of films i.e. DVD rips in MKV file format. I know that MKV isn't the most efficient file type concerning size so I was wondering if anyone knew of a way to shrink them without losing quality. I normally convert them to MP4 using Handbrake when putting them on my phone but they are of lesser quality (doesn't matter as much due to smaller screen size) and don't come with subtitles. Can anyone help at all?

I would say shrinking them will only delay the fact that you need to buy some more storage.

My recommendation would be to just buy a larger hardrive as you will only have to do it a few months down the line any way.

Devastater6194 · 8 Sep 2013 at 23:19

demon8991 said:
I would say shrinking them will only delay the fact that you need to buy some more storage.

My recommendation would be to just buy a larger hardrive as you will only have to do it a few months down the line any way.

Yeah man planned to do that anyway just wanted to see if I could save space especially as I've started buying BluRays which are about 30GB each.

demon8991 · 8 Sep 2013 at 23:24

Devastater6194 said:
Yeah man planned to do that anyway just wanted to see if I could save space especially as I've started buying BluRays which are about 30GB each.

Reducing file size normally will reduce quality which personally i would rather have the extra space.

But i feel your pain I will being getting myself a 5 bay NAS soon and loading it up with 4TB Reds just to hold all of my media.

Devastater6194 · 9 Sep 2013 at 00:55

demon8991 said:
Reducing file size normally will reduce quality which personally i would rather have the extra space.

But i feel your pain I will being getting myself a 5 bay NAS soon and loading it up with 4TB Reds just to hold all of my media.

Hahaha 28TB that ought to last you a while.
yeah i'd rather keep the quality as well. Guess i'll just have to fill my pc up with hard drives then

demon8991 · 9 Sep 2013 at 02:00

Devastater6194 said:
Hahaha 28TB that ought to last you a while.
yeah i'd rather keep the quality as well. Guess i'll just have to fill my pc up with hard drives then

Lol nah i will be going RAID 5 so five X 4TB is 20TB minus 4TB for the redundancy gives 16TB of usable space!

But yeah still plenty of room, i am looking forward to getting it all setup. Synology make some cracking equipment!

VincentHanna · 9 Sep 2013 at 08:26

Your DVD rips are 3-7GB?? That seems far too high to me.

1080p blu-rays are usually 7-12GB.

demon8991 · 9 Sep 2013 at 10:06

VincentHanna said:
Your DVD rips are 3-7GB?? That seems far too high to me.

1080p blu-rays are usually 7-12GB.

You are right that does sound high I decent quality DVD rip should be about 2GB give or take.

Devastater6194 · 9 Sep 2013 at 10:56

VincentHanna said:
Your DVD rips are 3-7GB?? That seems far too high to me.

1080p blu-rays are usually 7-12GB.

What do you use to rip films then? I use MakeMKV to rip mine.
I do have a couple of avi files which do seem to be a lot smaller but Handbrake only does mp4 and mkv.

ubern00b · 9 Sep 2013 at 15:24

demon8991 said:
You are right that does sound high I decent quality DVD rip should be about 2GB give or take.

MakeMKV will merely take the raw audio/video stream and encapsulate it into an MKV file. There is no transcoding going on so 3-7GB is spot on.

shadow_boxer · 9 Sep 2013 at 16:13

Might be worth looking at something like handbrake to envode them and shrink them. My Blu Ray rips are typically about 7-10GB.

demon8991 · 9 Sep 2013 at 22:57

shadow_boxer said:
Might be worth looking at something like handbrake to envode them and shrink them. My Blu Ray rips are typically about 7-10GB.

+1

Devastater6194 · 10 Sep 2013 at 13:22

shadow_boxer said:
Might be worth looking at something like handbrake to envode them and shrink them. My Blu Ray rips are typically about 7-10GB.

Got any settings recommendations? I played around a little and somehow managed to turn a 5GB into a 20+GB file.