Windows 7: Best format for streaming my OWNED dvd's to other devices in home.

Copyright laws allow me to make copies of my own dvd's for personal use, I am getting tired of having 600 dvd's taking space in the living room. I am building a HTPC and looking for the best format with 5.1 audio to stream to a PS3, XBox 360, Samsung Blu ray player and other Windows 7 pc's. I would like it to be a small format if possible because I have a 1.5 tb's for all the dvd's. I know this is a touchy topic and if this gets deleted I understand but it is annoying how the people doing illegal stuff hurt the people trying to do something legal for themselves.

Your best bet may perhaps be DivX/Xvid, I guess. 700MB for a 90' movie with stereo sound and 1400MB with 5.1.

I would use x264 for the video.
Its far superior to Xvid and DivX, especially at lower bit rates. (At least to my eyes it looks much better)

Perhaps x264, and Nero AAC ProLogic2 for Audio.
If you do not have a 5.1 surround system, you can save a lot of space with the audio downmixing.
But there should be no need to go higher than 192-224bit rate for stereo or Prologic audio. Nero or AC3.

For the container, maybe MP4 or even MKV if the Xbox & PS3 will support it. Im not sure there.

You could do something like 1100 video bitrate and 160bit rate for the audio.
This would put you at about 800MB for a 1hr 30min movie.

But TBH, I think I would invest in another HD. A drive that stores just movies and is stream does not need to be a high performance drive.
So something like a 2TB Green would be perfectly fine, and they are not very expensive.

This would allow you to encode your movies at a much higher quality.
Use something like a 18-19 Quality based 1 pass encode. It should come out as something like 1500 bit rate for the video (give or take) and look very good.

With audio and video,your system and display are also a part of the chain apart from your perception. Satiation levels vary from individual to individual.

Yep, try out the various suggestions and choose the one that fits your bill, taking into account the file size which is your primary concern.

An easy to use converter with which you can try out is Freemake Video Converter. To AVI can make Xvid in TV quality (of course you may have to migrate to H264 if you want DVD quality and in that case you choose To MP4) You may use custom presets and tailor it to get a file size acceptable to you. Nothing like trying out to get the best fit. (for you)

I have tried 3 different formats/ suggestions and to me they all look horrible when streaming to other pc's, as of this point I have not tried to stream to one of the tv's though. So is the only way to get true dvd quality and 5.1 dd by going with the default dvd format of mpeg 2?

Just for the hell of it I am going to try a .vob file.

The fact is: You can't convert a 4GB movie file into a 1GB movie file and expect it to maintain the same quality and without any compression artifacts no matter what codec/container you use(DivX,Xvid,MP4,mkv,H264 and what not) and no matter which five star quality Video Converter you use.

I shun all conversions, keep my DVDs and BDs ( whichever I want to and not all) as ISOs and play. Play the originals. There is no better way to keep the quality. Anything else is a compromise. No escape.

How do you explain the quality of a 4.7GB DVD of a movie and 1.4GB version of the same movie ripped from a Bluray and compressed to a xvid looking a lot better than the DVD?

Agreed. But you must also agree you started with an immensely High Quality Video from a BD and even with degradation from the original quality you may get a good DVD quality, but never the same BD quality. Now think of the reverse. Can you make a BD quality out of a DVD?

In this instance, the OP starts with a DVD wants the same quality with reduced file size. My post should be read in that context.

I may move from a luxury limo to a compact saloon. It may still be a good quality stuff. But is it the same as the limo?

If you want a rip to look as close to the original as possible:

I would use x264 and encode with a mod 16 resize.
USe either a CQ 1 pass of 16.5-17 or a 2 pass bit rate of 1500-2000.
For Audio, to help save space AC3 ProLogic2 @ 224 or 5.1 at 384 or 448.

Nero AAC is also a good choice.
192 for Stero or 320 for 5.1 usually works out well.

As mentioned, to keep quality the file sizes are going to be much larger.
Also, you can try other things to keep file sizes down, while maintaining quality.

1. Convert to 23.976 FPS
2. Use higher quality settings in x264. For example, SubPixel Refinement LVl 9 or 10.

The result will look very good, yest still be considerablt smaller than the original.
But you are still looking at around 1500MB for a 1hr30min length rip.

This is why I suggested getting a bigger HD for storage.
You need to either shoot for saving space, at the cost of quality.
Or much better looking rips at the cost space.

You cant really have it both ways.

But as mentioned, XVID or DIVX may be a better choice for you. Just need to try them and see.


@Zepher
Ive actually ripped BluRay to DVD resolutions like this and it usually does come out looking better than the original DVD version.

I think the reason is that the source you are working with is much higher quality (1080P)
So when you compress that down to DVD resolution, its still looks very good. Theres so much data there that can be thrown away and compressed at high quality.
When the source is DVD resolution to start with (even the same film) theres much less info you can by throwing away.
At least, thats how it seems to me.