On Thu, May 8, 2008 at 11:21 AM, Jeff Clark <<a href="mailto:jeff@vacantcanvas.com">jeff@vacantcanvas.com</a>> wrote:<br><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
I've started ripping my DVD collection down to my Myth box using MythDVD.<div><br></div><div>I am selecting "Perfect" for the quality, but this is producing files in the range of 4 gigs a piece, which will fill my hard drive faster than anything.</div>
<div><br></div><div>Obviously, I'm looking for the best quality possible at the lowest size available.</div><div><br></div><div>Does anyone have any suggestions on how to have great looking movies with less space overhead?</div>
<div><br></div><font color="#888888"><div>Jeff
</div>
</font></blockquote></div><br>Short, pithy answer:<br>Get a bigger drive (My current array is approximately 7TiB spread across several machines, all network mounted).<br><br>Longer answer:<br>Personally, I find that about 4GiB is as far as I want to go for DVD compression. Most complete, commercial DVD's are in the 8GiB range. Much beyond 4GiB and I start to find the artifacts distracting. Personally I don't use MythDVD to rip, so I can't answer "what settings are acceptable", but remember the basic rule: quality requires size. The better quality you want, the more space it is going to take. You have to find the right balance for your setup. I suggest taking a DVD you know well and truly enjoy*, fiddling with the settings, and ripping it repeatedly (under different names) to see what sizes/qualities you come up with. Then, choose the one you find "acceptable" and go from there. That being said, also realize there will likely be DVD's you want at higher quality, and DVD's you care less about. Again, the trade-off is totally up to you, and what one of us finds acceptable may be distracting for another and generate too big a file for a third, so it boils down to a matter of personal preference.<br>
<br>-- <br>Doug<br><br>* I suggest doing this with a video you truly enjoy because I find the artifacts will be more distracting on videos I enjoy than on ones I don't give a frack about ;-)<br>